Campus Policy Hinders Student’s Efforts to Promote Online Bookstore
JOHNSTOWN, Pa. — A student at the University of Pittsburgh’s Johnstown campus says school officials reversed a decision to allow her to distribute brochures about a discount online bookstore, saying it would hurt sales at the campus shop.
Lee Ann Diffendal, a freshman communications major, says her $9-per-hour job with varsitybooks.com is in jeopardy as a result, and so are the jobs of three other students she recruited to distribute brochures about the online seller.
“They have told me I cannot solicit varsitybooks.com on any part of the campus,” Diffendal says. “I can still work off campus, but they’ve made it so much harder, nearly impossible.”
University spokeswoman Helen Golubic said only private business that does not conflict with the university’s own operation can be represented on campus. Diffendal says she hopes to change that policy, but her chances appear slim.
Diffendal says she signed on with the company after a friend who distributes the online seller’s brochures at Duquesne University recommended it. She says her job is to distribute brochures about the company and its wares. But if asked, she will help students order books online.
Jodi Gershoni, communications director with varsitybooks.com, says the company advertises that it sells college textbooks at discounts of up to 40 percent off of distributors’ prices.
“We are marketing on hundreds of campuses and sometimes a campus bookstore feels threatened and will try to stop the student,” Gershoni told the Tribune-Democrat of Johnstown. “There’s a team working in our office to make sure her legal rights are not being harmed, that she is allowed to do her job for the company.”
Diffendal says she got a permit from the university to distribute brochures from a table in the lobby of the student union. University officials asked her if she would be selling anything, and she replied that she would only pass out literature.
On the day she set up shop, she found the manager of the campus bookstore, Tom Dupnock, reading one of the brochures at his desk. She says he told her he would take the issue to the highest authority to prevent her from promoting the online seller on campus.
Computer Policies at Louisiana-Monroe Rely Heavily on Trust
MONROE, La. — Trust is a major part of the computer policies at the University of Louisiana-Monroe. Faculty members and students who break that trust can be punished.
But officials won’t make any predictions about what might happen to a student arrested on child pornography charges and an instructor who has resigned but has not been arrested.
“In our system, people are innocent until proven guilty. I don’t want to make any assumptions,” says Arlen Zander, provost and vice president for academic affairs at the university.
Former psychology instructor Ronnie Santana is being investigated and student Larry Culpepper, 24, was arrested last month. Culpepper is accused of sending child porn over the Internet. But investigators do not yet know whether any university computers were used. Monroe police seized computers from Santana’s university office, his home, and Culpepper’s apartment.
The investigation started when the sheriff’s department in Monongalia County, W.Va., told Monroe police that someone in Morgantown, W.Va., had received child pornography from someone in the Monroe area.
William Lee Kittle, 25, a Fairmont, W.Va., resident then living in Morgantown, W.Va., and still enrolled as a student at the University of West Virginia, was arrested Oct. 4 on a pornography charge. On Jan. 7, a Monongalia County grand jury indicted him on two counts of child pornography. A senior chemistry major, Kittle is scheduled for trial March 29.
At Louisiana-Monroe, anyone using a university-linked computer must sign an affidavit agreeing to use the equipment and facilities for official school duties and studies of the university, Zander said. After they sign that affidavit, they are assigned a user number and can log on.
“We trust the professional judgment of the people who sign these affidavits,” Zander said. “If there are violations, we address those issues then as we are doing now.”
People do not need to sign anything to use the public terminals in the university library because there are library monitors to check on their use, Zander says.
Santana submitted a letter of resignation last month. Unless and until he is convicted, Culpepper may attend classes.
The university can check just what is on every campus computer, but will not do so until officials identify exactly what was found on Santana’s, Zander says. He adds that officials have talked about possible ways to keep illegal files off campus computers, but he does not know what has been or will be done.
Report Calls for `E-Learning’ as College Boom Gets Underway
