About the Affordable Learning Initiative (ALI)

What is ALI?

Faculty and students at Cal Poly Pomona have been voicing their concern about the high cost of textbooks for some time. The Affordable Learning Initiative project is our response to this concern.

The Provost has asked the Library to develop the implementation of the CSU Affordable Learning Initiative Campaign at Cal Poly Pomona. We have organized the ALI Steering Committee to help with this implementation. The charge of this committee is to provide access to resources that will help faculty choose and provide quality, accessible educational content that is more affordable for their students. Choosing textbooks and learning materials are in the purview of the faculty. Our purpose is to help faculty find quality alternatives. This can be in the form of digital textbooks, open courseware resources, publishers' repositories, ebooks, the book rental program at the bookstore, and textbooks on reserve in the library.

According to the information on the CSU Affordable Learning Solutions website, our students typically pay over $1200 per year for textbooks. As the costs of textbooks continue to rise we must find ways to alleviate some of this burden.

The purpose of the Affordable Learning Initiative Campaign is to make affordable alternatives available to faculty as they make textbooks and other course related materials decisions. These alternatives must still be of the highest quality, must help to achieve the learning objectives of the course, and must support the appropriate pedagogical approach.

A steering committee composed of the Provost, The CIO from I&IT, the Dean of the Library, representatives from the University Library and eLearning, and other stakeholders such as the Bronco Bookstore, the Faculty Center for Professional Development, a student representative from ASI, and a faculty representative appointed by the Academic Senate from each college will provide the necessary links to make this campaign successful.

As we all struggle to make ends meet in this tough economic climate, anything we can do to reduce the economic stress on our students will help to provide better access to a quality CSU learning experience. Faculty participation is essential to the success of this program.