Hello everybody!

I want to take a moment here and thank all of you SO MUCH for signing this petition, and I want you to know that you all signing it, made our position so much stronger before the campus administrators. With that being said, I have entered into talks with UTSA's leadership, and I am happy to announce that UTSA in response to this, will be launching an OER task force!!!

The OER Task Force: the Advancing Open Educational Resources Task Force is one of Provost Shipley’s priority initiatives for 2024–2025. This group will focus on integrating OER materials into all core curriculum courses. This initiative is not just about reducing costs for students, but also about enhancing the accessibility and quality of educational resources, ensuring that instructional materials reflect the most current and diverse perspectives in every discipline.

I am at this moment still in active discussions with them over how this task force will operate, how student input will matter here and be obtained and I'm seeing if more could be done than this even. They did notate one thing of interest: They said that UTSA could not pay for our textbooks even if they wanted to, due to restrictions in state law, and that community colleges, such as SAC, do not have such restrictions and as such do pay for textbooks.

If we still want textbooks to be paid for, if we want immediate action, or if you don't like OER textbooks for some reason, then we need state action and we need it now. Reach out to your local Representative in San Antonio or whatever city you may be in, if you do want to see this action. I plan to follow up with more updates soon. This fight isn't over yet, its just getting started, so in the meantime, please share this petition with your friends, and your family, and anybody you know at a UT sister institution, and have them sign today!