Folks, the Student Association proposal regarding textbooks is, in most elements, both reasonable and desirable. However, I must point out two problems.
One is external – publishers change editions of standard texts, such as the literature anthologies I employ. Often it seems there is little reason for the change except to force students to purchase new books instead of used ones, but I have no idea as to how either students or faculty can control those publisher decisions. (My own recently-adopted tactic is to abandon the textbook in favor of one offered by another publisher if the revisions become too frequent.)
The second problem is that there are occasions, potentially quite a few occasions, when I do not desire to assign the same books to a class from term to term. In English I use, not just standard textbooks, but individual novels, plays, and the like. Those selections are always readily available, usually at the $8 to $12 price range, from Amazon and from local retailers.
While I habitually assign the same novels to my American Lit. Survey sections, in other classes I tend to bounce from item to item as I move from term to term. I would hope that such items, the ones we would be more inclined to call ‘books’ than ‘textbooks,’ would be exempt from the policy. If not, my classes would suffer in terms of freshness and creativity without students saving as much as a dollar on their textbook bill. My opportunities to assign a combination of free Web material and such books would be limited, actually costing students money.
Thanks, and the best of luck to all in controlling textbook costs. Having spent the past four years paying for textbooks for my son, I am more than aware of the seriousness of the problem.
Marty Price is an instructor in the English department. He can be contacted at [email protected].