University Reprimands Professor For Assigning Cheaper Textbook (slate.com) 363
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."
The real issue (Score:5, Insightful)
The Fullerton text in question is Differential Equations and Linear Algebra, published by Pearson with a suggested price of $196, but available at the Fullerton bookstore for $180 (used editions for much less). The authors are Stephen W. Goode and Scott A. Annin, the chair and vice chair, respectively, of the mathematics department at Fullerton.
Now it all makes sense.
Re:The real issue (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The real issue (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The real issue (Score:5, Interesting)
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).
Re:The real issue (Score:5, Interesting)
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*cough* Harvard Calculus *cough*
http://www.math.harvard.edu/~knill/pedagogy/harvardcalculus/ [harvard.edu]
Re:The real issue (Score:5, Insightful)
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....
It's strange to me how we're concerned about everyone's point of view here, except for the student.
Also known as the fucking reason chairs and vice chairs exist.
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This isn't unusual.
I remember (seemingly back in the dark ages) having a debate with an academic about the truly awful state of UK university networking (at the time JANET was strictly X.25 and forbade IP traffic, the tools were terrible, the writing already had been on the wall for a couple of years that IP was the future, but this lot had a severe case of 'not invented here' syndrome and were pushing hard for an ISO-OSI model network instead of the "anarchy" of TCP/IP, think all the X.something standards
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"Also known as the fucking reason chairs and vice chairs exist."
Common misconception.
The primary goal of university faculty is published research. Faculty are promoted for that, and effectively nothing else.
The side-goal of university faculty is teaching students. This generally does not effect promotions or salary. I had a dean at a prior school laugh in my face when I said I thought I was valuable because I was an excellent teacher. "We don't care about that...", he said, "We can get any body off the stre
Re:The real issue (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
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It looks like "academic freedom" doesn't mean what it used to mean. We live in a truly Orwellian society.
Freedom is a prison, brother.
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There's nothing wrong with this. As they are directing what they view to be necessary for a good mathematics course, it makes sense that they'd use their teaching material.
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This assumes that the $180 book is better than the $75 book. If it is superior, then requiring that book over the cheaper version makes sense. However, that is clearly not the criteria here; the criteria is "does this book make the chair and vice-chair money", with no regard for the quality of the text.
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WTF is with all these apologists? They are making money hand over fist on these materials, materials they created over the course of doing their job, materials which could be distributed for negligible cost.
They are fucking scumbags.
Re:The real issue Conflict of interest (Score:3)
The professor has a solid ethics case against the school fot a clear conflict of interest case. The reprimand could get the school in serious legal trouble.
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I can't even respect this as an evil scam. The book is published through Pearson-Prentice Hall, which means Goode and Annin are pulling in peanuts in royalties while basically doing all of the dirty work.
If they weren't lazy bastards, they could have just self-published, charged $50, saved their students money, and still gotten out ahead! But no, that would be almost like real work, and would detract from their precious pontificating time. Typical third-tier academics with their heads up their asses.
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I knew this already, and wondered why the summarizer failed to mention it.
Re:The real issue (Score:5, Interesting)
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Most departments allow the instructors to select their own texts for their courses.
This is a multi-section course. That means there are more than one instructor. It is nonsense to have one section of a course using one book and another section using a different book. It is a complete waste of time to have a student go to an instructor and ask for help, and then the instructor has to figure out which book the student has and how that book explains things.
He also demonstrated that the alternative book and additional sources covered all materials required by the syllabus and in the more expensive book.
The FA reports that the book in use was written specifically to cover material requested by other departments at Fullerton.
As for "ad
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It's not uncommon for college professors to be utter scumbags indeed, doesn't make it right.
They can have course material printed and bound at the university and sell it for 10 bucks or less, there is no reason to have it hard bound at a real publisher except for reasons of vanity and self enrichment.
