On April 19, students gathered on the lawn between the University Union and Gillenwater Hall to collect signatures for a petition to stop the $85,500 installation of proximity card scanners in several classrooms as early as next fall.

The protest likely would have not been possible without the social networking medium Facebook, which allowed organizer Rachel Brackett, a sophomore biological chemistry major, to inform other students about the measure. Her group on the site, titled “NAU Against Proximity Cards,” has 1,200 members, most opposed to the implementation of the scanners.

Rachel Brackett, a sophomore biological chemistry major, paints a sign for a protest outside the Union. The Lumberjack / Jennifer Hilderbrand

“It took me a while to get anything going,” Brackett said. “I was very busy with class and over spring break, when I went out of town. [One of my professors] brought it to my attention, and I felt after she said that, no one really said anything about it again. And I thought we needed to bring this up — I don’t think anyone really knows about it.”

David Bousquet, the vice president for Enrollment Management and Student Affairs, said all students already have proximity cards, whether they realize it or not.

“There is a proximity chip in your student ID, and you probably use it to get into your residence hall,” Bousquet said.

In President John Haeger’s April 6 forum, “student success” was listed as an institutional priority for the university. Bousquet said student attendance in classes is key to ensuring that goal of improving the quality of education at NAU is met.

“There’s a whole body of research that demonstrates that students who go to class get better grades than those who don’t,” Bousquet said. “No surprise there.”

Bousquet said the scanners would be used to take attendance for a grade at the discretion of the professor teaching the class.

“Some professors make it very clear in the syllabus that your grade is, in part, dependent on attendance,” Bousquet said. “And that is within a professor’s right. Today, with proximity card reader technology, professors can take attendance without calling out everyone’s name. The installation of proximity card readers at some number of classrooms will allow those professors to use that data if they choose to — some might, some might not.”

Brackett said a large problem with the entire concept behind using the cards to assign attendance grades was that it could take away students’ responsibility for their own actions.

“One of the biggest issues for me is that it should be our choice to go to class,” Brackett said. “Maybe some people don’t consider us adults yet. Maybe we still have some growing up to do, but that’s how you grow up. You learn to make your own decisions, make your own choices — and whether you succeed or fail, that’s your decision that you have to live with.”

Bousquet said the installation of the card scanners would help foster student success, leading to higher rates of retention.

“To the extent that students attend class and do well, they are more likely to be retained,” Bousquet said. “We have research that indicates that students who receive a ‘D’ or an ‘F,’ or withdraw from the class, are retained at lower rates than students who do not withdraw or receive a ‘D’ or an ‘F.’ All of this is tied to student success.”

The estimated cost of implementing the scanners will be $85,500 — money that will come out of the $1 million “Innovation Fund” President Haeger set aside this past fall.

Of the 11 projects approved underneath the fund, the proximity card provision is the seventh largest, receiving less funding than the $175,000 retooling of the freshman mathematics curriculum, but more money than the $75,000 “Sustainability, Energy Savings, Climate and the Environment” measure.

“[Proximity scanners] got more than many other programs that I felt were much more deserving,” Brackett said. “Going more towards scientific research, and more opportunities for students — I feel that the other things money from the [Innovation Fund] did go towards were much more deserving of more money.”

Standing near the Union asking people passing by to sign a petition against the proximity card scanner installations, Taylor Gubler, a junior political science and journalism major, said the cost of the readers would be a burden for the university in a time when state funding is being scaled back.

“Eighty-five thousand dollars put toward this program is a lot of money, especially in this time where we are being charged more because of the economic downturn,” Gubler said. “It is important that we look at how we are spending money.”

Gubler said learning about personal responsibility is just as important a facet of the college experience as learning in the classroom.

“The university should not have to be responsible for making people attend class,” Gubler said. “I feel that if you are going to be an adult, you have to be able to make the decision to go to class. Do you really deserve the degree you’ve gotten if you were forced to go?”