Southeastern gem: Equipment Checkout

HAMMOND, La. - A valuable resource may be lying idle, and every student has already paid for it.

Equipment checkout, a system headed by Clarissa Schiro-Sampey that allows students to rent equipment for educational purposes, is supported by the $65 technology fee included in tuition.

Some students have never heard of the service.

Brooke Barone, a communication major, said, “I had not heard about equipment checkout until I had a class this past semester in photojournalism. I wish I would have known prior to my last semester because I would have taken advantage of this offer at Southeastern. I think it is useful and great for students who cannot afford to buy a nice camera.”

A faculty sponsor is needed to take advantage of equipment checkout. This just means that a professor will reply to the email from Student Productivity Services confirming that the equipment is being used for his or her class.

Login to fill out the short application using the same password used for Blackboard, Webmail, etc. Equipment can be kept for seven days. After receiving the second email from SPS (the first one confirms receipt of the application), bring a university ID card to Tinsley Hall Room 102 to pick up the requested equipment and be responsible.

Equipment available for rental include laptops, digital cameras, digital video camera recorders, video cameras, projectors and tripods.

The type of laptops are Dell Latitude E5400, Dell Latitude D510, Dell Inspiron 4150 and Dell Inspiron 5150; the digital cameras include Canon PowerShot Pro 1 and Canon EOS 10D; the digital video camera recorder is a Sony HDD DCR-SR42; the video camera is a Sony VHS DCR-PC120; and the two projectors are InFocus LP120 and InFocus LP425Z.

Public relations major Christopher McKinley knew about the service. He said, “I was aware that equipment checkout was available. I’ve never used it for any of my classes, but I know that it is an incredible resource that needs to be advertised more since we’ve paid for it.”

Tya Carodine, a kinesiology major, shares McKinley’s view on advertising Equipment Checkout. She said, “Although I did know about the laptop and camera rentals, I forgot about it because it’s not advertised around campus and a lot of people don’t know about it so it’s not the topic of many conversations. I’ll probably remember now and will most likely take advantage of it in the near future.”

Schiro-Sampey and her office gets the word out about equipment checkout in a variety of ways. There is a button on Southeastern’s homepage, an important notices link on the Webmail login screen, information in the freshman packet and articles in the Lion’s Roar. Department heads are supposed to inform teachers who then tell students, and word of mouth helps spread the word. Also, Student Government Association represents SPS because of the technology fee.

Schiro-Sampey keeps SPS running smoothly. She attended Southeastern and graduated in 1987 and 1997. She started working at the university in 1998 and created equipment checkout in the fall of 2001 with the help of two German students. It started as a paper and pencil system, but WEquip was developed in 2004 to make the system technology-based.

Faculty members are not allowed to use the equipment in SPS because students pay the technology fee, but the Center for Faculty Excellence has a similarly run system.