As reflected in my Faculty Personal Data Forms and narrative my work leading the Rhode Island Open Textbook Initiative and campus initiative has encompassed teaching, scholarship and service through faculty education, adapting best-practices and policy on campus and state-wide, and collaborating with librarians and partners across the state.

The following profiles, reports, presentations, and guides document the Rhode Island Open Textbook Initiative as a state-wide effort and my work at Rhode Island College.

Testifying in Support of H5875 (Reintroduced as H7667)

View Testimony. Testimony begins at the 22 minute mark.

These bills were brought to the Rhode Island House Finance Committee by Representative Fellela, through the advocacy of steering committee member James Salisbury. Jim and I testified before the committee after requesting letters of support from our respective administrations and asking Rhode Islanders to call or write to their representatives.

Transcript

I am here today in support of this bill because as a librarian and faculty member at Rhode Island College, I see our students struggle to afford all aspects of attending college, including purchasing needed technology, like laptops and tablets. These students write papers on their phone or wait for a shared family computer to be available. Those that can afford to buy a laptop often struggle to replace or repair it if anything happens to it, which is inevitable. All computers need to be repaired at some point. This bill would support an affordable option for students, in-line with other initiatives the state has taken to make a college education attainable to all Rhode Islanders to develop a civically engaged and educated workforce.

Additionally, by allowing the institutions to use the collected money from sales to supplement technology purchases, this bill brings in much needed funds for higher education. This funding would not solve our campus technology needs, but it could fund a new tool or software for innovative teaching we cannot currently afford while maintaining our current infrastructure.

This bill makes sense for our students and our colleges.

Thank you.

Rhode Island Open Textbook Initiative Partners

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Tenure & Promotion Portfolio Copyright © 2020 by Dragan Gill is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.