The Collegiate Readership Program, initially slated begin as a pilot program upon the University's re-opening after fall break, has been postponed to the spring 2012 semester, according to the Student Government Association.
SGA Chief of Staff, Grant McIntire, said that the postponement is due to the fact that the contract with the Collegiate Readership Program is a non-Seton Hall contract, making it subject to three period of review.
"Pending the outcome of review, we will now attempt to bring this program for the spring semester," McIntire said.
The program, run by USA Today, places newspaper stands on college campuses across the country. According to McIntire, the program coordinates "the papers that the colleges request, usually on a local, area and national level."
According to USA Today, the program is multi-faceted and can take many forms, depending on the needs of the University.
The program distributes up to "three different newspaper publications on campus," provides "access to online academic resources for use in and out of the classroom," and offers programming ideas, along with methods for marketing and recycling.
"The program has room for expansion," McIntire said. "USA Today has the ability to coordinate with other news companies and help get their papers on the newsstands."
The papers are sold on a "consignment basis" – the college is only charged for the amount of papers that are actually taken from the stand.
If the program goes through, 300 papers (100 of each publication) would be delivered to campus Monday through Friday.
"That number can fluctuate if demand were to rise or fall," McIntire said. "We would only be charged for the copies we consumed."
McIntire said that, if the program begins, three newsstands would be placed around campus. Students would be able to pick up papers from any of these stands while supplies last.
"We had the idea to have one stand somewhere on the second floor entrance in Jubilee," McIntire said. "Also, we thought about placing two stands in the University Center – one outside the commuter side of the café, and one right near the information desk on the entry level floor."
According to USA Today, the program has been implemented on nearly 500 campuses nationwide, including several local New Jersey institutions. Montclair State, Farleigh Dickinson, Kean and Rutgers all have implemented the Collegiate Readership Program.
The eight week pilot program would run for the duration of a semester and would be funded by SGA, according to McIntire.
"As it was an SGA E-Board initiative, we decided to take the funding of $2,300 for the pilot program from our operations budget," McIntire said.
McIntire stressed the important benefits that the program would provide.
"We need to know what is going on in the world around us," McIntire said.
Samantha Desmond can be reached at samantha.desmond@student.shu.edu.
