By: Nicole Hassinger
Staff Writer
@HassingerNicole
The Student Government Association (SGA) was unable to form a committee for text.com advertising and promotion at their first meeting of the spring semester.
Text.com is a third-party program that allows students from universities to buy sell and trade textbooks with other students. The website is set up similarly to the IU Classifieds, but is specific to IU South Bend students rather than all of the IU campuses combined.
SGA Vice President Lois Kassem and President Hannah Van were eager to approach the new textbook-selling platform that is available for students at IUSB. Some of the student senators were skeptical during the Jan. 15 meeting.
“If faculty and administrators are worried that it will look bad against the bookstore, then why should we promote something that might cause a strain?” said Senator Amanda Bogard. “Even if it is a good thing for students, maybe the student government isn’t the place to support it.”
Kassem suggested SGA members form a committee to inform the students at IUSB about the new book exchange site.
The concern expressed at the meeting with creating a committee dedicated to the text.com site is whether the SGA would appear to be advertising for a third party. Some SGA members also thought they would need to assure that they would not be breaking any agreements or contracts within the university by promoting the website.
There were suggestions about teaching students how to use the site and decide for themselves whether it would benefit them.
“I think there is a fine line between supporting something and endorsing something,” Senator Stephen Salisbury said in response to the committee suggestion. “I think what a lot of the senators are saying at this point is rather than have a committee where we will actively endorse this software, that maybe that is not the direction we should go. We can still support it and be involved and let students know about it.”
For now, the SGA remains at a standstill in the decision of creating a committee for the launch of text.com.
