Issue date: 4/17/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Fred Lambuth [Click to enlarge]

For years, telephone lines have been included in the cost of residence halls, but not anymore. Residence Life will discontinue land-line phone services in the halls after May 7.

With the extreme popularity of cellular phones, many students no longer have a need for land line. The Department of Residence Life has decided to cut costs and not include phone service in the halls unless students are willing to pay extra.

"I don't even have a phone connected in my room. I know the bad thing is that you cannot dial out long-distance and that makes it hard for a lot of people to call home. So there is really no point to it," said freshman general studies major Lindsay McKnight.

"If they subscribe to it, it would be $90 for the fall and spring semesters and $45 in the summer," said Michael Krenz, assistant director of dormitories administration.

"About two years ago, we surveyed students on their phone usage and found primarily phones are used for local calling and are used very infrequently. So when we looked at the usage of the phone and the cost of the phones it just was no longer economically feasible to include that," Krenz said.

"We felt we should turn to a subscription-based service for those that really want the phone and would pay for it and those that didn't want a phone wouldn't have to pay for everyone to have it."

Residence Life spends $800,000 a year for the halls to have phone service. Since telephones will not be an expense for them, the money will go to a few different places. One place it is not going is back to the students.

"The students will not see a price reduction. What we will do is re-allocate the money towards other needs and keep our costs down," Krenz said. "Instead of [rental rates] going up 5 percent, we only went up 2 percent for this year. It is not a rent reduction, it just helps make rent not be as high."

A specific place Residence Life's re-allocated funds will go to increased security in the dorms.

"We have increased our security presence on campus and some of the telephone money will pay for that increased security on campus. We are going to a 24-hour security instead of just nighttime hours," Krenz said.

Safety is always an issue in campus life and without phone lines being automatically included in fees, it is likely many students will not have a phone line to call 911. Though students have cell phones, they may not have service in the halls.

"When we surveyed, we learned 97 percent of students living in the halls have cell phones, so of course they can call 911 from their cell phone," Krenz said. "What we decided to do is install hallway phones. There will be at least one per floor. You can actually call any number, but of course you can call 911 and be traced to your location through the phone."

Tiffany Lewis, a sophomore general studies major, said, "I think having the land line in the dorm was a comfort for me because I was able to call the University without having to use my cell phone minutes."

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