University Life Council
Minutes of Meeting
September 18, 2006
LC 31J
Present:
John Murphy, Dan Smith, Bob Yagelski, Bill Reese, Candace Merbler,
Gene Bunnell, Tim Hoff, Jean-Francois Briere, Kehe Zhu and Joan Savitt
(Chair)
Meeting commenced at 3:00 p.m.
Chair’s Report
Minutes from the May 8, 2006 meeting were approved at the August 28, 2006
organizational meeting.
Minutes from the August 28, 2006 organizational meeting were approved as minutes for
University Life Council.
Chair Savitt welcomed everyone to the meeting and briefly reviewed ULC’s previous
year’s activities. She discussed the status of the ULC’s subcommittees and which ones
may or may not need to be activated for the upcoming year.
Chair Savitt provided a recap of the Executive Committee meeting with Provost Herbst:
 An interim president will be named in the near future
 “Business as usual” mentality with a continued focus on undergraduate excellence
 Increase “Group 1” student recruitment
 Importance of improving faculty/student relations (and ULC may want to also
address this)
 Intramural position in Athletics that ULC passed as a resolution was not part of the
grants that were announced under the compact plan initiatives
 The proposed legislation on mandatory student health insurance generated a lot of
questions form the Senate and in order to bring it forward again, answers to the
questions would need to be addressed
Chair Savitt asked the council if ULC wanted to work on the health insurance issue and
bring it back to the Senate. One point raised was that while all the ULC members seemed
to agree that the University does need mandatory health insurance, the cost is a big factor.
Additional concerns include issues of part time students and how other SUNY schools
manage the mandatory health insurance.
It was suggested that Dr. Peter Vellis, Health Center Director, provide additional
information on research he has conducted regarding this issue. Chair Savitt agreed to invite
Dr. Vellis to attend a future meeting.
Textbook prices
Rising textbook prices are a problem to the University’s student population. ULC members
engaged in a lengthy discussion regarding the prices of textbooks and what faculty, staff
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and publishers can do to make things easier, financially, on students. Highlights of the
discussion included:
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Concerns about publishing companies adding items to books and creating
“packages”, thus driving the costs up
Different fields having different textbook needs. For example, the English
Department may have ten different options for books whereas engineering has only
one textbook option and it might be very expensive but necessary
Suggestions were made that students should try to find their books online (i.e.
amazon.com) and also search out the used book market
Faculty may be unaware of the prices of their books or the fact that there were only
2 local bookstore options and are ordering books without realizing the financial
impact it has on students (and if they did know, they could be more judicious in
selecting certain books)
Rob Yageleski stated that different fields have different textbook needs and if there is only
one option and that option is a $175.00 textbook, there isn’t much that can be done. He
also suggested that students can look at vendor websites and used book stores as well. R.
Yageleski did state that there are only 2 bookstore options (Mary Jane books and The
UAlbany Bookstore) and that maybe faculty are not aware of the market situation.
John Murphy stated that if faculty wait until the last second to order a book for a course,
the bookstore won’t “buy back” that same book from students (thus creating the need for
students to buy the book new).
Jean Francois-Briere asked if there were guidelines to help with the buy back process and
Candace Merbler encouraged fact finding in this situation and asked about the money that
Barnes & Nobles receives on book sales. She also suggested amazon.com for used books.
Chair Savitt said that the culture is different today in that students are no longer marking
their books or writing in them, presumably in order to ensure that they are suitable to be
bought back by the bookstore.
J. Francois-Briere stated that one can’t really control new books being issued but making
sure that the faculty is aware of how much these books cost may help the situation and
perhaps another book can be selected. Dan Smith countered by stating that books are
chosen on educational merit and a book that’s appropriate for the course may be the most
expensive one.
D. Smith also stated that faculty can no longer use “Shipmates” or other copying services
to “create” textbooks anymore. Members inquired about how professors could receive the
right to print certain sections of books and Robert Yagelski commented that to receive
permission from the publisher to reprint certain sections is extremely expensive and may
not be the best overall solution.
Kehe Zhu commented that some publishers publish a new book every two years, thus
making the current text obsolete. He suggested that if the institution takes a stance that if a
new book is published so frequently than that institution should say that “we won’t buy
that book from you”.
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The UAlbany Bookstore has a contract with UAS and representatives from UAS should be
the ones to explain how the royalty program works. Julia Filippone, Executive Director of
UAS and the UAlbany Bookstore Director, Dixie Bott, should be invited to speak to the
Council.
Tim Hoff expressed concern over problems placing orders with the Bookstore and has seen
instances where not enough books are ordered and students will go into the Bookstore and
not even be able to get the book the professor has requested. T. Hoff also stated that
another problem is when a new edition of a textbook is published it can make finding a
used copy of that same book very difficult, almost as if the new edition completely wipes
out the old edition of the book. He feels it is important to educate faculty and encourage
students to use competing vendors to get the best price.
John Murphy strongly encouraged that ULC should hear Barnes & Noble’s side regarding
this issue.
Tim Hoff suggested a way to make it easier for students to seek out lower priced books.
When a student registers for their class, they should also get the book list from the
professor at the same time, thus giving them more time to look for a better price on the
book. He also suggested that when professors create their required textbook list that not
only should it go to Barnes & Noble but also to someone who can post the list somewhere
on the University website. T. Hoff feels very strongly about helping students and having
options to find reasonably priced textbooks. Members discussed the problem with drop/add
and students not knowing what classes they will actually have and how that could pose a
problem with creating an accurate and complete book list.
Dan Smith said that Hudson Valley Community College’s book prices were close to
amazon’s prices. He also stated that the HVCC bookstore was owned/managed by the
student/faculty association, unlike UAlbany’s which is owned by Barnes & Noble. All
members were curious about how other higher education institutions’ bookstores were
managed and D. Smith and C. Merbler offered to take a visit to the HVCC bookstore to
talk to the manager.
Tim Hoff was concerned about why certain books have such a high sticker price, if
markups are occurring and why. He also recommended bringing in students to get involved
with this issue, particularly the Student Association.
Chair Savitt will email ULC members to develop a precise list of questions to ask
Bookstore representatives.
New Business
In addition to the subjects of mandatory health insurance and book prices, both of which
were determined to be important ULC topics for the year, members were still concerned
about family leave benefits, a topic that ULC had addressed and submitted as a resolution
last year. It was briefly discussed and most likely will be left as it is for now. It will be
raised at upcoming UUP meetings.
The issue of faculty/student relations was also discussed and Tim Hoff felt it was
important that something be done to address the perception and problem that professors are
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not “accessible” to students. Dan Smith asked if there was any information from the “Ask
the President” email program, perhaps specifically about any students who were having
trouble reaching out to professors or other staff. ULC members see this as an important
topic and want to create a list of things that the University could take on to improve
students’ view of faculty. This topic will be further discussed at future ULC meetings.
A previous ULC topic, housing for international students and visiting professors, was
addressed by members. C. Merbler felt this issue was an important topic for ULC to
address and should be kept at the forefront of discussion.
Next Meeting is on October 16, 2006 at 3:00. Room location is LC 31J.
Meeting was adjourned at 4:20 p.m.
Respectfully Submitted,
Nancy Lauricella, Recording Secretary
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