Community Council

Author: Hillary Hall

The Community Council met on Nov. 4 to discuss several issues. Council member Assistant Professor of Italian Stefano Mula brought the first issue to the table: a motion urging the faculty to put its booklists on BannerWeb as soon as possible.

Mula called this idea "easier for everybody."

Ultimately, though, the Council decided that considering Bookstore Manager Robert Jansen's recent e-mail to the community, which stated that the Bookstore will now post booklists online two weeks before the start of the term, it did not want to step on any toes by using BannerWeb. A motion for Mula to speak to Bob Jansen and discuss further options passed almost unanimously, with just one abstention.

Tahirah Foy '10 moved for the next issue to be discussed, a motion that the Library place on reserve at least two copies of books for introductory classes with more than 30 students. Citing the current tight budget, the Library had told the Council that it has a policy not to purchase textbooks.

"So what are the alternatives? How can the college help students who can't afford their books?" asked Assistant Professor of Spaniss Juana Gamerode Coca.

Cordelia Ross '09 suggested PDF versions of textbooks, but the Council, at the urging of Antoinette Rangel '09, voted to move on to another issue that effectively attempts to answer Coca's question.

This motion, citing that the average per semester expenditure per student for textbooks is $400, urged the College to reconsider the Bookstore's for-profit model. The bookstore currently makes $400,000 a year. Rangel called the issue one of the most important.

"We are punishing people for needing books," she said. "It is the only thing that you really need to have as a student at Middlebury that you have to pay for."

Despite remarks from several Council members that the College depends on this income, and Dean of Wonnacott Commons Matt Longman's resulting point that the $400,000 will show up somewhere, most of the Council agreed that the bookstore should not be where the school makes this money. Because of time constraints, though, they reached no resolution and Mula's movement to table the issue was favored by the majority of the Council.

The meeting finished with a presentation by Hiba Fakhoury '09 and Isaac Sadaqah '11 about a new Web site called "MiddBay," on which students will be able to list books and furniture that they want to sell.