news // no. 4

Douglas College takes steps
towards sustainability

» Data compiled regarding printing consumption at the college

Katie Czenczek
News Editor

 

f you were to lay down each piece of

paper printed at Douglas College in a
row, the trail would be long enough to span
from Victoria, BC to Sydney, NS.

In April, based on meetings between
the Senior Management Team and the
Learning Technology Steering Committee,
the Douglas College Printing Working
Group officially began. The intention of
the group was to gather data surrounding
printers on campuses. Some of the data the
group looked at included how much paper
is being consumed, how many printers are
working, and what other universities are
doing.

The group is co-chaired by
Sarah Dench and Trish Rosseel, with
representatives from the DSU, staff,
and faculty who were included in the
conversation to get a good sense of printing
on campus.

Rosseel, Director of Learning
Resources and Records Management, said
in an interview with the Other Press that
from April until now the main focus has
been to gather information.

“We just wanted a clear picture of
what’s currently happening at the College
in terms of printing,” she said. “We

gathered information about how much
we print each year and how that relates
to stakeholder groups, and how much
paper is recycled this year. Unfortunately,
we couldn't get a good defined number
because mixed paper is combined.”

From the information the group
gathered, it is estimated that more than
22 million pieces of paper were printed at
Douglas College in the year 2017. Rosseel
said that she was surprised at how much
paper the college goes through yearly.

“When we saw that piece of
information, we were quite astounded.

It seemed like a lot to visualize. In order
to make that more tangible, I was just
thinking about the distance. When you
think of a standard sheet of paper, the fact
that it crosses the country is a lot.”

According to the Sierra Club,
depending on the tree and pulping
processes done to make printing paper,

a single tree can create 10,000 to 20,000
sheets. That means that if Douglas

College has printed over 22 million sheets
of paper in 2017 and you divide by the
median number of sheets per tree (15,000),
approximately 1467 trees have been cut
down in order to print off assignments and
PowerPoint slides.

Britanny de la Cruz, a second-year
Nursing student at Douglas College, said in
an interview with the Other Press that she

Crafting with Pride

» A fun activity for creativity and stress release

Tania Arora
Staff Reporter

 

'o help students de-stress, the Douglas
Students’ Union organized the DSU
Crafting with Pride event on November 13.

The event was hosted in the DSU
Building on the New West Campus, where
student laughter could be heard echoing
through the room. With midterms in
full swing and finals around the corner,
Crafting with Pride acted as a healthy way
for students to drop by and release some of
that stress. The table was full of sparkles,
colours, brushes, beads, threads, and other
art supplies. The artwork was self-directed,
so students were able to create anything
they wanted to. Participants made a wide
variety of crafts and pieces of art including
keychains, painting, thumbprinting, and
just messing around with sparkles.

Stephania Malundo, a Psychology
student at Douglas College who was
painting a sunrise and making keychains
at the event, said in an interview with the
Other Press that she had a great time.

“Lots of laughs and jokes. Everyone
is so friendly,’ she said. “[We'’re] learning
to make new things as well as socializing,
especially during exam time. For many
people it is just work and school and class.
There are many things one can do to enjoy
life, which is essential.”

A 2005 study conducted in Ontario
by Ipsos stated, “When it comes to exams,
students are experiencing a lot of stress.”
According to their data, 40 percent

of students experienced high stress
surrounding exams, with eight percent
going as far to say that their stress levels are
extremely high. Zero percent of students
reported no stress at all, according to the
data, and the closer students were to an
exam date, the more stressed they felt.

Apart from the stress relief aspect
of the event, Crafting with Pride was also
intended as a way for students to socialize
and meet one another. The DSU Pride
Collective was the main organizer. Their
aim was to create a space for members of
the LGBTQ+ community to hang out with
allies and vice versa.

Malundo also made it clear that she
is no artist but that she thinks the event is
more about the social aspect.

“Tam nota pro,’ she said. “I made this
with the help of my friends. I came here
to meet people and social[ize] and spill
paints. Try the best to have fun with people
around you.”

The World Health Organization labels
stress as a major health risk. Stress does
not only strike a person based on their age,
gender, or size—anyone can be affected
by it at any point of life. Members of the
LGBTQ+ community are especially at risk,
according to Here to Help’s website.

To help manage it, Malundo also
shared some tips to avoid stressing right
before exams.

“Don't wait till the last minute to
wrap everything up,’ she said. “Try to be
in the middle and learn to strike the right
balance. And most importantly, enjoy and
keep having fun.”

prints a lot of paper for her classes and gave
a rough estimate of how much she prints
per semester.

“In science courses especially [...] [the
stacks of paper] are thick,” she said. “I guess
around 1000 sheets per semester. I try to
keep it double-sided so it’s less. Such a
waste too—like you only use it for the one
class and then it’s all recycled afterwards.”

In addition, de la Cruz said that she
chooses to print because she prefers it to
looking at a screen.

“They give it as an option, but it’s so
much more easier to study. [It] hurts your
eyes less, but it is a lot of paper”

According to multiple studies
complied by Caroline Myrberg and Ninna
Wiberg in Insights, reading off of screens is
not worse for your health than it is to read
off of paper, but they found that people
do need to take breaks from looking at a
screen after a while.

There were mixed results over whether
or not people retain more information
via paper or screens. One of the studies
mentioned in Myrberg and Wiberg’s
article found that students did retain more
information on paper, but this did not take
into account a student’s practiced preferred
mode of studying.

Rosseel said that once the Printing
Working Group finishes compiling data

 

theotherpress.ca

for Douglas College, the plan is to send
formal recommendations back to the
Senior Management Team for practices
and technology to make printing less
consumptive. These recommendations are
expected to be made by early 2019.

“We will have recommendations for
targets for waste reduction,” said Rosseel.
“If in 2017 we printed 22 million pages,
what might be our goal five years from
now?”

Nathalie Schapansky, a French
professor at Douglas College, said that
marking on a computer is more difficult
than it is on paper.

“T have four classes of about 45
students or so,” she said. “Staring at the
computer to mark all of their assignments
is really hard on the eyes. You also just can’t
catch errors as easily as you do on paper.

I do post things on Blackboard but have

found that many students don’t check it,
so I end up printing out the assignments
anyway.”

Rosseel said that it’s also about
changing people’s perceptions of printing
and to get people thinking about the
impacts it has on the environment.

“T think that all of us are concerned
about the environment in some way,’ she
said. “We might have different opinions on
it, but just the day-to-day things we don't
think about. It’s a matter of creating new

habits.”

  

Image via HealthLine.com