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Letter to the Editor: Privatizing the bookstore would be disastrous
The university is looking to sell the University of Calgary bookstore to Follett, an American corporation worth $2.7 billion. Bringing in a private corporation to sell textbooks to students would be kneecapping the student body at its most vulnerable during a pandemic, a recession and yearly tuition hikes.
Currently, textbooks are sold to students as close to at-cost as possible, keeping prices affordable. However, we all know that textbooks are still unaffordable, which is why the bookstore has three cost-saving programs the Book Loan program, the Sponsored Students program and the Textbook Rental program.
With four positions uncontested and one position contested, the 2021-2022 Faculty of Arts Students’ Association (FASA) council was announced on April 8.
President Mateusz Salmassi, a third year psychology international student, cited budget cuts, tuition hikes, performance-based funding and healthier academic regulations as desired points of change in his platform. His platform points spoke to building issue-based FASA campaigns “designed to go beyond advocacy,” creating a VP Student Organizing role, expanding the Arts Undergraduate Research Symposium (AURS), collaborations and working with the Council of Alberta University Students (CAUS) and continuing to fight for “Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Justice” through various actions.
On Feb. 26, a combined forum for candidates running in this up-coming Students’ Union election took place online via Zoom. This event was organized by the Students in Communications (SIC) club and was moderated by Shaziah Jinnah, who is the vice-president student affairs with SIC.
The two candidates for president, Rayane Issa and Nicole Schmidt, took part in the forum, each advocating for the return of in-person attendance of classes. They both agreed that student consultation will be necessary in order to ensure the process is student-centered but noted that it would depend on the timing and safety that was best for students returning. Talks of tuition increases in response to the Alberta Provincial Budget had Schmidt and Issa present two different approaches about how they would tackle fighting tuition increases.
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Alberta’s NDP is joining post-secondary students in a call to action for changes to UCP budget cuts, which they say will result in tuition hikes, reduced access to post-secondary education and less opportunity to diversify the province’s struggling economy.
In an outdoor event at the University of Calgary on Tuesday, NDP Leader Rachel Notley and NDP Advanced Education critic David Eggen joined students in calling for a reversal of $690-million in cuts to post-secondary, freezing tuition until the pandemic ends, stopping hikes to student loan interest rates and halting the move toward performance-based funding.
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