Students experience issues with cable connection in residence halls

By OLIVIA BRIDGES

Senior Writer

The University of Mary Washington’s Student Senate recently passed a motion to work with University Services to troubleshoot and repair the cable in residential halls, however, the Student Government Association’s Executive Cabinet later denied the motion.The motion did not pass because it was based off of a few isolated incidents.

According to Theodosius Zotos, vice president of the student government and president of Student Senate urged the students with cable issues to reach out to their RAs first.

A number of Mary Washington students, however, have been unable to connect their television to the university’s cable service this semester. Among the students affected by the faulty cable service is sophomore, Theo Stamatis.

“My roommate scanned not once, but twice for channels for our TV and got nothing,” Stamatis said.

Stamatis and his roommate live in Russell Hall. They are not the only residents of Russell with cable complications.

“We went out and about and talked to our neighbors in Russell and asked, ‘do you have cable?’ And they said they said the same thing, that they don’t have cable,” said Stamatis.

According to Stamatis, it is unclear if the cable issue is affecting all of Russell Hall or just certain floors on Russell, maybe even specific rooms such as theirs. Furthermore, he cannot say whether or not the cable is working in other residential halls or if it is an issue specific to Russell.

Stamatis and his roommate requested an online work order to facility services. As of now, their cable problems still have not been resolved.

Despite Stamatis not having easy access to TV during the two months school has been in session, the lack of cable has not positively or negatively impacted him. He is able to have easy access to entertainment through resources such as, Netflix, Hulu and network apps, but there is still a downside to not having a working TV.

“We find other ways to stream stuff, of course… It is not overbearing, but it would be nice for one night to digest the whole day or whole week, just watch TV with my roommate and friends,” said Stamatis.

Stamatis was the senator who proposed the motion to work with Student Services in order to restore the cable service. However, Stamatis was speaking as a student not a senator in the interviews.

The motion was proposed Wednesday, Oct. 18. The proposal asked for the process to ensure students of Mary Washington will have adequate access to cable to be adjudicated. Stamatis’ primary goal for the motion was to increase the rate at which the issue of cable was getting resolved.

According to Stamatis, the motion was not passed during the cabinet meeting on Monday, Oct. 23 because the motion’s wording and grammar was unclear. The motion did not state if Russell was the only hall with cable issues or if multiples halls were having the same problem.

Even though the motion did not pass in the cabinet, the motion is not necessarily out.

“Any senator could rewrite that motion and then have the senate talk about it again and then vote on it,” said Stamatis.

Stamatis hopes that even though the motion is currently un-passed, that the university will still find a way to resolve the cable connection.

The motion to fix the cable may have been just been proposed, but it is not a new problem. Terrin Dickerson is a business administration major and is a senior at Mary Washington. During three and half years Dickerson has attended the university, he has had cable in two different dorms.

“In Westmoreland, the bad experience I had was the location of the output knob,” Dickerson said. “It was in a weird location, so I couldn’t really have my TV set up to cable.”

The other dorm Dickerson had trouble with the cable was in Eagle Landing.

“The cable there was kind of fuzzy, but apparently they fixed it,” said Dickerson. “I have a friend who lives at eagle now and he said that the cable they have now was a lot more clear and the channel selection was a lot better than last years… So, I would say that they are improving a little bit.”