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University Reprimands Professor For Assigning Cheaper Textbook (slate.com)
schwit1 writes: California State University at Fullerton brought a grievance against associate professor Alain Bourget recently. It wasn't for poor results or questionable conduct — it happened because Bourget refused to assign a $180 textbook for his introductory linear algebra and differential equations course, instead using one that cost $75 and supplementing it with free online materials. "Bourget maintains that his choices are just as effective educationally and much less expensive, so he should have the right to use them. But the university says that it makes sense for courses that have multiple sections to all use the same textbooks. Both Bourget and the university say their positions are based on principles of academic freedom."
I was a professor at a major engineering school, and I got tired of the Institute forcing me to do everything in their prescribed bureaucratic way. Every decision was designed to line someone's pocket. Which textbooks to use, which equipment was required for labs, and even the labs were designed to use sole-source parts from particular vendors (Altera PLDs, for example).
There is no academic freedom in academia. None whatsoever. So, I quit. I started my own company and have never been happier.
During the early 1990's, math textbooks started requiring a graphing calculator. Not just any graphing calculator, but a specific model of the Texas Instruments graphing calculator. If you had a different model or brand, you were on your own as the instructors didn't have time to figure out the four or five other graphing calculators in the classroom. Math textbook and graphing calculator cost $200, which was twice the cost of going full time to the community college at the time.
I went from owning an HP calculator that did Reverse Polish Notation to several models of the TI graphing calculator. I still have them today. Never got around to owning an HP calculator that could take cartridges, say, Missile Command, to extend its functionality. That particular calculator cost $500 or so. More appropriate for the engineering crowd at the university.
Fortunately, I was very much old school towards learning mathematics. When I showed up for an exam without my graphing calculator, I was able to sketch the graph by hand. Other students who forgot their graphing calculator weren't so lucky, as they couldn't graph their way out of a paper bag. I've known several students who dropped out of school because they couldn't afford the latest and greatest calculator for the newest math textbook. The financial aid office came up with a program to help students with buying calculators.
....and in the comments section it mentions that the department started using this book in 1989, 15 years before the author became department chair.
Also, it mentions that the course-approved book rents for much less than the rebel-chosen book.
So obviously there's more to the story than the simple venal corruption that's implied.
- it seems a conflict of interest when a department is *requiring* the use of a book from which the department head(s) directly profit; then again, if my department is using book X, and we can "get" as a professor the author of said book, I'd do it for sure.
- it also seems pretty reasonable that a department would agree to teach from a consistent set of books, especially for lower-level courses, so as to provide a consistent contextual base for all students in later classes; do they do so in other departments?
I don't have any answers to resolve this, frankly.
-Styopa
Most departments allow the instructors to select their own texts for their courses. He also demonstrated that the alternative book and additional sources covered all materials required by the syllabus and in the more expensive book. This is clearly an attempt by the department leadership to line their own pockets by forcing the purchase of their own material.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Create a "Credit Union" version of the University - open sourced books, leverage videos, implement real world methodologies into projects, and foster ethical and professional behavior across all disciplines. Drive to create a true non-profit organization centered on delivering actual education and value back to the middle class students who need that accredited degree to get their foot int he door professionally.
Our President and business leaders talks a good game about promoting STEM and education in this country, but won't do anything to overhaul the terrible system that is our college system. Make it affordable, practical, and worthwhile.
Of course, the same could be said about our health care system, too.
But if you look at it from the chair's point of view -- you work on something for a decade on how to do something, some new guy shows up, says "let's do it a different" way....
When I try to look at it from the chair's point of view, all I can see is greed from people charging $180 for a textbook.
At my university, some professors wrote a textbook. They charged $30 for it, because they were more interested in people learning than in getting rich. It was a good class (but classes taught by such people typically are).
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I had a $150 textbook for an Analysis of Algorithms course in 2000. It was on like it's 18th edition as there was a new edition at least every year and it was an ancient text book to begin with. It accidentally got destroyed and I needed to find another copy for half a semester. I found an old 2nd edition for like $8 at a used online bookstore. Never found a single difference in the book aside from the edition number on the first couple pages.
How much does Linear Algebra change from year to year?
That's what amazes me about the $180 text the rent-seekers are forcing him to use, it's in what, its fourth edition now? The only reason for new editions is to kill the second-hand book market.
