The beginning of a new term is always rife with a twofold sense of anticipation and loss — anticipation for new classes and experiences and loss as students shell out hundreds for overpriced and often uninteresting textbooks.
The only thing worse, it seems, is shelling out hundreds for sleep-inducing walls of text written by the same professors who teach the class. This often gives the student not only a sense, however justified, that the professor can’t relate to budgetary difficulties of many students, but also that the professor is out to make a quick buck on the backs of poor college kids.
However, that’s not to say that all professors at the University are incapable of writing decent, well-researched textbooks or that all professors are out to rip off the student body. We’re fully aware that the University employs a large number of impeccable educators who, at one time or another, have put together textbooks that don’t require a DayQuil to read.
But the idea that professors would create a product that they could potentially profit from and force their own students to buy it seems wholly unethical. After all, if a professor is going to lecture on everything he or she wrote in the book anyway, then the necessity of buying, much less reading, the text is drastically reduced. Furthermore, class readings should give a breadth of views and angles to the subject in question, something that is distinctly lacking when you read a chapter one night and hear the same material the next day.
Some teachers who require their own books, such as journalism Professor Janet Wasko, remedy this problem by assigning other books to provide different perspectives, which is a partial solution to the ethical dilemma.
“If someone is only using a book that they’ve written, that could be perhaps problematic,” Wasko told the Emerald. “I don’t know what other professors do, but I use a book that I’ve written. I always use a lot of other readings because I think that’s an important point that there should be a lot of perspectives presented. I never just use my own book.”
Professors who don’t keep royalties from their books also seem a bit more fair, although the problem of diversity in reading still exists. It’s reasonable to assume that these professors, with their expertise in the field, require their own textbooks simply to contribute to the understanding of the subject. But perhaps professors could accomplish this greater understanding just as easily by making class notes available online or putting together a course packet, which is quite a bit lighter on the wallet than a textbook.
We urge professors who do assign their own books to forfeit their royalties earned from University students, perhaps giving them instead to a charity or educational organization, or make the purchase optional. At the very least, these professors should always explain to the class the reasoning behind assigning the book.
As journalism Professor Kyu Youm told the Emerald: “I think it’s professionally unethical, and that kind of thing should not be condoned, unless his textbook is the best in the whole world,” he said. “Some professors are using their textbooks because they are ego-inflated.”