Student action on textbooks

Leaders in Associated Students have pioneered new methods to make course materials more accessible

Glenn McDonell | Contributor

Every semester, USD students are faced with the need to decide how best to purchase or otherwise access a new set of course materials. For many, the need to set aside hundreds of dollars to cover textbook costs represents a significant financial burden.

Junior Chris Hermes, Associated Students Chair of student life, is well aware of this reality.

“As members of AS, we are constantly listening to student concerns,” Hermes said. “What we have been hearing for a while now is that textbooks are too expensive.”

According to the Director of the Torero Store James Thrailkill, there is relatively little that Auxiliary Services can do to reduce the costs of textbooks for students.  These prices are primarily dependent on faculty preference for materials and action when ordering those materials.

“When it comes to how faculty members choose which books to have us order, cost is typically a secondary consideration,” Thrailkill said.  “Content is king.”

Even if professors choose to have the bookstore order more affordable materials, the timing of order placement also makes a big difference.

“The sooner we hear from faculty the sooner we can put book orders in,” Thrailkill said. “We are in contact with faculty on a regular basis to make sure.”

Beginning in the fall of 2016, Hermes and other members of AS worked directly with Student Support Services (SSS) to organize a book drive to serve low income students.  Donation bins were placed at the checkout in the Torero Store at the end of the year with signs encouraging students to “Help a fellow Torero.”

“There’s plenty of students who have old textbooks laying around that they have no use for, and they’re not selling them back to the bookstore because they don’t expect to get much,” Hermes said. “Donating them to the book drive was a way for students to do something meaningful for one another.”

Throughout the fall semester of last year, the makeshift shelves in SSS became filled to capacity with the overwhelming number of donated books, which exceeded 250.

“It got to the point where SSS literally couldn’t hold the books anymore,” Hermes said.

While the book drive program was a success in terms of the number of books donated, Hermes and other members of AS knew that something needed to be done on a larger scale to serve the entire student body.

“Everyone was passionate about this issue and knew that something needed to be done,” Hermes said.  “We realized textbooks were an even bigger issue for students than we had thought.”

In the spring of 2017, a combination of faculty, staff, and AS student leaders formed a committee to address these student needs on a larger scale.

According to the Dean of the University Library, Dr. Theresa Byrd, the Textbook Accessibility Task Force was the result of a partnership between Copley Library, Associated Students, and the bookstore.

“I personally became interested in the cost of textbooks because a USD student told me her story,” Byrd said.  “Moreover, I believe it is important to reduce costs, expand access, and make textbooks more affordable for students.”

Since it began a year ago, the task force has worked to identify and implement strategies for reducing the cost of textbooks for USD students.

Hermes and junior Om Kanwar were appointed to the task force as representatives of AS to provide a student perspective on the issue.

“Having Om and I on the task force was important because we were able to voice real student concerns and opinions,” Hermes said.  “The two of us brought the idea of a textbook reserve program to the table, which was something AS had been talking about for some time.”

The idea of placing popular textbooks on reserve for student-use originated a while ago but has only recently been put in place.

“People on the AS Executive Board, administrators, and AS Senators have all been trying to get this program going for a while now but it kept hitting roadblocks,” Hermes said. “Finally pushing it through came down to the dedication of a few individuals who have worked to make this idea get off the ground and receive the funding it needed.”

The program maintains one copy of every textbook that  exceeds $100 in value and is required for a course with two or more sections for any given semester, according to Kanwar.

While Copley Library manages the program, the funding necessary to purchase a copy of every textbook currently on reserve comes from  the AS budget.

“In the [AS] senate we discussed the possibility of budgeting for the reserve program throughout the spring of last semester, and it received a lot of support,” Kanwar said. “AS funds come out of student tuition, so it makes sense to use some of that money to take some financial burden off of students.”

According to Kanwar, the AS Finance Committee budgeted close to $30,000 to fund the reserve program during its first period of implementation last spring.  Both Kanwar and Hermes were a part of the task force during spring 2016 but did not continue in subsequent semesters.

Associated Students VP Shannan Conlon, who served as an AS representative on the task force last fall, expects funding for the program to continue.

“In the coming months we will need to re-evaluate checkouts in order to decide which books on reserve to keep and which ones need to be updated, but I don’t foresee AS stopping that funding,” Conlon said.

According to the data which Copley Library collected and made available to AS members on the task force, around 1,000 checkouts occurred last spring. Accounting and finance topped the list in terms of frequency of use, while others for courses in biology for example, had none.

In Conlon’s view, the lack of checkouts for some books is due to a lack of awareness of the reserve program among students and faculty alike, which is something she wants to address this semester.

“Students definitely need these books, they just don’t always know that these resources are available to them,” Conlon said.  “The number one focus going forward will be going to faculty meetings and making sure (faculty) know that their book has been put in the reserve so they can relay this information to their students.”

While the affordability of textbooks is largely out of the control of student leadership, AS-led efforts to increase accessibility have demonstrated a potential for change.  As awareness and use of the textbook reserve program grows, many more students will stand to benefit.