OneStart switch affects INPIRG

The Indiana Public Interest Research Group is one step away from becoming another victim of the switch from the INSITE system to OneStart.\nIn the past, INPIRG collected pledges on paper from students who would typically donate $5 each semester until they graduated. INPIRG would give the slips to the Office of the Bursar, which would automatically bill the students. \nHowever, with the implementation of OneStart as the Student Information System, the programmers had problems placing INPIRG into the system. Thus INPIRG was unable to collect funds in the fall semester, greatly reducing the group's income for the spring semester.\nUnlike other programs which raise money through Student Information Systems Insite or Onestart like the IU Rape Crisis Fund and IU Dance Marathon, INPIRG didn't have a box students could check to donate money after they registered for classes. \n"We are not under-funded, we have no funding at all," said Jessica Vollmer, INPIRG's board chairwoman. "We must have this funding to survive and the change from INSITE to OneStart has prevented the sources for our funding."\nTo make sure INPIRG has enough funding, the group need at least 1,000 students to donate on its online pledge system found within the registration page on OneStart, she said.\nINPIRG would have liked to keep its system of pledges, however, but because of the technology of OneStart, they were unable to do so.\n"Since INPIRG had qualified as an 'optional selection' several years earlier, we suggested that they offer this opportunity for students to pledge as they registered for classes," said IU Bursar Susan Coté. "INPIRG did not choose to do so until the current registration period."\nBut help has arrived in the form of the Associate Dean of Students Damon Sims and Coté, who have both taken an active role in helping INPIRG stay alive.\n"The campus administration has provided INPIRG consistent support for many years," Sims said. "It has done so because INPIRG provides many of our students an opportunity to meaningfully participate in significant public issues that affect us all." \nINPIRG is a student interest group that campaigns for change in areas relating to the environment and social issues on the IU campus. Its main focus is educating people about the poverty in the greater Bloomington area, campus recycling and energy conservation.\nHowever, without funding or support from the student body, the group will no longer be able to advocate issues such as these.\nThe Office of the Bursar is helping INPIRG by providing the number of students who pledged $5 to the cause -- along with their e-mail addresses -- so the research group can contact the students and follow up with them at a later date, Coté said.\nSims is sure INPIRG will overcome its financial situation and believes INPIRG is necessary for the IU-Bloomington community.\n"I've always found the INPIRG students to be among the most interesting and energetic of all our students," Sims said. "They have a positive can-do attitude that's infectious, and I've appreciated the chance to get to know many of them through the years."\nVollmer, INPIRG's board chairwoman, also the group will overcome this obstacle and believes it will do so soon.\n"We have been around forever and we are good for just about everybody on campus," Vollmer said. "I think it would be in everybody's interest if we were around a bit longer."\n-- Contact Staff Writer Ryne \nShadday at rshadday@indiana.edu.