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For its first meeting of the spring 2025 semester, Syracuse University’s Student Association hosted John Papazoglou, senior vice president and chief operations officer, to discuss improving textbook adoption processes and making course materials more affordable for students.

Textbook adoption is a system in which faculty are required to share their courses’ required texts with SU’s campus store. This allows students to view the course’s extra costs during the class registration process, not after they’ve already enrolled.

Papazoglou said the current system disproportionately affects students on financial aid, as their aid plans do not allocate spending for class resources such as textbooks. These students are often forced to scramble as they look for used, cheaper textbooks as classes begin, he said.

In many instances, students choose not to purchase the essential materials to save money, putting them at a disadvantage in their coursework. He added that students who have textbooks on the first day of class outperform those who don’t by 16.5%.

“When I got here two years ago, coming from another institution, we didn’t have any data that showed us what our adoption rates were,” Papazoglou said. “It was heartbreaking to try to get the data.”

Before coming to Syracuse, Papazoglou served as the primary liaison for Penn State’s Bookstore contract. At SU, he has worked with SA to form the Textbook Affordability Working Group, a collective that has pressured administration to implement textbook adoption and other more affordable paths, including book rentals.

Papazoglou said heading into the spring semester, roughly one-third of classes provided textbook adoption, while the rest offered no information on required materials. By the fall semester, Papazoglou hopes to increase the figure from one third to 90%, an objective he called ambitious.

The issue stems from a lack of interconnectivity between the self-operated SU bookstore and Ecampus, where textbooks are managed, Papazoglou said. He also explained the need to educate faculty on textbook adoption and how to properly submit the necessary information into the registration system.

In addition to working with the Bursar’s Office and Ecampus, the Textbook Affordability Working Group has met several times with John Cusick, the general manager of SU’s Campus Store. Cusick helped implement inclusive access programs at Onondaga Community College, where the cost of textbooks is included in tuition.

SA President German Nolivos expressed his support for the working group and urged all SA members to complete the surveys Papazoglou sent out. He emphasized that this initiative has been an internal effort by the association and stressed the importance of helping the group gather more data.

“Would you like to see a future where, when you register for classes, you could filter classes and see which ones are low cost, free? Would you make decisions based on which classes you take if you knew how much the course material was? Of course,” said Papazoglou.

Other business:

• Luis Gomez, SA’s vice president of community and government, presented a bill allocating funds for building beds for the Syracuse community. SA would partner with the organization Sleep in Heavenly Peace to build beds for children in need. The bill will be voted on during next week’s meeting.
• Nolivos announced that future assembly meetings will no longer be held in Maxwell Auditorium, and instead are being moved to Eggers Hall room 010.

Published on January 28, 2025 at 12:36 am

Contact Sydney: sadepiet@syr.edu