Re:The real issue (Score:5, Informative)
The curriculum in a math class like this one is rarely determined by the book. Introductory Diff Equ and Linear Algebra haven't changed in, like, 40 years. The topics are always the fucking same, every book covers all of them. Frankly, more variation in topics covered comes from the professor, than from the textbook used.
Your point about seniority is, sadly, correct, but let's not pretend there's a good reason for it. It's just graft and ego-stroking.
btw, Associate Professor is not a low title. In North America, the ranking is usually: Adjunct, Assistant, Associate, Full. Even as a lowly adjunct, I had say in choosing my own textbook; this probably had something to do with the department chair not having written the incumbent textbook. Frankly, to not allow an Associate Professor to select their own textbook is quite insulting to everyone. If they are so incompetent as to not be able to choose their own classroom material, then how the hell did they become an Associate Professor?
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"If they are so incompetent as to not be able to choose their own classroom material, then how the hell did they become an Associate Professor?"
For published research. I have multiple acquaintances who are new professors who don't even write their own lectures (they are given canned PowerPoint presentations and tests from the department), and this is considered roundly to be a good thing by all parties, because it frees up time for the research by which all promotions and advancements are judged. Professors
To add to your post (Score:3)
Here an Associate Professor has tenure. If you are tenure track you are hired as an Assistant Professor, and become an Associate when you are granted tenure. So it means you've been around for some time and passed your big milestone. Becoming a full professor does not happen for a long time after that, generally at least 10 years, sometimes longer. As a practical matter departments usually only have so many lines for full professors.
So an associate isn't some junior level position or anything. It means a te
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1) Don't use the textbook in question.
2) Sell the textbook at cost. That's be something like $30-75 apiece depending on circumstances and the quality of the book.
In addition, the department may want to look at removing these two professors from such an obvious conflict of interest. Revoking tenure may also be warrante
Re:The real issue (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
"academic freedom" (Score:3)
This is why I quit academia (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Gone through this during my college days... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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I took the standard three course calculus sequence plus differential equations around 1980. Then I took the same four courses again about four years ago. I was very surprised how much more effective the courses were with the addition of the graphing calculator. By using the calculator for some of the grunt work much more realistic problems could be done in class. In particular when attacking triple integrals we would do the first two integrations by hand and then use the calculator to estimate the final
Sharp calculators (Score:2)
You entered in up to 50 "button pushes" of whatever, and hit =. To check you entered it all, you hit PB (playback) and you could then scroll through every bit of it. It also had 6 memory locations you could draw from. The others in its price range had 2.
No other calculator came close (at that time), even at 3 times the money. [I guess they are up to 142 steps [sharp-world.com] now.]
Fond, fond memories of that product. From sharp
The university has a point, there (Score:5, Insightful)
I say the professor should have brought up his concerns with the text book earlier; although working in academia I suspect he may have himself been assigned to teach that section without enough time to do so.
In other words, there is blame to go around.
Re:The university has a point, there (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, considering the department chair and vice-chair are the co-authors of the book, I don't think he would have gotten much traction.
How much does Linear Algebra change from year to year? Is there a real reason -- other than milking students (aka Federal Student Loan money) -- of not using a textbook from say, 2006, which is plentiful and under $10 on the used book market? Has there been a revolution in either the fundamental mathematical theory or the teaching of such to require new, "revised" editions of the text that are 10-20x more expensive?
Re:The university has a point, there (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re: The university has a point, there (Score:5, Insightful)
Jeez, they are INFORMATION.
Information by nature is plentiful. Like a hole, the more you take, the more it grows.
MIT give away [mit.edu] their course on Linear Algebra. If it's good enough for MIT, why is not not good enough for Fullerton?
Oh, right, because it's not a $180 textbook that pays royalties to the chair and vice-chair of maths.
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They are only plentiful because new editions made them obsolete. If you were still able to use them there would be far less old editions available.
What new information? The book is about linear algebra and differential equations. It isn't about cutting edge topics like genetic cloning or cosmology where there is new information every year. In my opinion the information in the course does not change as the artificial requirements of the course do. For example with more books requiring computerized learning modules, this means that they have to be updated more often as software is required to be updated.
