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More professors requiring students to buy books off campus
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MATT CAPOWSKI
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By Secondary education and history senior Chuck Patton (right) and biology and chemistry sophomore Andrea Wolfrey shop for textbooks Saturday at the UofA bookstore. Some instructors are requiring their students to purchase books at off-campus locations this fall as a way to support local bookstores.
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Monday August 20, 2001 |
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Despite UA policy, instructors continue to order from local bookstores
The UofA Bookstore will continue to see a large increase in traffic and business as the semester begins, despite the fact that some instructors will be sending their students off campus for their textbooks.
Frank Farias, director of the UofA Bookstore, said the issue of instructors ordering their class textbooks though local bookstores rather than through the UofA Bookstore has been an ongoing problem for over a decade.
Farias said instructors in the English, history and women's studies departments have been the most adamant about not ordering through the bookstore.
Kate Randall, co-owner of Antigone Books, 411 N. Fourth Ave., said her store attracts many University of Arizona instructors looking to order through locations other than the UofA bookstore.
"There are not many local bookstores left for them to chose from," she said.
Randall said many instructors have told her Antigone has a faster turn-around on book orders than the UA.
She also that Antigone orders as many books as needed for a particular class, while the UofA Bookstore orders fewer texts than needed to avoid being left with extra books.
Farias, however, said this is not true and the bookstore's opposition to instructors ordering elsewhere has nothing to do with the UA's loss of revenue.
"We have a mission to provide students with a service, and this gets in the way of that mission," he said.
Melissa Blumenthal, a senior majoring in English, has spent several semesters in classes that require her to shop for her textbooks at Antigone.
"I think it's great. I wish more people would do it," she said. "(The instructors) want to support the local bookstores and not have to deal with the UA."
Mandy Siegel, also a senior majoring in English, was in one of the first women's studies classes that required students to go to Antigone.
However, due to pressure put on instructors by the UA and the state legislature to buy through the UofA Bookstore, the women's studies department no longer orders through Antigone.
Randall explained that the incident arose after a student's mother complained that her daughter had been sent to Antigone, which she viewed as a predominantly gay and lesbian bookstore.
"I thought it was totally outrageous," Siegel said. "I have had professors who have said that if anyone in the class feels uncomfortable with going (to Antigone), he or she will go there for them."
Farias, who has worked to keep an open dialogue with heads of the departments under question, said a policy exists requiring instructors to go through the UofA Bookstore. However, he said reporting individuals that go through stores such as Antigone is not a solution.
Farias said he believes some commonality can be reached if instructors ordered through both Antigone and the UA.
"This would give students an option, and we would still be able to provide that service to them," he said.
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