Ross Wolland, vice president of Student Government Inc., says students have asked dining services for some time for debit and credit service on campus. Dining services has tried to accommodate them, Wolland said, but due to “software glitches” and issues with service providers, there have been delays.

This January, the era of taking $20 from the ATM to pay less than $2 for coffee is coming to an end.

“We agree [debit and credit service] would be a convenience,” said Janet Waldron, vice president of administration and finance.

According to Waldron, that’s why the Marketplace in the Union and Wells Commons will accept all major debit and credit cards starting in January. The service will expand to other venues from there.

“Students are shocked to arrive at UMaine and see that in the 21st century, we don’t have [debit/credit capabilities],” Wolland said. “I’m glad it’s finally here.”

What makes this development even better is that from what is known right now, this convenience won’t cost students, faculty, staff or visitors anything.

“We’re not anticipating an increase in price,” Waldron said.

Now is a time where most of the news coming from different corners of the administration involves budget cuts, layoffs and the death knell of academic programs. It’s refreshing to know that next semester, members of the University of Maine community will have their lives made a little bit easier by Dining Services.

Loredo led many programs with high-visibility to students, including UMaine UVote, GLBT services and a popular course including a trip to Mexico. Because of his personality and his involvement with these programs, Loredo was better known throughout campus than many other administrators. While many deans are a name, Loredo was a face, and he will be missed.

Despite the melancholy cast over UMaine by Loredo’s layoff, it is important to remember the context of his departure.

The University of Maine System, of which UMaine is the biggest school, has a target of cutting $7.5 million over the next two years, according to Vice President for Administration and Finance Janet Waldron. That’s a lot of money.

In a perfect world, where cuts in appropriations aren’t handed down from the state, no cuts would be made. Unfortunately, they are.

Though no employee of the university — whether a dean, groundskeeper or cashier — can be lost without an effect on the university, there are two options in trying to find ways to save money.

One is to seek out cuts in high-value positions that may be redundant and aren’t key to the day-to-day operation of the university.

The other way is to seek out cuts in positions that would more directly affect students, such as professors (both adjunct and full-time), department secretaries or janitors. The loss of these employees would not save as much money and would be more detrimental to the university.

We feel the choice is obvious. We wish Dean Loredo the best of luck in the future.

The plan — known as “New Challenges, New Directions” — is the culmination of months of introspection, argument, debate, comment and inspection. The board of trustees should take care to consider all it heard from students, professors, faculty and staff at every university and every level of higher education before it casts its vote on the plan. During Monday’s meeting, the board should ask itself one question above all: Is this what every campus wants?

The University of Maine System needs a plan to fix its financial problems, and it is fair to say the majority of campuses have faith in the trustees, but the urgency of the situation belies a more immediate need to be careful and delicate. Not every campus is the same and the plan will likely not fix every problem. It may even create new ones.

Everyone — students, professors, faculty and staff — should go to the meeting Monday and echo this message. The more people at the meeting showing the board the weight its responsibility carries, the more it will undertake this introspection and careful deliberation before voting.

The system needs restructuring. UMaine and its fellow campuses can no longer continue under the academic and financial structure they currently employ. If the chancellor’s plan is put into action after Monday’s meeting, campus communities and trustees alike should continue to engage in dialogue to make sure it’s working. If it isn’t yet the best plan it can be for all the campuses in the system, the board should exercise discretion and give more time to tweak the plan.

While the other candidates have made promises to change student government, Wolland has quietly stuck to his less glamarous goals of revamping the Bears Den Pub, improving dining services, and connecting with his constituents.

Wolland’s most ambitious, admirable and achievable goal is the creation of a peer advisor program. Should the program be created to Wolland’s current vision, younger students would have the opportunity to meet with upperclassmen within their major for advice before meeting their advisor. This program would help students pick classes and advance their academic careers without having to guess.

The other factor putting Wolland ahead of the rest is his frank assessment of the role of Student Government. When asked in debate what he would do to counter the image of student government as nothing more than an ATM for students, Wolland reminded students not to make Student Government out to be more than it really is. He commented on the importance of making sure the student activity fee — a total of $750,000 per year — is spent responsibly, in a way that benefits students, citing the Collegiate Readership Program among other programs under Student Government.