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It's going to be horrible for those kids that learned from the "alternate" linear algebra course when they get out in the real world. Employers are going to expect students to have learned the Fullerton's Linear Algebra and not some other linear algebra. Even later courses those poor students are going to struggle.
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That is not how it should work. Here, each course is associated with a particular set of concepts and the instructor is reponsible for teaching these concepts. When I teach a course the department recommends me a text book, but I can do whatever I want.
If you want a course that uses this book, this set of slides, and this set of assignment, get an f-ing parrot; I have better things to do.
RTFA for once (Score:5, Interesting)
....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.
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Also, it mentions that the course-approved book rents for much less than the rebel-chosen book.
Of course it does. Publishers want to move to a model where you don't actually own anything. They can make more money that way.
In the context of this discussion, I agree with the department in that all sections of a course like this should all use the same textbook. I disagree with the department (as does the professor) that the textbook should be so expensive especially in a subject that has not really changed in years, decades, heck, even centuries.
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The author was at the institution since at least 1986. So he wrote the text while teaching there before becoming department chair, and the department adopted it. There wasn't the idea of "getting" (hiring) someone who has had written a book they happened to like. More likely, he'd been teaching the course, got his notes published as a book, they weren't more terrible than any of the other dozens of weak linear algebra texts, and they fit that particular course well, so his colleagues said it was OK to
Keeping current with linear algebra (Score:2)
conflict of interest ignored here (Score:4, Informative)
A professor assigning a textbook that he or she wrote happens fairly often as people tend to write texts for courses that they teach often, and tend to write texts when they are not happy with what options are already out there, and they generally think that they cover things in the best way possible, since they wrote it. Often a text evolves from course notes and is shopped around to various publishers, one of which is happy to accept it and polish it up and charge extortionate prices for it. If it gets adopted on its own merits at other institutions, great for the publisher and author.
But there is an obvious conflict of interest when a faculty member requires a text that he or she wrote for a course at the home institution, as the author/instructor gets some of the money (not much, though, even for a $180 text, I'm afraid.) At a normal university with standards and ethics, there generally is a mechanism for making textbook adoption decisions revenue-neutral for the instructor. I know of places where the part of the proceeds from the sale at the home institution of the author is sent directly from the publisher to something like the department colloquium fund, or sometimes if the publisher can't cope with the complexity, the author just donates the apportioned proceeds from sales at the home institution to a student support fund or tutoring lab or something like that.
Apparently, in this department, there is no such mechanism for the revenue (or the authors are not worried about the conflict of interest) and the authors apparently do get money from the text being required at their own institution. It is easy to see how another faculty member, now tenured, can feel that it is unfair for the text to be required, if the text isn't that great (most aren't) and if the money is going to his or her department members despite the fact that it is not the best value book. When the people profiting in question are part of the department administration (chair, assistant chair) that makes resistance more difficult, as department staff can retaliate in various obvious and subtle ways and there can be pressure to comply with unethical practices.
At a normal university, there would be conflict-of-interest policies that apply and would probably prevent a department from forming a policy to require a course purchase which benefits a faculty member financially. At Cal State Fullerton, either there aren't any strong policies, or they are being ignored, apparently. The instructor who is not following this unethical policy does have tenure (his wife is also tenured in the same department) so though he can't be readily dismissed or denied tenure, but still because the people who are financially impacted by this make decisions which can affect him and his wife, this is big headache.
There has been support from faculty in other departments which is a good sign but the fact that it got this far is one sign of an unhappy dysfunctional math department. There are hundreds of commodity linear algebra and differential equations textbooks out there, with lots of different approaches. Most of them are terrible, but there are enough good ones that this kerfluffle seems pretty ridiculous.
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If they get no significant kick back from a 180$ book why even publish it at a publisher? Have it printed and bound locally.
But of course they do ...
