Alright, I’m looking for some feedback here. I’m sure everyone is very familiar with the infamous “Printing Policy” that was implemented last fall. What some people may not know, though, is that through much brew-ha-ha and negotiation the UME finally came to a compromise on the printing issue and agreed to continue printing required manuals, so long as the students accepted the cease of printed class notes. Fair enough: the class notes weren’t always printed on time, many people choose to go without class notes, it would not be possible to provide printed class note to the future UNB satellite campus anyways, etc., etc.

Since that agreement I have been working with Bruce Holmes (who, for the record, is a really good, well-intentioned man) from the UME to put together a list of manuals that are required in Med 1 and Med 2. The UME was worried that if they put out a blanket ‘ok’ to print required manuals, then various profs would just put all their class notes into one package and submit the collected class notes as a required manual, so the UME wanted to draw up a list ahead of time. The final list was supposed to be submitted by me at the end of Med 1, which it was. However, the UME wanted to have a sit down meeting to discuss the final list. Due to schedule conflicts (i.e. vacation conflicts) we haven’t been able to meet yet, but I figured all was going to go along as promised.

My faith in the UME may have been misplaced. The last email correspondence with Bruce Holmes included price estimates for the manuals (per page, per color, etc.), which was expected. What wasn’t expected was this couple lines following the price quotes:

“An idea proposed has been that we ask the class rep to identify the number of students who want a printed copy and we will print at cost for them. Everyone else can not print as it will also be on DalMedix or print on their own as they want. The proposal is that students pre-pay so we know the exact # to print”

To me, this sounds like the UME may be shifting gears and expecting us to pay for the required manuals after all, and merely taking on the onus of coordinating the printing.

“So what” you may say? These manuals can’t cost more than $80 bucks altogether. Hell, I spend more than that on a big night downtown. My main concern is this: across the courtyard, the dental students pay something like $4000 a year in “lab fees”. I am sure that bill didn’t pop up overnight, and very likely started out as something like “lab manual fees”. As it stands we don’t pay anything to the university itself aside from our tuition (student union fees such as health insurance, bus passes, 50 for life, etc. are a separate matter). And tuition is the only thing the government can easily do anything about (and I think that may be frozen for medical school - confirmation on that?). So it really doesn’t matter how much we lobby the government for student debt relief if we start letting the university itself imposing these additional “fees” in place of tuition rises.

Maybe I’m being too sensationalist here, and making way to big a deal over having paid $13 for my PIM lab manuals, so I’ve come here to get some feedback before heading off to butt heads with the UME. I know it’s the summer and many people aren’t checking the blog, but this is an issue that I foresee continuing well into the fall, so ongoing feedback over the next couple months would be helpful.