IUSA tickets tackle academics

Three IU Student Association tickets are now competing for election on March 1 and 2. Here’s a look at the tickets’ academic platforms, addressing textbooks and class planning.


Platform: Textbook cost reductions
Ticket: BtownUnited

BtownUnited’s platform focuses on providing textbooks online through OnCourse. The University would directly buy textbooks, eliminating the middleman and negotiating lower prices.

IU would not mandate the new model for all classes. Rather, faculty would determine whether their classes would opt into the system.

Students would be able to access their textbooks online, or have a high-quality physical version printed, both at a reduced rate when compared with current textbook buying options.

Five IU classes are currently piloting the model, with early signs of success, said Barrett Tenbarge, candidate for vice president for administration. Students in the classes prefer the new model to the current system by a 3-to-1 ratio.

“This does not take anything off the table for students,” Tenbarge said. “It affects students in the pocketbook and in the classroom. It will decrease costs while increasing educational outcomes.”

Tenbarge compared the new model to iTunes, as the online format will make books cheaper and easier to obtain, he said.

IUSA will take a leading role in driving students’ demand for the new system, Tenbarge said.


Platform: Tax-free textbooks
Ticket: Big Ten

The Big Ten ticket would partner with interested student representatives to author a piece of legislation that would introduce one tax-free textbook sales day per semester.

“Every single student on campus is buying textbooks,” said Augustin Ruta, candidate for chief of external relations. “There is a feasibility and wide reach to the program.”

Modeled after a similar program in New York, the legislation has the potential to save IU-Bloomington students approximately $2,870,000 yearly, Ruta said.

The ticket has already spoken with members of the Indiana Senate and House of Representatives and will use their approximately 20 state representative contacts to help pass the bill next year.  

The legislation would be proposed in September and would go to the floor of the Indiana Senate on Jan. 3, 2012. If passed, the first sales tax-free day would take place in the fall semester of 2012, Ruta said.


Platform: OpenClassroom
Ticket: reviveIU

ReviveIU’s academic platform is twofold. First, reviveIU would implement a new program called Course Preview, which would allow students registering for classes to preview a course by providing access to class materials such as syllabi, PowerPoints and worksheets.

Ryan Kelleher, candidate for student body treasurer, said the program would use resources already at IU’s disposal and retrofit them to educate students on potential classes, mutually benefiting students and teachers by reducing the number of dropped classes.

Course Preview would operate through OnCourse, allowing students to view a class’s OnCourse page from a previous semester.

Restrictions to the program do exist. The preview would only be available after the professors that teach those courses allow the viewing of class materials. Also, viewable materials could not be downloaded or printed.

ReviveIU’s second component concerns open source textbooks. Such textbooks would be made downloadable free to students if professors who write their own textbooks publish using Creative Commons licenses.