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That sounds easier to do that it probably is; I'm not sure about Pearson but almost every publisher has exclusivity requirements and it would stun me if Pearson didn't have something like that as they have been doing this for a long time.. Once the publisher typesets and prettifies your course notes, they have the exclusive right to distribute them, etc. Unless that was negotiated at the outset (and it would take someone with some integrity to do that) it is unlikely to be feasible now. The easiest thing
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One of my graduate TA's did just that, 30 years ago. He compiled notes and study guides made by himself and other TA's, imported them into TeX, invented a publisher, hired a printer, and sold thousands of books. The hardest part was writing the book, not publishing and printing it. And this was all in the early 1990's, before the Internet made its way outside academia. Today, publishing and printing is even easier than it was at that time.
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not much, though, even for a $180 text
In this case the $180 reflects the number of courses the book applies to, and thus the amount of lock-in. If the exact same book wasn't mandated for so many courses, it would cost less, despite consisting of the same materials.
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But there is an obvious conflict of interest when a faculty member requires a text that he or she wrote for a course at the home institution, as the author/instructor gets some of the money (not much, though, even for a $180 text, I'm afraid.) At a normal university with standards and ethics, there generally is a mechanism for making textbook adoption decisions revenue-neutral for the instructor.
Supposedly the department has been using that book for years. In fact, the department was using that book for 15 years before the author even worked for the school. See the comment from argStyopa [slashdot.org]. If they were already using the book, it doesn't sound like the author of the book had any influence in it's adoption once he became a faculty member.
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Even if the author was not the chair at the time of the adoption, a tenured faculty member will vote on an untenured faculty member's tenure decision and this power imbalance is routinely exploited every day on campuses across the country. My guess is that the faculty member in question had objections to the text but did not say anything until after he (and his wife) had tenure and was less vulnerable. He is still vulnerable (may eventually want promotion from Associate Professor to Professor, may not wan
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ps. The author Goode has been at CSU-Fullerton since at least 1986 according to his profile at mathscinet [ams.org]. His most recent research publication was 1995. The author Annin has been there since 2005 and perhaps he became a co-author in one of the updated versions. It is not uncommon for a senior faculty member to get a junior one to help update an older text, and publishers like it when there are new editions as it kills the used book market for a while.
but wait, there's less (Score:3)
While 75 dollars is a significant savings over 180, why stop there? I just did a search on "linear algebra" on Google Shopping, and I can see three books from Dover Publications in there, with a combined cost of $33.18. While I'm sure they're terrible at explaining linear algebra to someone who doesn't already know linear algebra, I'm equally sure that the 75 and 180 dollar versions are terrible as well. I'd rather have three concise terrible math books books plus 40-150 dollars than one really heavy terrible math book.
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Or there's MIT's Opencourseware on Linear Algebra [mit.edu], zero dollars.
Insanity, I tell you! (Score:2)
This really is plain insanity. The cost of a university education is well out of control, and textbooks aren't helping.
While I agree that having the same coursebook over a whole section (i.e. All Math 101 classes use the same book, which hopefully Math 201 also use..) I do believe that our educators should have a hand in which textbook is selected. Unless the group deciding what textbook is used, teach from said textbook, they need to take a backseat and listen to the people on the front lines. Cost is o
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If only there were some mechanism of disseminating and copying course materials that was virtually free and used equipment that everyone attending college can afford.
It's time for a new type of university (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Open source math! (Score:2)
I am OK with DRM on Tailor Swift songs and proprietory word processors. But copyrighted mathematics? Seriously? Claiming exclusive right to facts and laws of nature?
Authors Of Textbooks Are Not Getting Rich (Score:2)
I see many comments saying something along the lines of department chairs / professors "lining their pockets" by requiring books that they wrote.
While it very well may be an ego thing, it is definitely NOT a money thing. My wife has written many collegiate level textbooks and they are used at many different schools. She netted a whopping $600 in royalties for 2014. The authors are not getting rich on sales of textbooks. Their salaries dwarf what they earn for publications.
Next conspiracy theory ...
