University officials are picking up where Annapolis lawmakers left off after the General Assembly failed to pass three bills aimed at holding down textbook costs this spring.
Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs Jim Osteen said that, in an effort to voluntarily comply with some of the main provisions in the textbook bills, administrators urged professors to post next fall’s book assignments by May 1 and are requiring them to publish books’ International Standard Book Numbers online.
The initiatives are aimed at making it easier for students to shop around when buying textbooks, Osteen said. University Book Center Manager Mike Gore said pressing professors to turn in book assignments early will also help students sell back their books. If bookstore officials know what books will be used the next semester, they can more fairly assess textbook resale values.
Even though the university has always informally asked professors to submit their book assignments by May 1, administrators have made an extra effort to enforce the rule this year after the textbook debate in Annapolis brought the issue public attention.
Student Government Association President Jonathan Sachs called the university’s initiatives positive first steps toward containing one of college’s most overlooked costs.
“We’re getting there,” he said. “You can’t expect everything to change, and after the Annapolis legislation failed this is about as close to an overnight change as you can get.”
But even though many of this spring’s most ambitious textbook proposals remain unresolved, Sachs said he’d push next year for rules outlining when professors should and should not require new and more expensive editions of textbooks. Sachs said he’d also support measures to urge professors to teach at least half a book’s material rather than requiring students to buy books but only read a few chapters.
Both issues were at the center of a heated General Assembly debate this spring about the state’s role in holding down textbook costs. Sen. Jim Rosapepe (D-Prince George’s and Anne Arundel), who co-sponsored one of this spring’s textbook bills, said the university’s measures were a positive step toward giving students more options, but many of the changes he would like to see rest on publishers’ shoulders.
He said he planned to reintroduce legislation next year that would limit how often publishers create book bundles – packages that supplement books with CDs, study guides and more – and asking that publishers make older editions of textbooks more readily available, rather than pushing new editions with few content changes.
For now, Sachs said the most students can do is to press their teachers to post book information.
About 70 percent of professors have adhered to the May 1 deadline the provost set for book assignments. Last year, 95 percent of professors hit the deadline for book submissions, but Gore said this year’s return was otherwise pretty typical.
Professors in almost all introductory level classes have posted books, which Gore said will give students an added advantage as they sell their books during finals.
But in departments that rely heavily on adjunct professors who have to be re-hired every semester, far fewer book assignments have gone online. In the journalism school, for example, books have only been posted for four classes out of 44 undergraduate courses.
Even for full-time faculty, history professor Saverio Giovacchini said it can be hard to meet the deadline because in constantly changing fields it’s hard for professors to keep up with the constant rush of newly published books.
Giovacchini said he’ll usually read through dozens of books on a subject before deciding on a few to assign his classes. He said he hasn’t posted book assignments for his next year’s classes yet but plans to by the end of the week.
“There is a leeway because professors need to do a good job,” he said. “If the professor assigns a bad book, the class falls flat.”
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