First, the allegations made against professor Richard Kasschau and his online textbook are egregiously misleading and wrong.
Second, with so many problems facing students as far as higher education is concerned, I cannot begin to fathom that the Student Government Association and its "quasi-president" would delegitimize themselves with such an outlandish stunt for attention.
Third, I understand how quickly students can jump on the "bandwagon" when it comes to "scheming" professors making money off students by requiring texts that afford them financial advantages. However, this is not at all the question at hand, and for The Daily Cougar to run such a biased story does nothing but capitalize on the culture of institutionalized ignorance in the media.
I am not a psychology major nor am I a research assistant or teaching assistant of Kasschau’s. I am, however, a music education senior having only encountered the professor as a student in his psychology class last semester.
The online text that Kasschau offers is truly revolutionary in many ways; please don’t be misled by the "ambulance chasing" story in The Daily Cougar. Cost: The online text is about $90 to $95 – the average cost of any textbook you would buy for any other class.
However, with the online text you are able to read the material in three different formats – normal, outline and tutorial.
Speaking of tutorials, the online feature of the text allows you to be tutored on any of the material you wish. As far as testing, you can take quizzes online within the course timelines. Also, you can take a quiz as many times as you would like, and your score is always the highest of all attempts, as opposed to a majority of other classes.†With a paper test, everyone must take it at the same time, and scheduling make-up tests for tests in which you performed poorly is almost impossible. And that’s assuming the professor even allows you to re-take it. How often does that happen?
Oh, and please allow me to bring to light the fact that you get all these features in Kasschau’s text and more for the same price of a single textbook for any other class, and you can download as many copies of the text as you want.†
How much money would you have to spend getting tutored in psychology? How much time would you spend tracking down a professor and begging him or her to allow you to re-take a test? I’m not an expert on the many features of the online text, but the main ones I’ve mentioned alone make the text worth the money that students pay.
The real problem with textbooks in general is that they are much too high in cost, and most of the professors on campus at UH perpetuate the problem by feeling the need to "update" to the "new" edition of the texts from semester to semester, generating more and more kickbacks for the University with every book bought on campus (i.e. the University doesn’t make money when we sell books to each other). If the SGA really wants something to do, first they should work with other student governments on campuses throughout Texas to get caps on textbook prices and minimize University kickbacks for books sold on campus. Second, many professors on campus shouldn’t even need textbooks to teach introductory classes on topics in which they hold terminal degrees (e.g. Ph.D., Ed.D, etc). SGA needs to work to minimize the constant "text-switching" by professors because Theodore-Presser (a textbook publishing company) decided to change the word "him" to "they" in the preface of your history book.
The SGA and The Daily Cougar need to take up some real issues or stop wasting the ink your tuition and fees are paying for.
Akande, a music education senior, can be reached via [email protected]
