Monday, February 18, 2008
The clickers that Student Senate spent almost $5,000 on this year were not used at last week’s meeting because of technical difficulties.
A majority of senators voted to approve the clickers to improve voting and attendance accountability in Senate meetings.
The clickers transmit a signal to a receiver that is hooked up to a computer. Wednesday night at the Student Senate Executive Committee meeting, executive secretary Aly Rodee’s computer would not recognize the receiver without an administrator password, which was not available.
The clickers, which cost Student Senate nearly $5,000, are not currently functional.
Rodee, who was in charge of the clickers, said the meeting was supposed to be her practice session, and that after months of work, she was upset they didn’t work at the meeting.
Rodee trained on the clickers on Jan. 23, and at the time, the University-loaned receiver did not work with her laptop. She said at training, when her laptop didn’t have the clearance to install the hardware, she just switched computers.
“I played with the clickers before the meeting and didn’t even think about using the receiver,” Rodee said.
A bill to fund clickers was originally passed last year, but Senate found it did not provide enough money to buy the equipment. Last summer, senators voted on a second bill, but that bill was vetoed, and the veto upheld by senators. In September, Senators passed a third bill that increased the amount of funding for the clickers.
Each clicker cost $17, and each clicker must be registered for $35. With 94 clickers, the total cost of the clickers was $4,888. Rodee said the receiver was worth $500 but was borrowed from the University because Senate did not want to buy its own. The money for the clickers came out of the Student Senate reserve account, which got its funds from student fees.
Rodee said that when the clickers arrived last semester, she worked hours on registering and labeling the clickers.
“I’ve definitely been putting in overtime, and we don’t get overtime,” Rodee said.
Tom Cox, Shawnee senior and holdover senator, said he supported Senate buying the clickers because they would improve accuracy and accountability in Senate meetings.
Currently, voting is done by voice. If the vote is close, senators raise their hands, and Rodee and Ray Wittlinger, Olathe senior and student body vice president, count the hands.
Cox said the clickers provided accuracy where votes cannot be mistaken.
“Humans make errors, and errors are unacceptable,” he said.
breakbox
$17 Each clicker
$35 Each clicker’s registration fee
94 Total number of clickers
$1,598 Total clicker price
$3,290 Total registration fee
$4,888 Total cost
Cox said he wished the executive staff had been more prepared to use the clickers.
“We shouldn’t have waited until an hour and a half before Senate to see if the clickers would work,” he said.
Wittlinger said that he didn’t support buying clickers from the beginning because they were too expensive and were paid for with student fees. He said that the money and time spent on the clickers may have been too much, and that there had always been a way to count votes member by member.
“The way we count votes has been very effective for many years,” Wittlinger said.
Amanda Faletra, Lawrence senior and fine arts senator, said that technical difficulties happen and she thought Senate would eventually get to use the clickers.
“When you’re depending on computers and technology, you always have that risk of something going wrong,” Faletra said.
Rodee said she had an appointment with Academic Technology Services this week to resolve the problem in time for next week’s full Senate meeting.
Dan Consolver, director of Academic Technology Services, said that if Rodee’s computer was supported by ATS, then all that was needed to fix the problem was a trip by a technician. He said administrative passwords were put on many Senate computers to prevent people from installing outside software on the computers. He said a technician would enter the password and any hardware should work from that point forward.
— Edited by Daniel Reyes
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Comments
Password snafu thwarts Senate's clickers debut
Thank you Ray for not supporting the purchase of such an unnecessary luxury for Senate. As I stated when the original article was printed, I would be more than happy to donate a ream of paper and some markers to make ballots for everyone to vote.
Senate- how about next time you use the money from student fees to support the students, not your own personal desires. It really scares me that you cannot find any other way to make yourselves accountable than to waste nearly $5000. And we let you control how many million dollars????
Password snafu thwarts Senate's clickers debut
Blame Adam Mcgonale, the United Students president, for the clickers. I'm pretty sure he was the one who helped write the bill for it last year.
Password snafu thwarts Senate's clickers debut
Don't be so quick to thank Ray. He didn't oppose them until it suited him politically to do so. When he was trying to get Adam McGonagle and others to run with United Students last year, he was a bit more... quiet about the voting devices.