Along with the office of SG president, vice president is also being contested in a two-way race between Nyssa Gatcombe and Tim Smith.

While her opponent seemed to say that his focus would be on the rules of the General Student Senate, Gatcombe pointed out that while she knows Student Government’s structure well, just knowing the rules isn’t enough to qualify one for leadership. And she is right. Leadership comes from experience.

During the debate, Gatcombe clearly laid out the leadership experience she brings to the table from her role in the Speech and Debate club and as chair of Student Alumni Association and others. That esperience is what makes her the best candidate for vice president.

The next step will be to take this issue to the Maine Supreme Court, following the same process Iowa did on its path to marriage equality. This road will no doubt be as rocky as the last, but it is what must be done for justice to prevail.

Regardless of the outcome, Mainers still made a strong statement to the entire nation about equality and the American ideal that all people deserve the same rights. Nearly half the state — including a strong majority in Orono — stood with their brothers and sisters and said no to discrimination and intolerance.

Here at UMaine, 80 percent of students voted no on Question 1. The university should be proud of its students and their tendency toward expanding liberty, not limiting it. The pride flag waving proudly on the mall is a testament to this tendency.

The struggle to ensure rights for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people is the struggle for civil rights of our generation. Martin Luther King, Jr. told us the arc of history bends toward justice, but that arc will only continue to bend if we continue to apply pressure.

Before same-sex marriage was made legal in Massachusetts in 2004, many might have thought it would never happen. Since that day, six other states have recognized that human relationships take many forms and that it behooves us to recognize all relationships as equal.

In the same way our generation grew up wondering how our parents and grandparents could possibly have supported segregation, our children will look back in the sunset years and wonder why we couldn’t see that it doesn’t matter who you love, only that you love. On that day, Nov. 3, 2009, will be a distant memory.

Question 1: Do you want to reject the new law that lets same-sex couples marry and allows individuals and religious groups to refuse to perform these marriages?

No. It is important for Maine to take a stand to declare all human beings are born deserving of the same rights. This bill makes clear that the state will recognize marriage equally, rather than distinguish acceptable and unacceptable forms of human relationships. Leave that to the churches, and let them debate and mull their own positions in accordance with their own traditions. This bill poses no threat to that process.

Question 2: Do you want to cut the rate of the municipal excise tax by an average of 55 percent on motor vehicles less than six years old and exempt hybrid and other alternative-energy and highly fuel-efficient motor vehicles from sales tax and three years of excise tax?

No. The vehicle excise tax funds important road repair in our towns and municipalities. The proposed tax cuts disproportionately benefits Mainers who can afford new cars and hybrids. It is unfair for only the less wealthy to pay taxes from which all people benefit.

Question 4: Do you want to change the existing formulas that limit state and local government spending and require voter approval by referendum for spending over those limits and for increases in state taxes?

No. Since Colorado enacted TABOR, spending on higher education has dropped 31 percent.

For UMaine, a drop of that size represents a loss of $27.7 million in state funding. That’s teachers and staff who won’t be paid, buildings that won’t be repaired, research that won’t be conducted and financial aid that won’t be awarded. TABOR is wrong for all Mainers — especially those connected to this university.

Question 5: Do you want to change the medical marijuana laws to allow treatment of more medical conditions and to create a regulated system of distribution?

Yes. Medical marijuana is legal in our state. Doctors should be able to prescribe the drug as they see fit, and patients should be able to access their drugs safely.

Whether one agrees with these views or not, don’t forget to show up at your local polling place and vote.

It’s encouraging the board is so willing to hear the concerns of its constituency. The Chancellor’s Task Force visited more than once in the spring, which was fruitful. The discussion was attended by about 300 people and watched by thousands more online — a heartening sign that the community is well aware of its role in shaping the system’s future.

However, it seems as if the board is less concerned with finding areas where it can improve than it is with convincing people the path it has chosen is the right one.

Little, if any, dissent can be detected within the ranks of the system’s upper administration, including the board of trustees. That is worrisome: Deep and rational introspection should be encouraged. When the board spends its time defending itself, it is almost certainly not getting the message.

We know it’s hard to take criticism. Most of us, if presented with the attitudes of this university’s community members, would react in much the same way. Sometimes, however, it’s better to sit back and shut up. The time will come for explanation, but that time for the board is not now. We hope the board takes the community’s comments as what they were, not what they may have seemed to be: constructive criticism, not fear of change.

