ASUSU votes to mandate course reserves
The ASUSU Executive Council discussed a resolution mandating that all professors provide required textbooks in the library course reserves at the council’s meeting Tuesday.
“One of Utah State’s mission statements is to provide an education for everyone,” said Erika Norton, College of Humanities and Social Sciences senator. “This is one more component that will make it more affordable for students to come to school.”
The resolution will still need to pass through second readings in both the Academic Senate and the Executive Council next week before moving on to Stater’s Council – a council comprised of President Albrecht, ASUSU and members of the faculty and staff, said Jarvis Pace, College of Agriculture senator and the resolution’s primary sponsor.
The resolution must also pass before the State Board of Regents before it goes into effect, said Tanner Wright, Academic Senate president.
“There’s a possibility this will get shut down,” Norton said.
The Stater’s Council will most likely meet next semester and the earliest the resolution could go into effect is fall of 2014, Wright said.
The resolution originally stipulated that one textbook be available for every 30 students in a course. However, the resolution was revised Monday by the Academic Senate and now requires that one textbook be available for every 50 students registered in a course, Wright said.
The resolution also states that 618 out 961 instructors use the course reserves system and many course sections do not have materials available on course reserves.
“You hear about students who go to course reserves and their book isn’t there,” Wright said.
Norton said this resolution could reduce pressure students feel to buy books for classes when they are unsure if they will keep the class or if the professor will use the book regularly.
If the resolution passes, these textbooks will be bought with teachers’ budgets or possibly will be provided through donations from publishers, Pace said.
Norton said she thought loss of revenue for the bookstore might be an issue impeding the resolution’s passage.
“But the bookstore has already seen sales decrease immensely,” Wright said. “What with competition from ebooks and Amazon. Students are going to find alternatives.”
The resolution originated in the Academic Senate and was passed as a first reading item at the senate’s meeting Monday, Pace said. He said the senate found this resolution about a month or two ago as an unfinished resolution from last year’s Academic Senate.
– rouchelle.brockman@aggiemail.usu.edu