Students, faculty and staff are invited to submit their ideas and proposals for how the Student Technology Fee money should be spent in the 2010-2011 academic year. These proposals must be submitted before March 29.
The Student Technology Fee is a 2 percent tuition surcharge that all UW System students pay. This money goes toward funding new computers, new software, printing and more.
According to Laura Knaapen, director of academic computing at Oshkosh, the process of submitting proposals is relatively simple.
“You go to (http://www.uwosh.edu/it/submit.html) and fill out the form,” Knaapen said. “Then I get an e-mail.”
The e-mail shows the details of your request, which Knaapen then looks over. After she looks it over, it goes to the student committee.
According to Oshkosh Student Association Vice President, Alex Abendschein, there are a number of things that goes into making a good proposal. One of the main things he focused on is it would include technology that would benefit all Oshkosh students.
“The student committee will meet to review the proposals and decide which ones will be funded,” Knaapen said.
The committee, which will meet on Friday, will be made up of eight students, one faculty member, one academic staff member and one classified staff member. Ken Splittgerber, UW-Oshkosh chief informations officer, was appointed by Chancellor Richard Wells to serve as the committee adviser.
“It’s a significant amount of money,” Abendschein said. “(We) went want to make sure we have good representation from around the University.”
After the committee meets, the accepted proposals will be posted online. The site has all the programs that the Student Technology Fee goes to support. Those who submitted proposals will also be notified whether or not their ideas were accepted.
“Anyone who submits will definitely get an e-mail back saying yes or no to their proposal,” Knaapen said.
Knaapen also shared that, in general, more employees submit their ideas than students.
They usually receive between 15 and 25 proposals; about two-thirds are from Oshkosh employees.
Abendschein shared that how many proposals will be accepted depends on the cost of each.
“It changes and varies depending on the proposal,” Abendshein said.
According to Knaapen, the fee was implemented in the 1990s.
This is not the first time administration has asked for ideas on how to spend the funds.
“The program goes back to 1995,” Knaapen said. “We ask for proposals at least once a year.”
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