B.U. Group Hits University Store Textbook Prices

A group of Boston University students calling themselves the Ad Hoc Committee for University Reform has threatened to instigate a boycott of the university-owned book store if the store if the does not institute a ten percent discount immediately.

Leaders of the group confronted University officials last week with a petition signed by 2700 students, demanding the discount on all educational materials sold in the store. The store is a limited department store and carries items other than books.

Students claim that the book store has been making a $300,000 yearly profit, and that books often cost more there than at private book stores. The university says the book store's profit is not that large, but there is no public financial report on the store's earning.

Mrs. Margret Merry, executive assistant to the President of Boston University said the student proposal was "not feasible even if it were to be considered desirable." B.U. President Harold C. Case is out of the country and has made no comment on the issue.

In a letter last week Mrs. Merry told student leaders, "We shave your desire to unite in the common goal of building a truly democratic university, but feel that the way to achieve this is not by the setting of deadlines and the threat of boycotts before normal processes of open and frank discussion have taken place."

A New Savlo?

Julian T. Houston, a sophomore who leads the Ad Hoc Committee said yesterday that the demands for a discount were the outgrowth of "a larger problem of bureaucracy at the university. We have been treated as nameless, faceless I.D. cards," Houston charged, "being run through an assembly line."

Houston said that his group planned to meet with university officials Thursday in an attempt to solve the dispute. He stressed however, that the demand for an immediate 10 per cent discount was "not negotiable."

Houston said that the committee was "attempting to provide alternate sources for textbooks" in the event a boycott should materialize.