Need for Transfer Housing Outweighs Local Concerns

Dear Editor,

As a current transfer student and president of the
All-Campus Transfer Association at UCSD, I feel the need to speak up regarding
the issue of constructing new dorms for transfer students, and how it has been
met with disapproval from the Torrey
Pines Gliderport.

Many of the students that transfer to UCSD have high
expectations of what their college experience is going to be like. Many of
these same students are met by disappointment when they find out that the

university does not offer them on-campus housing. I was, and
still am, one of those students.

Transfer students are making very reasonable requests. They
wish to have the privilege of affordable on-campus housing where their
neighbors are their peers, classmates and friends. There is so much focus on
how UCSD officials “really don’t care” about what the gliderport supporters
have to say and hardly any on how those very same officials seem to care about
thousands of students.

Although by the time that the new dorms are available for
transfer students I will have graduated and moved away from UCSD, I would like
nothing more than to see transfer students not be disappointed, but rather find
an opportunity to enjoy their college experience to its fullest.

I implore that construction of the much-needed dorms not be
delayed any further, for it is many years overdue.

— Marwan Azzam
All-Campus Transfer Association President

Bill Shows Promise in Cutting Costs for Students

Dear Editor,

The Oct. 1 article “State Bills Fail to Curtail Ballooning
Textbook Costs” provided an inaccurate assessment of the textbook-related bills
currently under consideration by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The collegiate
textbook market is very complex; as recent federal studies have shown, changes
across the entire textbook market are necessary to help lower student spending
on textbooks.

Pointing the finger at a single segment is good politics,
but doesn’t accomplish much.

Assembly Bill 1548, known as the College Textbook
Transparency Act, is a serious bill that would require publishers to disclose
prices to faculty, list changes between editions and show copyright dates.

Publishers support this kind of transparency and are already
going to great lengths to provide faculty members information about their
materials, including dedicated faculty Web sites that enable instructors

to make informed decisions about what learning materials
would work best in their classrooms.

AB 1548 would also improve the entire textbook market by
setting higher textbook transparency standards for faculty members,
institutions, publishers and bookstores alike.

The bill would require bookstores to post their retail
pricing policies, prohibit the selling of free sample instructor copies (a
practice that raises the price of all textbooks), ban potential conflicts of
interest in choosing course materials and encourage faculty to place their
orders early.

In contrast, the College Textbook Affordability Act (Senate
Bill 832) is a politically charged document that the Public Interest Research
Group has had introduced in legislatures across the country.

The bill requires

publishers to repeatedly provide the same information to
faculty during every interaction, which would be a waste of faculty time and
drive up prices.

Publishers share the common goal of helping students succeed
at the postsecondary level, and they are committed to working with students,
parents and faculty to make this goal a reality.

For more information, please visit
http//www.textbookfacts.org.

— Stacy S. Skelly
Assistant Director for Higher Education Association of
American Publishers