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Some good points (Score:2)
While I'd like to support the guy that's trying to save his students some money, his colleague & supporter Hassan is nuts, and making his position sound irrational: "If the university thinks you are good enough to teach the course, they should let you pick the materials," he said.
A world full of "We can do whatever the hell we want", is not a place I'd want to live. I would be furious if semesters 1, 2 & 3 of a course each required a DIFFERENT BOOK, instead of using the same one. Perhaps all three
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I would be furious if semesters 1, 2 & 3 of a course each required a DIFFERENT BOOK, instead of using the same one. Perhaps all three books having been written by each professor... Perhaps all three costing $180 a piece!
Pass the class the first time and you won't have to take 2 more semesters of it
Could be worse (Score:2)
Larson: $279
http://www.amazon.com/Elementa... [amazon.com]
Poole: $274
http://www.amazon.com/Linear-A... [amazon.com]
Williams: $206
http://www.amazon.com/Algebra-... [amazon.com]
By contrast:
Strang: $66
(Intro to Linear Algebra, 4e, 2009)
http://www.amazon.com/Introduc... [amazon.com]
But also:
Strang: $322
(Linear Algebra and its Applications, 4e, 2005)
http://www.amazon.com/Linear-A... [amazon.com]
Of course what makes this racket even worse, there's been nothing new in the field of Linear Algebra for over 100 years. A textbook written in 1915 would be just as usable as one writ
Or do what my professors did ... (Score:2)
They had the assigned textbook, and a list of suggested textbooks. Either way, the instructor assigned their own problems, usually a mix from the instructor's manual and of their own creation. In the case of readings, they gave the topic and (in the case of the assigned textbook) section numbers for the current and prior editions. The student was by no means obligated to buy the assigned or recommended textbooks. They could use a book of their own choosing, online resources, or simply rely upon lectures
Reprimands? Try fired! (Score:3)
I'll preface this by saying that I was not tenured faculty. But I was adjunct faculty with a thriving career outside of the university and seven years as a part-time faculty member.
This happened to me at local State U (I'm in a flyover state) and ended my years as a professor. I was a top-rated instructor in the department by both student evaluations and faculty observations, advising graduate students, experienced, and had been there a long time teaching courses that I developed and that were well-received.
New leadership came in at the divisional level, and I was called in to a meeting with my chair one day. I was told I could no longer do what I had been doing for at least half a decade: assigning a textbook that was several editions old (there were no substantive changes in the newer editions, just replaced photos) and instructing students on the syllabus to pick the books up for literally pennies on Amazon.com, Alibris, eBay, or other online venues.
Instead, I had to assign the latest issue of the textbook and do it only through the university bookstore, at a cost of >$150.00 in one class, >$200.00 in another (compared to an average of $4.00 plus shipping most semesters for the online used versions). I had it listed as my first assignment on each syllabus—buy a used textbook online and submit proof of purchase (to be sure the students actually did get ahold of the textbooks).
I refused. I said I would provide both options—I'd order the textbook through the university bookstore and provide that as an option to students that preferred to buy new, through the bookstore, but would also allow both current and old editions to be used in my classes for students that wanted to rely on used books. I was threatened again. New only, bookstore only.
I refused. I was fired.
That semester (in 2014) was the last time I set foot on a college campus as a professor, after nearly a decade in the classroom every semester. Again, I wasn't tenured—but it left a significant hole in curriculum and advising. They were more interested in ensuring that students contributed to revenue and partnerships through bookstore purchases than they were in actually enabling students to learn in a cost-effective way.
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Nah.
Other courses probably use a DIFFERENT overpriced text book.
$180? Are they fucking insane? That's worse than pharmaceutical prices. At least cancer miracle drugs have the excuse that they have to go through expensive FDA trials and most of them don't make it on the market.
This is not a new subject. The treatment is probably not original. The "R&D cost" is probably no worse than a similar book that's not associated with college.
