MU faculty, students work to lower textbook costs
University Bookstore has tried to decrease prices for 12 years.
Oct. 14, 2008
(Click graphic to enlarge)
The Course Materials Advisory Committee is beginning to inform faculty and students about the importance of getting the textbook requisitions in on time.
Student and Auxiliary Services spokeswoman Michelle Froese said a draft of a letter to be sent to faculty was submitted to Deputy Provost Ken Dean's office for revision on Monday. The letter outlined the key points on how faculty can affect students' costs by submitting textbook requisitions by the deadline.
The deadline for the Spring 2009 semester is Oct. 31. Froese said she hopes the letter gets revised and sent out by the end of this week.
The Missouri Students Association also began the process of impacting material costs for students.
MSA Senator Craig Stevenson said that though he and the other MSA representatives who are on the Course Materials Advisory Committee did not help write the letter to be sent to faculty, they did begin legislative work within the student government.
MSA Senator Phyllis Williams said MSA Senate Speaker Jonathan Mays drafted a bill that lays out the goals that were established at the meeting last Thursday. Williams said the wording is still being worked on but the bill should be finalized and submitted by noon today.
The bill laid out four main goals from the committee. These goals include promoting the value to students and faculty of submitting their textbook adoptions by the deadline, sending textbook buyback program letters through the provost's office, creating a textbook rental buyback pilot program for large lecture classes and to use the authority granted in the Textbook Transparency Act to request textbook content revisions via the University Bookstore.
Mays said the bill will be discussed in MSA Senate committees today.
"We want the goals to be written clearly so students can understand them but we don't want to put in anything that was not discussed at the meeting," Williams said.
Froese said the idea of lowering textbook costs for students would take effort from everyone. She said the bookstore has been working on this issue since 1996 and it has been a slow process.
"The bookstore cannot just show up at the doorstep of departments. We need faculty and students to help out," Froese said.
Both Stevenson and Froese agreed that all of the goals set by the committee on Thursday are important but the shortest term goal and easiest to obtain at the time is getting the adoption deadline met by the faculty.
"We cannot just snap our fingers and have a textbook rental program formed," Stevenson said. "The letters are very proactive in trying to involve students and professors, though."
Williams said there has been a lack of communication in the past between the MSA, administration and faculty. She said it needs to be made clear how timely textbook requisitions can benefit all students and not just those who buy books from the bookstore.
All three MSA representatives are volunteering to be on the committee because of previous experience working with textbook adoptions, Stevenson said. He said he worked on a bill in the Missouri House and had been in touch with Retail Services Director Sherry Pollard throughout the summer.
"(Pollard) expressed a lot of interest in forming this committee and I said that I would love to be in the loop to contribute anything from the legislative side," Stevenson said.
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