Story by Tim Webber
Students living in Drake University’s residence halls can expect to find something new in their halls before the end of the year.
Student Senate approved the funding and installment of printers in each of Drake’s residence halls at its weekly meeting Thursday night.
Joshua Schoenblatt said, no time will be wasted getting the new printers running.
“This whole process should take about a month from today (Thursday) until all the printers are in the dorms,” Schoenblatt said. “I am going to definitely push to see if we can get them in by the time everyone’s back from spring break. That’s been my ultimate goal since I took this project on.”
The timetable factors in some of the technical difficulties of installing the printers.
“The buildings weren’t built to have printers in the locations that have been decided,” Schoenblatt explained. “We’re going to have to spend a couple hundred dollars to rewire the buildings.”
However, Schoenblatt assured students they can expect to see the printers by the end of March.
The printers weren’t the only tech project to come out of the Senate meeting.
OIT Database Administrator Tyler Spoon opened the meeting with a demonstration of Drake’s new blueMobile app.
The app, which successfully transitions aspects of the desktop blueView program into mobile form, will allow students to view campus news and events, schedules, grades and an interactive campus map.
BlueMobile is entering its second round of beta testing, but Spoon said the app should be available to the public in about a month.
It will be free to download from the Apple App Store and Google Play.
In other news, Senate decided a a campaign and election calendar for the 28th session.
Petitioning for executive officer positions will begin the week before spring break, followed by executive officer elections after the break.
The general elections will follow an identical process shifted a week later. This means petitioning for general elections will overlap with the executive officer elections.
The African Student Association received funding from the Senate for their African Renaissance Night, which will be held on April 4th in Parents Hall.
The $2,000 they received will be used to bring the Afriki Lolo dance troupe back to Drake for the event.
“Afriki Lolo [are] very engaging,” explained senior Faith Gachii, president of the African Student Association. “They actually [get] students up there to go dance and beat on African drums. It’s a very educational dance troupe … people are going to get a huge experience out of it.”
The Senate also approved the formation of Bulldogs for Jacobs as an ad hoc organization.
The club is designed to introduce students to U.S. Senate candidate Mark Jacobs and educate them about his policies.
In addition, the Senate discussed allocating unspent student activities fees to purchase an upright piano for the Fine Arts department, and the potential for pursuing a new non-student commencement speaker.
It was also announced that the State of the University address has been moved to April 2nd at 6:30 PM due to scheduling conflicts.