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Re:If... (Score:4, Insightful)
Macroeconomics, while partially math-based, is also a lot of the discussion of evolving schools of thought. It's not settled, and the to and fro of collective opinion on what functions best or what model represents reality best is always being debated, and crosses into politics at times, and new Economic theories that impact undergrad studies appear at least a little more often than new undergrad math concepts.
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Isn't $180 is kind of a low-ball bribe for the FDA to certify a 'miracle drug'?
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Monopolistic power (Score:3)
Yeah, it seems insanely low. Given the monopoly power of the schools — they control, which books can be used — they could ask for your first-born child as well.
The Big Ed's shenanigans are far worse than those of the regularly-condemned Big Oil and Big Pharma, for example, and they are long overdue for some Congressional scrutiny [frontpagemag.com].
That's what tuition is for (Score:3)
" Given the monopoly power of the schools...they could ask for your first-born child as well."
That's what tuition is for. Textbooks are just a side racket.
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That will prevent authors from making perfectly legitimate profits from their writings. We don't need ultimate (nor "final") solutions — we already have one and have been using it for centuries: free market.
Though colleges still compete with each other for students, other aspects of a proper market are missing. When the actual consumers of a service or product aren't the same p
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$180? Are they fucking insane? That's worse than pharmaceutical prices.
Student loans. Easy money. The student will pay whatever because the loan covers it and the student is incapable of thinking of how exponential interest will harm him in the long run. It's the same principle that drives the pharmaceutical industry. How do you think they get to a $65,000/dose cancer treatment? "Don't worry your insurance will cover it".
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"How do you think they get to a $65,000/dose cancer treatment? "Don't worry your insurance will cover it"."
That's disingenuous. Are you sure that $65000/dose price doesn't include not only the cost of research/trials/fda approval of THIS particular drug but also the countless other drugs that didn't live up to expectations?
My mother-in-law takes a fairly new med for her leukemia -- it's about $10,000 for 14 days and has been very effective. That drug would have never made it to market if "big pharma" didn
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If only 1 million people in the next 20 years worldwide need a single 14 day course, that's 10,000,000,000 to them.
They wouldn't have so much cost from failed attempts if they would actually give up on them when the early results are disappointing rather than trying to find a way to game the stats to show some tiny sliver of efficacy.
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You said nothing that counters what I said. Pushing new medications in to adoption isn't cheap. How is that not PART of getting meds to market? How useful would it be if a new med came out but wasn't really adopted?
The goal of "big pharma" is to make money. They do that by providing effective medications and push the line of new and greater quality treatments. If you remove their ability to make money you will remove them from making new and greater quality treatments. This isn't complicated and makin
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Here in Canada, there is a law that limits loans based on the what percentage of my income the payments would end up being. I can't help but think a lot of this madness would end if the maximum student loan was based on what is affordable based on the expected income of someone graduating with the degree in question.
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If they are maths students, they should be capable of thinking of it.
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Student loans. Easy money. The student will pay whatever because the loan covers it and the student is incapable of thinking of how exponential interest will harm him in the long run.
This is why we don't teach critical thinking in public schools. Without critical thinking, we can suck them into college prices w/o thinking about the reward/return ratio.
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$180? Are they fucking insane?
The people reprimanding him are the people who chose the $180 textbook, and they also happen to be the authors of that overpriced textbook.
So no, it definitely not that they're insane... Unethical, corrupt and greedy, but not insane.
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What is going on is that the same class, say Math 101, is being taught by multiple different teachers, most likely at different times of the day/week. Typically they are designated Math 101a, Math 101b, Math 101c, etc. This lets people that want to take Math101 take it even if Physics 101 happens to be taught at the same time as Math101a - you just take Math 101b.
The OTHER teachers - teaching the exact same class Math 101a and Math 101b, tell students to buy the $185 textbook. But he teaches Math 101c and tells his students to buy the $75 book.
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Maybe if the education system here took their heads out of their asses, it would not matter which text book was used for a particular subject. As long as the student learns the base material on how to resolve the questions asked of them during their exams, the book should be irrelevant.
