The Wall Street Journal was taken out of the College of Business Administration building after a poll revealed that less than 50 percent of professors were using it in classrooms.

COBA administration received complaints from students regarding the fee, and in response to those complaints, used a poll of faculty members to see if the Wall Street Journal was frequently being used in the classroom, Dr. Jerry Wilson, associate dean of COBA, said.

“We’ve been toying with the decision for the requirement,” Wilson said.

In past semesters, COBA students paid $19 per semester to cover the subscription fee, Wilson said.

“It wasn’t just a faculty thing.  Faculty members were happy to receive a free copy of the Wall Street Journal.  This was really carried on the backs of students that didn’t want to pay the fee,” Wilson said.

If faculty members still wish to use the Wall Street Journal in the classroom, they can require students to pay for a subscription, Wilson said.

“Some faculty, very few but some, do intend to require students to have a semester subscription,” Wilson said.

Students may still choose to subscribe to the Wall Street Journal on their own, but it will not be as inexpensive as it was when the entire COBA population was subscribed, Wilson said.

“Our cancellation of the subscription is in no way a reflection of or a decline in our opinion of the Wall Street Journal,” Wilson said.

If hundreds of students decided to present a petition for COBA to subscribe to the Wall Street Journal again, then administration may consider re-subscribing, Wilson said.

Students felt that the Wall Street Journal was a good, easy resource.

“I feel like the Wall Street Journal is a resource business students would need,” Levandre Parker, freshman information technology major, said.

“I was never in COBA so I didn’t have access to it, but I would have liked to have seen it somewhere else,” Christen Jackson, health promotion and education major, said.

Professors shared in the disappointment felt by students while others are neutral on the removal of the Wall Street Journal.

“I was disappointed. I liked to pick it up for an easy read,” Errol Stewart, assistant professor of accounting, said.

Anthony Barilla, professor of economics, said professors still get it online so it does not affect them.