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EDITORIAL: 'To the point of going to jail'(Comtex Business Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) AUSTIN, Texas, Oct 12, 2006 (Daily Texan, U-WIRE via COMTEX) --During the first few weeks of each semester, it's hard to miss the full-scale advertising blitz on campus. Commercial radio stations set up live broadcast booths along the Drag, and companies even pay the Dean of Students office $750 to participate in the West Mall Marketplace, where they can set up tables on campus (the semesterly event was held Aug. 29). The University gradually gains steam in its slide from academic beacon to a profit engine. Nowhere has this slide been more apparent than in the Mobile Campus text-messaging service, initiated last year through a request for a discount program by Student Government. The program essentially partners a for-profit enterprise with the University, sharing the revenue brought in from the text-message advertisements sent to students who can sign up for free. SG gets $1 for every student who signs up in the first year and afterward will get 15 percent of all profits from the text messages. But by fostering an environment that depends on money from these advertisers and by relaxing institutional rules on outside enterprises, the University has positioned itself to let loose more pollution of roving billboards and hawkers on campus. While SG may have requested the proposal, it required the support of UT administrators. Much of that task was spearheaded by Shannon James, former associate vice president of student affairs. In e-mails obtained by the Texan, James emerged as key in helping Mobile Campus CEO George Tingo navigate the bureaucratic red tape of the University to put the five-year Mobile Campus contract in place. James showed his commitment to the program in one e-mail on Sept. 30, 2005, to Tingo: "I have begun working with our student leadership on creative marketing plans, letting them know that we want many ideas ... I think we can count on them and, of course, we will push the envelope ourselves up to the point of going to jail!" The e-mails also show that calling Mobile Campus a "discount program" is an exercise in semantics. "All references [in this version of the contract] to advertisers were changed to vendors and promotions/discounts," Tingo wrote in an Oct. 3, 2005, e-mail. Tingo so appreciated the help from UT administrators that he jokingly suggested financial compensation. On Oct. 3, 2005, he wrote, "We'll need to put you guys on the payroll if you keep making these kinds of valuable suggestions (just kidding)." Former SG external financial director Clayton Stewart apparently took this to heart - he's now on the payroll of the company he helped bring to campus. Tingo also pressed the administration for as much inclusion in the freshman orientations as possible to hook young students on the program. But this is where the crux of the problem lies. In an e-mail from Tingo to three UT administrators, Tingo wrote, "I know you will do all you can to get this freshman orientation issue resolved so both Mobile Campus and the University are in the best position to deliver the highest value to the students and the maximum profit to Mobile Campus and the University." When our University puts concerns on profit over pedagogy, especially involving a company that James estimated has invested more than $500,000 in venture capital with an eye on the bottom line, students stand to lose much more than they gain. Copyright (C) 2006 Daily Texan via U-WIRE |