They are not supposed to be teaching kids how to parrot a book to pass a test.
The problem is that the text book and testing industry have such an incestuous relationship, and their collective hands are so far up the asses of
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Maybe if the education system here took their heads out of their asses, it would not matter which text book was used for a particular subject.
It seems to matter very much to the people who chose the book for the course because they also literally wrote the book. So they probably think it's the best and they get a portion of every sale.
The problem is that the text book and testing industry have such an incestuous relationship
Quite incestuous indeed, since they wrote the book and then picked the book that they wrote.
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Yes, that is a dilemma.
When I went to uni the first course in statistics required one book at around $200. However the profs had agreed to use the same book in the three follow-up statistics courses as well. So if you were going for a bachelor in statistics, you just bought that one book for all your statistics courses.
Similar story in physics, at least for the first two-three courses. The math courses were a bit more fractured for some reason, though in two of the courses the textbook was written by the pr
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When I started college nearly all textbooks were created by the teachers giving the course, we had a college bookshop with hundreds upon hundreds of locally printed course material. Slowly they were transforming to books while I was there.
The material always became worse, no exceptions.
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I believe that the GP misunderstood the summary's statement of "courses with multiple sections" to mean "multi-semester courses," which I do not believe is the case here -- certainly not for an introductory linear algebra course. Multiple sections means that there are multiple sessions of the exact same class going on at the same time.
As a former professor (in mathematics, even!), I would agree with the initial sentiment. The university should make sure that courses taught are consistent. This may even affect their accreditation. Who is this associate professor to break the uniformity of the students' education?
However, if you read the article, you'll see that the authors of the department-assigned text are the chair and vice-chair of the department. Which is largely unethical in my opinion. (But don't get me started on ethics and the textbook industry...)
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(But don't get me started on ethics and the textbook industry...)
There's ethic in the textbook industry?! Since when?!
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But don't get me started on ethics and the textbook industry...
Actually, since you are a former university(?) math professor; I'd love to get you started on ethics and the textbook industry, and hear your take on it.
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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
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Here's what one former university professor had to say about his experience with the textbook industry [textbookleague.org].
The man from the book depository was there, and he said, "Excuse me; I can explain that. I didn't send it to you because that book hadn't been completed yet. There's a rule that you have to have every entry in by a certain time, and the publisher was a few days late with it. So it was sent to us with just the covers, and it's blank in between. The company sent a note excusing themselves and hoping they could have their set of three books considered, even though the third one would be late."
It turned out that the blank book had a rating by some of the other members! They couldn't believe it was blank, because [the book] had a rating. In fact, the rating for the missing book was a little bit higher than for the two others. The fact that there was nothing in the book had nothing to do with the rating.
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Not according to one of the math professors commenting in TFA:
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When I was in university it was standard to have the same text, and even the same assigned problems across the entire course. Which generally makes sense since the same exam was administered across sections too. Of course no reason a dedicated professor couldn't do the legwork to ensure their students had similar problems.
At this point though we should be using open textbooks, basic math isn't changing.
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The problem isn't really the textbooks---the books themselves are often relatively cheap (for example, a 9th edition of Sullivan's Precalculus can be had for $30 or $40 if you don't mind being an edition out of date). The problem is that students are also required to buy access to the publisher's website in order to do their homework. One alternative is to hire advanced undergraduates to grade papers, or (better yet) hire more expensive graduate students, or even (heaven forbid) tenure track lecturers to
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Yes, remember, all the ills in the world can be traced back to not being able to fire someone for no reason at all...
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To add to that: What's actually happening is that students return their textbooks to the campus bookstore at the end of the semester because 1) quick pocket cash, and 2) they don't need the book anymore. The bookstore then returns these used texts to the publisher, who then destroys them, because if they didn't put out a new edition every year or two they would go out of business fairly quickly. There are probably other conditions as well, such as if the bookstore doesn't sell so many copies of such-and-suc
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Hallowe'en is tomorrow.