Decision to cut RSO makes no cents

Itās bad enough the UA is receiving less funds from the state, but even worse is how the leadership of UA is trying to deal with the problem.

A prime example is the recent decision announced by UA Vice President Richard Powell in a memorandum dated May 10 to cut the Research Support Office.

The RSO plays a vital role in searching funding opportunities and brings them to the attention of faculty.

Most faculty do not have time to search for every possible funding opportunity.

The RSO only costs $160,000 per year to operate and probably is responsible for an important fraction of the $57,923,377 in indirect costs UA receives from extramural projects per year according to the figures for FY 2001.

The RSO only costs 0.28 percent of the income it potentially helps to generate. Unfortunately, taking away this service will mean that fewer funding opportunities will be solicited by faculty consequently and much less indirect costs will be going to UAās future budget.

If we make a conservative estimate that the RSO facilitates 25 percent of the extramural research contracts, Richard Powellās decision to save $160,000 per year actually will mean the university will be losing $14,320,844 per year (coming to full impact in about 3 years from now).

I understand there are less state funds, but whatās the problem in using a tiny fraction of the indirect costs to help faculty obtain more projects, which ultimately will help the university with its own budget problems?

Itās time the leadership of the university stops complaining about state budget cuts by waiving their hands in helplessness and do what leaders are supposed to do: Be proactive in times of crisis.

The right thing to do is to try to obtain more extramural funding by expanding the RSO service and to design a better system of incentives for faculty that actually do bring in funding.

James A. Field
Associate Professor
Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering

The illusion of textbook buybacks

I find it ironic that the UA student body, a group of people who push the boundaries of freedom and fiercely protect themselves against all forms of oppression, passively allow the campus bookstores to blatantly steal what little money we have left.

Enough, I say!

This tyranny has to stop.

Iām sick of paying $300 for books and getting $30 back (if that).

The only way we can stop this cruel cycle of legal slavery is to vacate the bookstores.

Fortunately, there are better ways to buy and sell textbooks.

I plea to every student suffering from this oppression to consider online book trading.

I donāt know how many Web sites participate in this, but sites such as Amazon.com allow students from across the country to buy and sell textbooks with each other.

There is no tyranny here, no idle middleman to soak up profits.

Even with the costs of shipping, one can walk away with a nice pocketful of cash. Even better, the bookstores donāt get a dime.

Please donāt get me wrong, though. Iām not trying to shut the campus bookstores down.

Iām merely suggesting that if no one buys and sells textbooks, what control do they have?

The power to dictate absurd prices will vanish, and the evil from which we suffer will finally be vanquished.

Nathan Eskue
Management information systems, operations management, marketing senior