���� The Summer Reading Program will go into its second year with a budget of $65,000 with a total of $130,000 spent since the start of the program.
While the program is free to students, this may change as the program’s officials contemplate future sources of funding.
Established by Academic Affairs and Student Services, the program was created to provide incoming freshmen with a common academic experience through reading a selected book. It is largely funded by money donated from the Alumni Association, and also includes monetary and material donations from the LSU Bookstore, Paw Prints, Metro 21, and Country Roads.
This year’s book is “Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World,” by Tracy Kidder. Both the author and the subject of the book will speak at the televised Academic Convocation at the Maddox Field House on-campus, Aug. 19 on Channel 21.
Frank Cartledge, the Summer Reading Program’s head of finance believes that when compared to other schools the University pays a small sum for all the services being provided free of charge to students. Some other universities, including University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, use money paid by students to fund at least part of the program.
Cartledge said other schools may use student-provided funds in various ways by incorporating them into orientation fees or requiring students to buy their books.
“At least at the beginning of this program we didn’t want the students to have to pay,” said Cartledge. “[In the future] we’ll have to find some other way to support it. Perhaps a donor who is interested, because it is a very worthwhile program.”
The program’s expenses include approximately six thousand books supplied to incoming freshmen, University staff, Residential Life staff, and Ambassadors free of charge. A major portion of the program’s expenses is paid to the authors and others who speak at the Convocation. Cartledge said extra costs including bookmarks and televised air time are donated by sponsors like Paw Prints and Metro 21.
Cartledge said money paid to this year’s speakers, Kidder and and the subject of Mountains Beyond Mountains Dr. Paul Farmer, will be donated to Partners In Health, an organization co-founded by Farmer to help bring medical care to underprivileged countries.
Cartledge also said that last year’s speaker Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation, was paid $20,000 to speak at the convocation.
Most of the money used to fund the program, including speaker fees, comes from a lump sum donation given to former chancellor, Mark Emmert, by the Alumni Association. Because this fixed amount is nonrenewable, Summer Reading Program officials are unsure of how the program will be funded in the future.
Normal retail for the paperback version of Mountains Beyond Mountains is $14.95 per book.
Because the University purchased such a large number of books for this program a deal was made with the publisher, Random House Publishing, both this year and last, although exact figures were not available at press time.
Even though the University is paying a large sum to cover the cost of the program, Cartledge believes it is well worth it.
“It’s a wonderful experience for the students,” said Cartledge. “What we are paying is pretty typical of what you have to pay to get prominent people to come speak. So it is worth it.”