tl20020204-000 "Baltimore's #1 College Paper - Published Twice-Weekly - www.thetowerlight.com ThE TOLUE/1/ Monday, 2/4/02 Winter break-ins plague Richmond ITU swings with new dance class 3 9 Towson falls fast to No. 21 ODU 16 Tigers take game in overtime, 6-5 - 17 Departments News 3 Taking Stock 4 Campus Briefs 5 Nation 6 Arts., 9 Soundbites 10 Entertainment Briefs 11 Sports 16 In This Corner 16 Athlete of the Week 19 Off-Campus Scoreboard 19 Classifieds 20 Opinion 22 Textbook revenue on the rise University Store attributes high sales to climbing prices and failing competition Chris Terry The Towerlight There is an explanation for the long lines at the University Store this semester. Textbook sales have risen 9.96 percent over the last year, an increase of over $260,000. Wayne Sharrer, director of the University Store, said the average annual increase in textbook sales is four to five percent, leaving an addi-tional five percent increase to be explained. Sharrer said he is still searching for the answer. ""In part it's because students have become much more comfort-able buying books with us rather than online because they've been burned,"" he said. ""But that doesn't account for the overall increase, which is very significant this year. I don't have an answer because the student population is not that sig-nificantly higher."" Sharrer said, however, that he thinks the sales increase may not be due to more students buying books, but book publishers contin-ually raising prices by only selling textbooks in packages. ""In the past you could buy a text-book for $50 or $60, but now [pub-lishers] are coming out with these packages � so called value packages � that the instructor may or may not want, but it's the only way you can buy it,"" Sharrer said. ""Publishers are jacking the price up. Instead of selling an individual book ... they're Putting a CD in it and making it feel like a value to you and charging you $100 or $110."" Freshman communication stud-ies and entertainment law major Andrea Vaccarelli said extra materi-als included in textbook packages are useless to most students. ""Nothing with a disc is useful,"" Vaccarelli said. ""Nobody wants to take the time out to use it."" Sharrer said that in addition to including supplementary materials, many publishers are raising rev- See BOOKS, page 8 Today High 41 Low 22 Saul Stoogenke The Towarbght Senior Gillian St. Hill, a stock room clerk at the University Store, sorts through stacks of textbooks. In the past year, textbook sales have risen by 10 percent, bringing the store's 12-month total to nearly $2.9 million. NSF sponsors new grant at Towson Joshua Gamon The Towerlight In December, the National Science Foundation (NSF) of Arlington, Va. awarded Towson with a four-year grant of $396,000, which created 45 new scholarships for stu-dents majoring in the fields of mathematics, computer science and computer information systems. The program has been dubbed the ""C.O.S.M.I.C."" (Computing Sciences and Mathematics In College) Scholarship. Dr. Martha Siegel, chairperson of the department of mathematics and one of the principle investigators of the scholarship, believes the NSF funding will open new doors of opportunity for students majoring in the field. ""Our department looks forward to having a special cohort of bright Tuesday High 43 Low 26 Wednesday High 44 Low 25 and enthusiastic majors,"" Siegel said. ""We have a terrific program to prepare them for successful and rewarding careers."" ""Our department looks forward to having a special cohort of bright and enthusiastic majors. We have a terrific program to prepare them for successful and rewarding careers."" Dr. Martha Siegel chairperson department of mathematics According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the fastest growing occu-pations in the period from 1998- 2008 will be computer engineers at Thursday High 46 Low 29 108 percent, computer support spe-cialists at 102 percent and systems analysts at 94 percent In fact, the demand for these positions has been so great that for nearly two decades several major companies have been hiring hun-dreds of immigrants in place of American workers under form H-1B, a work visa that allows immigrants to live in North America while they work in these fields. However. in the wake of the events of Sept. 11, those companies who hire under the H-1B have grown weary of choosing immi-grants over American workers because of the looming threat of cyber-terrorism. Also. companies who hire under the H-1B must pay a tax to Immigration and Naturualization Services (INS) for each immigrant See GRANTS, page 7 Friday High 48 Low 29 "
