During the EMU Board meeting Wednesday, a volunteer committee of members was created in order to research a kiosk project proposed by a national company known as Campus Link. The Campus Link organization specializes in installing kiosks in student unions on university campuses.
Campus Link previously pitched its product to the EMU Board on March 29. The free services the Campus Link kiosk would provide include computer terminals offering students access to e-mail accounts, Duck Web, telephones and advertising from local and national businesses.
The access to four to eight computers terminals in the booth would link students quickly to the Internet. Campus Link would pay the EMU to place the kiosk and businesses could pay for advertisements on the computer terminals.
The volunteer “working group”, which plans to address concerns with the services Campus Link might provide, consists of Student Senate President and EMU Board member Jessica Timpany and EMU Board members Bryan Myss, Scott Rich and Campbell Kidd. The group will report its findings to the EMU Board at the next meeting on April 26.
The EMU Board addressed the controversy surrounding Campus Link in its meeting.
“It is a great service, but I don’t think it is worth what we will have to endure with all the advertising,” Timpany said.
The Campus Link kiosk could be installed on a contract of either seven or 10 years.
“Signing a 10-year-long contract scares me,” Timpany said.
EMU Board member Scott Rich said that he supports Campus Link. He said the booth is something that would make the EMU a more central place for students and thinks the kiosk would make the EMU look more attractive and technologically advanced.
“I think it is a service students would take advantage of,” EMU Board member Adolf Zeman said.
ASUO Vice President and EMU Board member Mitra Anoushiravani addressed the problems she has with the Campus Link services. Anoushiravani said she thinks installing the kiosk would put the EMU on a slippery slope for commercialism.
“We have these resources already, and I think the whole thing is hideous,” she said. “It’s really ugly.”
Anoushiravani asked the board to look at other resources.
EMU Board Director Dusty Miller said the volunteer committee is exactly what Campus Link wants the EMU Board to do. The board has not committed to any services from Campus Link. Miller said the working group will provide an opportunity to show Campus Link what the board wants and what it might approve.
“We don’t sign anything until we are happy with what we are signing,” Miller said.
Other business on the board’s agenda consisted of the board’s passing of six motions on the building reserve budget for prioritizing small capital projects. One of the pressing concerns, which was passed unanimously, was the refinishing of the EMU Ballroom floor. This will be the last time the original floor of the Ballroom can be refinished before it needs to be replaced entirely. The project is estimated to cost $8,450.