IUSA hosts town hall meeting

Cheaper textbooks, a fall break and basketball were just a few of the topics at the IU Student Association’s town hall meeting Wednesday night at the Indiana Memorial Union.

The meeting was meant to communicate with students about its progress and for students to ask questions about concerns on campus.

The group started with an overview of the tenants of Big Red’s platform, such as 100 percent meal point rollover, a tax holiday weekend for tax-free textbooks and weekend hours for the Health Center.

For the tax-free holiday, IUSA met with Indiana Sen. Vi Simpson, and they plan to head the lobbying for the state of Indiana.

“It’s an uphill climb, but we’re willing to put in the work,” said Andrew Hahn, IUSA student body vice president for Congress.

IUSA executives also discussed plans for the Health Center to be open on weekends and a possible fall break. The group said it would like to see a Monday and Tuesday off in October but might have to compromise with having the Monday and Tuesday before Thanksgiving off.

The turnout was comprised of predominantly IUSA members, but students not affiliated with the group also voiced their opinions and asked questions. One topic that prompted a lot of discussion was the possibility of getting a student section at basketball games.

IUSA President Luke Fields said his ticket originally wanted to push for a student section but said this year’s team is different than last year, and students responded accordingly.

“We didn’t sell enough seats to fill a student section, let alone ask for one,” Fields said.

He said in order to have a section in the future, students must not give up on the basketball team and IU athletics. He also said he is planning to meet with IU men’s basketball coach Tom Crean to discuss his expectations about the student section and to make sure students will have a voice in the future.

“We want to make sure we have a seat at the table when we’re on top of the Big Ten again,” Fields said.

Another issue which seemed to surprise the audience was IUSA’s work on textbook buy-back and how students are losing money when they sell their books back to the store for too low a price. Fields said part of the problem is faculty doesn’t turn in their book requests on time. He said only 43 percent of the faculty have turned in their book requests so far for the spring semester.

Fields said the faculty did not know they were hindering students from getting money back, so now IUSA plans to e-mail faculty each semester to remind them to turn in book requests.

IUSA talked about other issues, then opened the floor for questions.

Sophomore Jacob Smith said he did not know about IUSA’s meeting until Wednesday, but decided to come to get some idea of the organization and its plans.

“I wanted to see what they had to say on certain issues,” Smith said. “I didn’t know about this at all last year.”