There are seven questions on next week’s ballot that will affect the future of Maine. We feel that Questions 1 and 4 — the people’s veto of same-sex marriage and TABOR II — will most drastically change the state and university we all call home.

Our support for the same-sex marriage bill passed by the legislature and signed into law by the governor last year is well known (see the April 23, 2009 editorial, “State should support gay marriage”). Simply put, a “yes” on Question 1 will ensure that Maine remain fundamentally unequal. This is a fact regardless of whether you think that form of inequality is right. We feel it would be a great injustice.

But the threat of inequality is not the only one facing Mainers. In the same way a “yes” on 1 is a vote for inequity, a “yes” on Question 4 — the so-called Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights” — is a vote for instability and poor education.

Placing an unrealistic formula on the state’s budget, TABOR will force the legislature to make painful cuts in state spending. As students — or anyone else connected to this university — we should be especially fearful.

State appropriations make up 27.8 percent of UMaine’s 2010 budget — $89.4 million. When the state is unable to raise the money it needs — the state’s budget would have been 17 percent lower last year if TABOR had been in effect — what will happen to the university?

Since Colorado enacted TABOR, spending on higher education has dropped 31 percent. Their K-12 spending dropped from 35th in the country to 49th.

For UMaine, a drop of that size represents a loss of $27.7 million in state funding. That’s teachers and staff who won’t be paid, buildings that won’t be repaired, research that won’t be conducted and financial aid that won’t be awarded. That’s a gap that will need to be covered by a hike in tuition and fees, if it is addressed at all.

So what do we want for Maine? We can have a state that recognizes only one kind of love and can’t provide the services its citizens need, or one that stands for equality and values education and stability.

Vote “no” on Questions 1 and 4.

According to Wolland’s research, annual savings would surpass $950. The research compares item’s cash prices at Memorial Union and Wells Commons to prices at Subway, Burger King, Wendy’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Taco Bell and Dairy Queen.

The first question that must be raised with this kind of research is: What is the goal? In an interview Wednesday night, Wolland said the goal of the research is “to encourage price dropping” at UMaine, with an end goal of UMaine offering “hearty meals at a reasonable price.” This is a laudable goal, and most UMaine students would agree that affordability and nutritional value are key.

But on it’s own, this research proves very little. Comparing only cash prices to fast food prices misses a lot of variables. It sheds no light on the value of meal plans and completely fails to mention the disparity in options between dining at UMaine and dining at fast food restaurants. It also leaves out York or Hilltop commons, where students with meal plans have access to a variety of nutritional choices and all-you-can-eat portions. There are other factors in which the value is not easily represented in dollars, such as the taste and the convenience of buying food on campus.

While some students complain about campus food, to compare it to fast food is to compare apples and oranges. Putting quick-service food prices on a pedestal without considering the whole scope of dining services does little to address whatever imperfections may exist while setting an immeasurably low standard.

The findings of this research are interesting and taken on their own are damning. But they shed light on only a tiny portion of the whole dining services picture. The committees involved are to be commended for looking into ways to improve dining services, but much more work is left to do in order to come up with solutions that address variety, nutrition, taste and convenience — not just price.

This is a tremendous opportunity for students to hear one of the most powerful men in the country in our own proverbial backyard, but it is only one of many guest lecture, seminar or speaker events.

Whether through the Maine Heritage Lecture Series, the Milton Ellis Memorial Reading Series, the Howard B. Schonberger Peace and Social Justice Memorial Lecture series or any number of others, students have many opportunities to hear experts, writers and speakers from all over the world.

Speakers of the magnitude of Eric Holder may come only once every few years, but students can extracurricularly broaden their horizons in lecture halls most weeks of the school year. These events serve as a supplement to the education students receive via classes and textbooks.

Sadly, too many of these special lecturers speak to less than capacity sized crowds. Though this could be indicative of a lack of interest on the part of students, it is more likely that students are unaware of these opportunities.

The Announcements and Alerts folder on FirstClass and the calendar of events on the UMaine Web site are easy avenues to  find out when the topics that interest you will be discussed by experts on campus.

For those students who have yet to take advantage of all the academic opportunities, Eric Holder’s speech is a great place to start.