2008 Woodie Awards
Waters: Deadline is standard
No penalty for not turning in textbook lists on time
By: Angie Favot
Issue date: 11/16/07 Section: News
- Page 1 of 1
Deadlines for faculty to turn in textbook lists are an industry standard, said CMU Bookstore Manager Barry Waters.
Waters set a deadline of Oct. 19 to allow six to seven weeks for the Bookstore and Student Book Exchange, 209 E. Bellows St., to search for used books and build on the buyback list.
No department fully met the deadline this year, he said in an e-mail to Central Michigan Life. There is no penalty for missing the deadline.
"We send professional reminders on a weekly basis to the departments once the deadline is passed," he said. "We are professionals. A penalty would alienate the faculty from the Bookstore and that would be disruptive to the process of gaining timely adoptions in the future. "
It is unlikely textbook requests sent to departments will ever meet any given deadline because of factors beyond the control of the departments and faculty, he said.
The Academic Senate approved the textbook submission deadline resolution Nov. 6, which encouraged faculty to meet textbook submission deadlines.
Sterling Heights senior Mike Zeig, Student Government Association president, said there were two goals in introducing the resolution.
"The first is to simply educate faculty on the issue," he said. "I don't think faculty are trying to not save students money; they just may not be fully aware."
Zeig said since the information is now public, he wants to hold faculty accountable if they don't meet the deadline.
"If there are ways to save money and are as easy as this, I think the faculty should be doing so," Zeig said.
John Belco, general manager of the SBX, said education is the key to saving students money on textbooks. Publishers add study guides and Web access to textbook packages to drive up the cost in order to compete with used books, he said.
"Most of the packages that have been put together really are not always used in the class," Belco said. "I have no problem with packaging if the items are legitimate and will be used in the class, but that is not always the case."
Belco said sales representatives for the publishers don't give faculty the whole story when it comes to extra materials.
Waters would not give any specific figures for the amount of money students can save per department.
"That is difficult, because a late adoption for a 250 student section is quite a bit different from a 10 student section," he said.
news@cm-life.com
Waters set a deadline of Oct. 19 to allow six to seven weeks for the Bookstore and Student Book Exchange, 209 E. Bellows St., to search for used books and build on the buyback list.
No department fully met the deadline this year, he said in an e-mail to Central Michigan Life. There is no penalty for missing the deadline.
"We send professional reminders on a weekly basis to the departments once the deadline is passed," he said. "We are professionals. A penalty would alienate the faculty from the Bookstore and that would be disruptive to the process of gaining timely adoptions in the future. "
It is unlikely textbook requests sent to departments will ever meet any given deadline because of factors beyond the control of the departments and faculty, he said.
The Academic Senate approved the textbook submission deadline resolution Nov. 6, which encouraged faculty to meet textbook submission deadlines.
Sterling Heights senior Mike Zeig, Student Government Association president, said there were two goals in introducing the resolution.
"The first is to simply educate faculty on the issue," he said. "I don't think faculty are trying to not save students money; they just may not be fully aware."
Zeig said since the information is now public, he wants to hold faculty accountable if they don't meet the deadline.
"If there are ways to save money and are as easy as this, I think the faculty should be doing so," Zeig said.
John Belco, general manager of the SBX, said education is the key to saving students money on textbooks. Publishers add study guides and Web access to textbook packages to drive up the cost in order to compete with used books, he said.
"Most of the packages that have been put together really are not always used in the class," Belco said. "I have no problem with packaging if the items are legitimate and will be used in the class, but that is not always the case."
Belco said sales representatives for the publishers don't give faculty the whole story when it comes to extra materials.
Waters would not give any specific figures for the amount of money students can save per department.
"That is difficult, because a late adoption for a 250 student section is quite a bit different from a 10 student section," he said.
news@cm-life.com
Be the first to comment on this story