Pi Kappa Phi fraternity becomes first Greek house to adopt Mary Cooper's CCI printing plan

The Pi Kappa Phi fraternity house has become the first of UNC’s Greek houses to have its own Carolina Computing Initiative printer.

Student Body President Mary Cooper planned to have CCI printers installed in fraternity and sorority houses by fall break as part of her platform to expand printing on and off campus.

But technical difficulties prevented her plan from getting off the ground.

The Pi Kappa Phi house was the first house that had both ideal bandwidth speed and members motivated to take advantage of Cooper’s initiative, said Steven Demeraski, house manager of Pi Kappa Phi.

Demeraski said he organized the installation because of a lack of CCI printing sites near the house.

The printer has been installed in the Pi Kappa Phi house for a week, Demeraski said.

“The printer is a big convenience,” he said. “Some guys had resorted to using their own printers instead of the campus printers, but now they have a resource available 24/7 and are able to save money.”

Craig Hyatt, director of Campus Services Information Technology, said in an email that the installation process at Pi Kappa Phi went smoothly.

“The house had to work with Time Warner (Cable) to make changes to their service and had to reconfigure their wireless router, but neither posed significant issues,” Hyatt said.

Cooper said she is happy to see progress on her plan.

“This is something that students really wanted, and the administration has worked to ensure its success,” Cooper said.

Cooper’s plan to expand CCI printing does not just include Greek housing, she said.

“CCI printing should be a resource for all students, and we expanded into new locations on North Campus first,” Cooper said.

There has been no determined cost yet for installing a CCI printer, but Demeraski said he hopes there will be a finalized cost by the end of the week.

“The cost for installing the printer comes entirely from the fraternity, and then the school pays for the costs of ink, toner, paper and any necessary repairs,” he said.

Other Greek houses have been unable to install CCI printers due to bandwith issues, but Demeraski said he is working to draw up an outline that will work for other Greek houses.

“We’re looking toward moving the printers into houses with similar setups to ours,” he said.

Although the process took about two months for Pi Kappa Phi, Demeraski said the time frame for installing printers in other houses would be three to four weeks.

“Now that we know what works, we know what to look for in other houses to make this a reality,” he said.

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