UC Pushes for Book Stipends

Just two days after the Committee on Undergraduate Education (CUE) raised questions about an Undergraduate Council (UC) plan to establish a center that would reduce coursepack costs, the UC passed a new proposal last night urging Harvard to help low-income students pay for course materials.

The proposal, co-sponsored by the Students Taking On Poverty (STOP) Campaign, supports the establishment of a Course-Cost Assistance Program, which would use Financial Aid Office funds to provide $125-per semester stipends to undergraduates with family incomes under $40,000. Under the UC plan, students with family incomes between $40,000 and $60,000 would also get a $75 stipend to be used towards the purchase of books, coursepacks, and other course-related literature.

“We can’t think of a better way of using [financial aid] money for students than giving it directly to those who need it most for their books,” said Amadi P. Anene ’08, a UC representative who sponsored the act.

STOP Campaign Co-Director Chaz M. Beasley ’08 said that lower-income students face a double burden of high textbooks costs—they may need to avoid courses with particularly expensive course literature, and when those courses are required, they often must rely on library reserves or fellow classmates for course materials.

“We want to make sure, above all, that those costs don’t act as an impediment to academic success,” he said.

At last Friday’s meeting of the CUE, which includes students selected by the UC as well as faculty and administrators, the UC representatives pushed a different strategy to reduce the expense of course literature—but met some resistance to the plan.

They presented a position paper that calls for increased faculty training focused on lowering the prices of coursepacks. Coursepack prices can be reduced if students are provided links to online resources that the College has already paid for, according to UC members.

The students would then be able to forgo buying the reading in a printed coursepack and thus avoid paying the copyright fee a second time. The Ec 10 sourcebook, they said, costs $60 at the Harvard Coop, but all 30 of the readings can be accessed online for no charge.

Administrators, though, cautioned that many readings are not available through online resources. They agreed with the UC members, however, that a widespread effort to increase awareness and train teachers to use electronic resources is needed.

“I think it’s very important to communicate student concerns about the total cost of a combination of books and sourcebooks, which I don’t think necessarily everybody’s aware of,” Director of the Core Program Susan W. Lewis said.

The UC position paper also proposed a Centralized Resource Efficiency Optimization Center which would employ students to find course materials from electronic resources that the College has already paid for.

Members of the administration, however, advocated using department resources instead of creating a centralized system.

“Library resources that are associated with the departments and the graduate students who are available to help are uniquely qualified to help with the kinds of issues in that discipline,” Lewis said.

UC member Matthew R. Greenfield ’08 and UC President John S. Haddock ’07 said they are open to both strategies.

“There are benefits to having departments take control,” Haddock said. “There’s also something to be said for having some centralized system to make sure that every department is doing everything that they can to lower prices. I would say [the solution] is probably a combination of the two,” he added.

While members of the administration and one member of the library staff at the CUE meeting urged caution in implementing changes—warning about possible legal difficulties in connection with library resources and calling for a pilot program—the UC members called for a speedy reduction in prices.

“I feel very strongly that this should not be a pilot operation,” said Haddock. “This needs to happen by next fall in a broad way.”

—Staff writer Alex M. McLeese can be reached at amcleese@fas.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Brittney L. Moraski can be reached at bmoraski@fas.harvard.edu.