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Lab fees give students experience

By Sam Monroe

On May 6, 2011

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In a tight economy every dollar counts. Budgets are balanced and followed more strictly than they have ever been; lab fees give the breathing room for departments to do what they do.

"They are sacred funds to us," said Barclay Tucker, the chair of the Visual Arts department, a department that charges any where for $80 to $140 for fees. "It's not something we play around with."

So what is this lab fee? Every Lyndon State College student will pay at least one before graduation, probably more.

"Lab fees are assessed to those classes that have some sort of unusual quality to them," said Donna Dalton, the Dean of Academic Affairs. "It's not just the standard sit-in-class and have a professor talk at you."

About 65 percent of the classes offered at Lyndon next fall will have some sort of lab fee attached to them. Some majors, such as electronic journalism arts, have lab fees for every class, while other majors only have one or two fees.

Most students will have to pay some sort of lab fee, such as in ENG 1051, which is required for every student. This class has a $10 lab fee associated with it, as does ENG 1052. Most science classes have a lab fee associated with them to pay for materials each semester. Need a to take a non-credit math class? $5 for the Accuplacer test. Every first semester student needs to take INT 1020, at a cost of $55. HUM 1030? That will be $20, please.

Those GEU courses that have fees attached to them all have some sort of technology or equipment usage that goes along with them.

Students are responsible for paying the fees, which means the college must approve them before it can add the fee to the bill.

"There is an approval process," said Assistant Academic Dean Deb Hale. "A faculty member may propose a fee, but it does have to be approved by the academic dean.

"The faculty member must be able to justify why it should be set at that level," said Hale, who couldn't remember a time where a fee had been rejected. She did say that some have to be toned back or justified a little more, but she couldn't think of any rejections.

Some lab fees, such as the ones in basic math classes, help pay for Accuplacer testing.

Lab fees also cover the Praxis test for education majors, so that a student can get financial aid or a loan to cover the cost instead of taking it out their pockets. The same goes for some educational trips.

At Lyndon the experience makes the education. And on top of tuition dollars, lab fees help give students that experience.

"Those classes [with lab fees] may have a significant experiential component attached to them," said Dalton. "Students are leaving campus; they may be classes that require certain types of materials or software that is fundamentally used for only those classes."

Visual arts is one of those departments. Students in specific classes pay lab fees in order to have access to certain labs and printers required to do their assignments. According to Tucker, theoretically students in those classes are the only ones with access to that equipment.

In the exercise science department the fees are course specific.

A fee that might jump off the schedule sheet at an exercise science student is the one associated with XSC-1260, Professional Experience. The fee is a mere $450. What does that cover?

According to department head Anthony Sgherza that fee covers everything. The class is a professional conference held in Providence, R.I. and gives students a chance to interact with professionals in their field and other students from across the country.

Excluding the professional experience fee, exercise science charges between $25 and $50 for fees.

The conference is also host to The College Bowl, a competition Sgherza refers to as the "exercise science super bowl." It gives students a chance to show off their knowledge and compete against colleges from all over the country.

Professional Experience isn't the only exercise science course with a lab fee. 19 of 29 classes offered by the department next semester will have a lab fee.

Those fees go directly to the classes.

"Our policy and philosophy is that if [the fee] embedded in a course, that faculty member has the opportunity to spend it in that course," said Sgherza. He went on to say that the fees go for either applied equipment or research equipment.

Research equipment can be used for scales, blood pressure cuffs, or any other material used in either a lab. Applied equipment goes to purchase any equipment used in professional classes. Sgherza refers to the applied equipment as "toys." He says those fees can purchase anything from medicine balls, to agility ladders, or any other type of health and fitness equipment used in the classroom.

E JA is another department that has lab fees for nearly every class. Unlike visual arts, the lab fees in EJA are not designated for a specific class. Instead, the lab fees are pooled together to be used throughout the major. EJA students will pay anywhere from $80 to $120 for fees next semester.

"The equipment that they are using, a lot of it is going out in the field," said Dalton. "All it takes is a drop or two, even without a drop those things have just a year or two life expectancy. Those students do a lot of fieldwork. They are going out and covering stories and there is a bunch of software unique to that program.

"Any time you have software unique to that program, the fee covers it," Dalton said.

Atmospheric science students are also charged fees for almost every class they take. Those fees range from $30 to $120. According to department chair Nolan Atkins, the fees change for how intensive the classes are.

"Some are research intensive," said Atkins. ATM uses the fees to first purchase course specific equipment. For example, one freshman-level class launches weather balloons as part of the class, so the fees purchase the balloons. Other expenses cover things that the entire department needs in order to function. Those cover equipment such as computers.