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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 30, 2005)
New QuikPAY billing system saves paper, time and money Students now receive tuition statements online; while some appreciate this, others are skeptical BY EVA SYLWESTER SENIOR NEWS REPORTER The University did its last-ever mass-mailing of tuition bills this month. People who owe money on their student accounts must now log on to the Internet every month to find and pay their bills. To use the University’s new billing system, called QuikPAY, a student must access the DuckWeb site and go to the category “QuikPAY Student Account.” There, he or she will see the amount owed. The bill can either be paid via electronic check or by printing out the bill and mailing it to the Univer sity with a paper check. Credit cards are still not allowed. Billing statements are produced around the 15th day of the month, and payments are due on the first day of the following month. Parents or other parties who pay students’ tuition cannot use Duck Web, but they can use another Web site with a similar interface. Stu dents must set up those accounts. Implementation of QuikPAY be gan about six months ago. Accounts Receivable Supervisor with University Business Affairs Dave Doerksen said the billing department began the transition process by send ing out both paper bills and e-mail notices when bills were due from June through September. Now only e-mail notices will be sent out. Any student who wants to continue receiving paper bills must submit a petition to the student billing office. “Student response has been over whelmingly positive,” Doerksen said. “The group of students coming into the University now are very computer literate.” Some University students inter viewed in the Oregon Hall lobby said they had not heard of QuikPAY. When it was described to them, they expressed concern about whether the system is easy to use. “I guess it’s better if it’s faster, but if you don’t know how to do it, it’s confusing,” sophomore Tyler Stearns said. “I am completely computer illiter ate, so it bugs me when things go online,” junior biochemistry major Sarah Hoffman said. Another concern is that tuition bills could be lost in the cavalcade of e-mails that many people receive. “I’ll forget about it if it’s online,” Hoffman said. “If I have a hard copy, I’m more likely to remember.” Doerksen said parents are more apprehensive than students about the new system, adding that he guided numerous parents through the process of setting up QuikPAY accounts during orientation week. Of the 10 or so petitions to contin ue receiving paper bills that have crossed his desk, Doerksen said the main reason cited was that the stu dents’ parents had limited computer access or literacy. “That’s pretty unusual in this cli mate now,” Doerksen said. QuikPAY has advantages over pa per bills in that it can deliver more messages to more people more effi ciently, Doerksen said, because each student can designate up to two third QUIKPAY, page 6A The Planet’s Neighborhood Bookstore USED & NEW BOOKS Enter the coupon code “STUDENT” at checkout and we’ll take 10% off our everyday low prices!* ‘Expires 1/31/06. Cannot be combined with any other offer. Get your books at Powells.com, where you can save up to 80%! No wrestling required. Does Your College Bookstore Have You In A Headlock? Points: RHA, ASUO disagree on who initiated the change Continued from page 1A be rolled over to prevent a deluge of surplus points at the end of each term. Residence Hall Association Presi dent Todd Mann said that the changes could be implemented as early as winter term, but he added that implementation will depend on how quickly programmers can up date the computer system. “Our goal is this winter, but that is completely dependent on the pro grammers,” Mann said. “The win ter is a very optimistic goal." Driscoll said students might even have to wait until fall 2006 for the changes to occur. Mann said there are two main reasons for implementing roll-over meal points, the first being that the current system leads to a rush of students attempting to use their sur plus meal points on Saturday evenings. The influx of students strains the dining facilities and causes behav ioral issues, Mann said, because large numbers of intoxicated stu dents converge at Common Grounds Cafe and the Grab ‘n Go Marketplace to spend their points before they expire. A second problem Mann cited was that students currently pay for a fixed number of points. If they for get to use all their points, they lose potential food they have already paid for. ASUO President Adam Walsh had the same concern and promoted roll over meal points during his campaign for the executive seat last spring. “The reason that we wanted this plan implemented was because it creates fairness — it gives students what they pay for,” Walsh said. “This was something we had told students we wanted to work on and fight for. ” Although both ASUO and the RHA have advocated for roll-over meal points, strained communica tion and disagreement over each others’ realms of authority has chafed relations between the two student groups. Mann said he disagreed with Walsh’s making a push for roll-over meal points part of his campaign because “the people making the promises weren’t Residence Hall students.” “I think the decision to make that a part of their campaign was a poor decision,” Mann said. “It is an RHA issue.” Mann and Walsh met at the be ginning of summer to discuss a number of issues that they hoped to collaborate on throughout the year, including roll-over meal points. Walsh said he was sensitive not to “step on RHA’s toes” and felt that both he and Mann left the meeting believing “it would be great if we could work on it together. ” After their meeting, Walsh dele gated ASUO Outreach Director Cas sandra Day to work with Mann to implement the changes. Both Mann and Day expressed frustration with the difficulties they had contacting each other during the summer. They met on Sept. 19 when Mann said he told Day that, after discus sions with Housing, plans had been developed to implement roll-over meal points. The news surprised the ASUO, which had planned to lead an ex tensive campaign to institute the changes, Day said. “I spent two months of solidly re searching and developing a cam paign where it wasn’t going to be just student leaders leading this campaign,” Day said. “I was going to have student involvement to de velop new leaders to take over when we leave next year. ” Day also expressed resentment regarding an e-mail Mann sent to her and Walsh. In the e-mail, Mann wrote that “credit for this accomplishment be longs to the persistence of RHA members and to the Housing De partment that is working to imple ment these changes.” Walsh agreed that the RHA de serves credit for the changes but ob jected to Mann’s wording because he felt that the ASUO was left out of the process. “While it’s true that the credit for the victory does go to RHA, because they are the only ones who worked on it, we weren’t included in the dis cussion,” Walsh said. “It is only be cause we were not included that all credit went there. I think the ASUO deserves a share of the credit as well for bringing the issue to light.” The two groups disagree on the proper role of the ASUO in resi dence hall affairs. “The ASUO holds little weight within housing,” Mann said. “Hous ing wants feedback from people liv ing within the halls. That is some thing Adam has hopefully learned since then.” ASUO Programs Administrator David Goward felt that the ASUO Executive’s voice was relevant to the meal points issue. “The ASUO Executive is the voice of all students,” he said. “We im pact every aspect of campus life.” Despite their disagreements, both the ASUO and RHA applaud the prospect of roll-over meal points as a positive step. “When it comes down to it, it is the students who benefit,” Mann said. Walsh agreed, but he said the ASUO’s lack of involvement trou bled him. “It is a victory for students, but for us as an organization, it’s disap pointing that we were not included in the discussion, especially because, as an organization, we represent all students on campus,” he said. Day added that the ASUO hopes to be more involved as the details of the plan are formulated. 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