Students of the Ontario College of Art and Design have begun petitioning after the University has required them to buy a $180 art textbook.
It’s not uncommon that students are required to buy texts for their classes, but this particular book contains zero art. The artwork’s history is given, and instead of the art accompanying the introduction, there are blank squares with instructions on how to look the piece up online. Administrators claim this alteration saves students money :
“Kathy Shailer, dean of the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences, said the choice was to save students money. ‘It would have been over $300 [to require students to buy the two existing texts, which both include artwork], which would have been beyond the pale of what to ask for students,’ said Ms. Shailer, adding that not all parts of the individual textbooks are used.”
Read the National Post’s full coverage here.
