Dean’s office allows students to recover books after accidents

The Student Government Association voted to give $2,000 to a fund aimed at replacing students’ textbooks that could be destroyed in the event of chaotic incidents, such as the sprinkler flood in Callahan Hall earlier this semester, at the organization’s Sept. 16 meeting.

The Barnes & Noble bookstore on campus gives SGA $10,000 a year for book scholarships for students, who must apply for them, according to Matt Frentz, SGA’s finance committee chair.

This year, SGA decided $2,000 of the total would go to the emergency textbook fund, which is distributed through the dean’s office, and the remaining $8,000 would go to book grant applicants.

According to Jeffrey Waple, NKU’s dean of students, this fund has been used since Follett operated the bookstore on campus before Barnes & Noble came to NKU two years ago. Waple said the fund was started before he came to NKU in the fall of 2008.

“Barnes & Noble has increased that money, which we’re really grateful for,” Waple said.

According to Waple, the fund helps students whose textbooks were destroyed in situations such as a fire or by fire sprinklers. Waple said that students can go to his office to request money to replace their books.

“We hope none of that [emergency] money will have to be used because we don’t want anything bad to happen to students, but it will be there,” Frentz said.

Frentz said if Waple’s office “knows something happened to a student, they’ll reach out to them, but a lot of times those things aren’t found out by his office.”

“It’s not based on financial aid,” Waple said. “It’s based on a personal tragedy where they lost their books.”

According to Steve Meier, the associate dean of students, students will be asked to sign a document that promises they will return the textbooks at the end of the semester.

Meier said that the books are turned over to the lending library on campus.

“It’s so they can’t make a profit on it,” Meier said.