The best book on calculus I've ever encountered, beating any modern prescribed text by a country mile in terms of how it explains things, is Sylvanus Thompson's "Calculus Made Easy". I own a relatively recent copy, dating from the 1940s. The original was published over a century ago. The author was born when there were 30 US states, before the Crimean War. The book is a vast improvement over any of its successors.
Was there *any* practical difference between the two books? Calculus at the college level (talking about the US, other places teach the same in HS) has been settled for more than 150 years, any competently-written book will teach the same material.
As a former university and tech school mathematics instructor, I'm happy to throw in my take on it.
Most textbooks are absolutely dull, and are full of extremely contrived examples designed to "show how useful the subject is". Many subjects are extremely useful, but perhaps to only certain fields, so it's sometimes difficult to explain the utility to a first undergraduate course in the subject. This makes many students bored because they're smart enough to realize they're essentially being lied to -- the examples are obviously contrived and lame. Furthermore, it pushes this idea that unless there's a "practical way to make money" on the subject, it's worthless, which is absolutely not true. We should encourage philosophical thought for its own sake, and recognize that such thought sometimes leads to great discoveries long term, even if we don't know how its useful right this minute.
So that being said, the textbook industry knows Education is a buzz word in politics. They know getting Good Jobs (TM) is another buzzword. So they rewrite the textbooks every year now. The actual content doesn't change (or at least not for the best; I think they often just remove content!), they just swap chapters around, and most importantly, tailor the contrived examples to the buzzword industry of the year. They can then go around convincing politicians, school districts, and universities that their books "prepare students to enter the workforce" and you absolutely need the latest edition or your students won't have the advantage others' do. It's kind of a bullying -- they make the professors feel bad, and if they manage to stand up, then they go to the school board or university administration to get their book in.
To convince people of the book, they spam free copies of the book to everyone. They hand out swag at conferences, reminding them of how awesome they are for publishing. They get name recognition.
Professors then start to feel bad that maybe my students are not receiving the same advantage as everyone else, let me use what they all use. Going through graduate school, I had my share of completely awful textbooks for courses. Couldn't learn a damn thing from them. We asked the professor about it (several different ones for different classes) and the response was almost always "this is the standard textbook nationwide on this topic".
Having a standard breeds mediocrity in some sense. To me, University is meant to open your mind to new ideas. I think they should be a little different between semesters and professors. Shake it up. Cover a few new topics, especially if the students seem interested. Throw out a few topics because maybe there's little interest. Why not tailor it to what the students want, rather than university and accreditation boards? I know, losing accreditation would be bad, but that's exactly my point -- the system has damaged what it means to have a university education. You just go through an assembly line, rather than being encouraged to explore your interested. Classes like linear algebra are amazingly useful, but (1) not every applied field in the world needs it, so I can see some instances where you don't want to cover all the nuances; (2) linear algebra is a very large subject and so even if a student should learn it, the question becomes: what part of linear algebra? What should be the focus of the class? We need professors willing to change it up based on student needs and interests. We're teaching kids how to learn, not rote memory -- if we do a good job, then even if we don't cover everything, students will know how to find and learn what they need in the future!
Finally, many textbooks themselves were not written because of someone's passion to educate, but rather to fulfill a bullet point for a PhD or tenure. Check the introduction/forward of any textbook; most of them will say "This grew out of work I did for my PhD....". It is almost verbatim someone's PhD thesis, but somehow undergraduates are expected to follow a PhD thesis on a subject (remembe
I'm a current one. I enjoy bullshitting with our textbook reps, because I enjoy bullshitting, and they keep thinking that entertaining me is going to positively influence our textbook purchasing. What really happened at the last committee meeting was " It is immoral and unacceptable to discriminate against minority students through textbook pricing. I will not support the new edition until there are adequate copies available on the used textbook market.." Throwing the discrimination card worked beautifully.
Yeah, at my college, if the author of a textbook was at the school or a friend of someone at the school, the prof would just get permission to copy it (since the author still held the copyright, not the publishing company). They'd send a loose-leaf copy to the school copy center, and give the students the option of buying the textbook, or buying the spiral-bound copy for a few bucks (cost of making the copies). Great option for the students who were taking the course as a core requirement, not something related to their major.