Senate Chairwoman Jill Lawler said in a Student Government Association Senate meeting Wednesday evening that last spring, she talked to Lance Hinkle, the Student Union’s assistant director of retail operations, about contesting prices.
"We will lose our ability to charge on the bursar," she said.
If students tried to extend the ability to charge to the bursar to other bookstores, courts would most likely take away all bursar-charging privileges, she said.In 1992, Cowboy Book took Oklahoma State University to court over the ability for Student Union Bookstore customers to charge on their bursar accounts.
An appellate court ruled in favor of OSU, said Kent Sampson, director of Campus Life.
"Courts decided it was an advantage to students (to charge books on their bursar accounts)," Sampson said. "Most schools require you to pay (all school expenses) up front."
At OSU, students pay for tuition, room and board, and books throughout the year through the bursar. Sampson said that spreading out the cost of college and not requiring cash purchases of books is easier for students.
Hinkle said it is a private business’ prerogative to try to undersell competition, but the Student Union is still competitive with its prices.
"The perception that we’ve raised our prices because of bursar charges is not true," Hinkle said. "On the titles we looked at, we are not significantly higher than Cowboy Book. We’ve had the bursar charge for many years, and we’ve not raised our pricing margin (20 percent) since we’ve had it."
In an advertisement for last summer’s Camp Cowboy participants, the Student Union Bookstore provided a graphic of how each dollar of revenue is used.
Of $1, 11.4 cents goes to support Student Union activities, programs and services, in addition to supporting college store operations. Publisher and shipping costs add up to 65.7 cents. The author receives 11.5 cents, and store personnel receive 11.4 cents.
Several SGA senators commented on the Student Union Bookstore not stocking enough books.
Sampson said there had been a recent shortage of Arts and Sciences freshman orientation books.
However, Sampson and Lawler said the way to remedy the shortage was to improve communication between faculty and the bookstore.
Better communication will let the bookstore know how many books to order so it can have the shelves fully stocked by the start of the semester, Lawler said.SGA also discussed buying back books.
Derek Martin said the revamped SGA Web site has an auction feature called PokiBay. Students can put their books up for sale, and after several days, the highest bid is taken, and e-mail is sent to the winner and the seller telling them how to contact each other.
"(Students can) make a whole lot more money than the 3 cents they get from the bookstore," Martin said. "You can go out there and basically barter."
SGA also heard news about parking, audio visual equipment, Rock the Vote and the Freshman Representative Council at its meeting Wednesday.
Geary Robinson, OSU parking manager, said the Physical Plant created an overflow lot near the old IGA grocery store on Boomer with 187 parking spaces. However, after only 19 people used the transit from the lot in the past three weeks, the transit will drop that site from its run Tuesday.
SGA President Vic Wheeler said the SGA summer budget paid for $8,000 of audio-visual equipment, free for any student group to borrow instead of having to pay to rent equipment.
Students also can take advantage of a free stamp provided by SGA when they register to vote in Payne County. More information can be found in the SGA office at 040 Student Union.
Students from each living arrangement represented in SGA will narrow the list of applicants for FRC Monday and
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