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News

Proposed policy proves divisive

Faculty Senate won't back Foss' idea for the creation of a textbook review committee 

by BLAKE WHITAKER
The Daily Cougar

The issue of textbook royalties continues to stand in the way of a University policy that would regulate what can be earned from faculty-produced textbooks and educational materials assigned in UH classes.

Provost Donald Foss said the Faculty Senate's rejection Nov. 15 of part of a policy that would call for the review of textbooks that faculty could earn royalties on stems from "honest differences of opinion about what constitutes a conflict of interest."

The rejected part of the four-part policy -- Part D -- says any UH faculty members who wish to use educational materials they could earn royalties on would have to submit those materials to a six-member review committee, with three members appointed by the provost and three by the Senate.

Dan Wells, a biology and biochemistry professor and chairman of the Faculty Senate Educational Policies and Student Affairs Committee, said the main objection to a textbook review committee is based on academic freedom.

"A lot of the faculty feel that, ‘Why should I have to go through a textbook committee to tell me that it's OK to use this book that's being used at every other university in the nation?'" he said. "I think that some faculty feel that it's really an infringement of their academic rights and it's an insult to them personally … some faculty are offended by that."

Wells said not all faculty members feel that way, however.

"There are some people in my committee that are the other way, that think Foss hasn't gone far enough. They think he needs to be more strict," he said, adding that it is nearly impossible to speak for all faculty members on the issue.

Foss said he does not see Part D as a restriction of faculty members' rights.

"I do not believe that the proposal did impact upon academic freedom because it simply asked that a committee of peers vouch for the fact that the work meets national standards before royalties could be collected," Foss said.

Wells said for faculty who object to Part D, money is not the issue -- it is "the principle of the thing."

"The percentage you make off your students is 1 percent (of your total profit), or something like that. It's negligible," he said.

Despite the vote, the provost has the final say in what policy will be enacted. Foss said he is still working on a solution and said a new policy will not take effect before Summer 2007.

Though Part D failed to pass, the Senate passed the other three parts of the proposal unanimously. 

Parts A and B encourage faculty members to produce educational materials and ensure faculty members and faculty units will retain the right to choose what to assign in their classrooms. Part C stipulates self-produced materials assigned to students -- "reproductions, custom books or other materials," the policy reads -- must be provided to students at cost. It says materials produced by departments must be available at "a reasonable price."

Wells said some of the practices Part C would regulate can "make (faculty members) look bad."

"There's pretty good agreement from everybody I've talked to that if you're going to bundle your own notes or you're going to put together old quizzes, you shouldn't be selling them to students (for a profit)," he said.

Foss said the Senate's support of Part C sent a strong message.

"I believe that the Faculty Senate has spoken clearly to their faculty colleagues in Part C, and I agree with what they have said," he said.

The parts of the policy that passed will not be enforced until Foss makes a final decision about the policy as a whole.

There are no guidelines in place regulating educational materials at UH, though a policy has been in the works since students and University auditors prompted the Senate to look into the issue more than two years ago.

The Senate approved a policy in November 2004, but the University administration requested changes. The Senate agreed that self-produced materials should be regulated, but a compromise could not be reached concerning textbook royalties.

The Senate rejected a policy Foss proposed in March that would have required faculty members to donate textbook royalties earned from UH students on to a state-approved charity.

"My goals were, and are, to help ensure fairness to students and to develop a policy that will avoid conflict of interest," Foss told The Daily Cougar in March.

Some universities already have textbook policies in place.

At the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, for instance, professors who assign textbooks they have written are required to submit forms requesting approval from their deans.

"Faculty, quite rightly, are concerned about possible conflict of interest in making money from their students in this way, or even the appearance of conflict," a memorandum sent out in September by the UNLV Office of the Executive Vice President and Provost reads.

At The University of Texas at Austin, a Board of Regents policy dictates that faculty members who use their own textbooks are required to submit forms to their deans for approval each fiscal year. The form asks several questions about the textbooks, including how long they have been used at the university and how much money professors expect to earn from their students.

--Additional reporting by Chi Chi Nwaorie.
 
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