Sunday, October 21, 2007

Heads up! (and heads down!)

The Board of Trustees of the South Orange County Community College District meets Monday night (at Saddleback College, near HS). For a copy of the meeting outline, go to this site. Click on "Oct. 22."

Near as I can tell, the big issue faced by the district right now is our projected failure to adhere to the “50% Law” — owing, it seems, to mismanagement by the Chancellor, who has allowed the matter to spin out of control, despite multiple warnings.

THE CLOSED SESSION:

During closed session, it appears that the evaluation of administrators will continue.

Included among those evaluated: the two college presidents.

THE OPEN SESSION:

The open session is set to (re)convene at 6:30 p.m.

Among the agenda items are the 2007-08 budgets for each college’s student government. Board discussions of SG budgets sometimes produce sparks.

Item 5.3 concerns the proposal to install campus safety and security cameras at the two colleges (and one park) “at a cost not to exceed $600,000 from Basic Aid funds.”

This would be, of course, a non-instructional expenditure. Given our “50% Law” crisis (namely, that we’re spending proportionally too little on instruction, too much on such things as administrative salaries and light bulbs), this discussion could get interesting.

Or not.

Listed on the agenda is one “discussion item”: 6.1 SOCCCD: Compliance With 50% Law

REASSIGNED TIME:

Among “information items” is 7.1: Release Time and/or Stipends: “Actual expenditures for release time and stipends as identified in the 2006-07 budget.”

Note that Mathur has chosen to refer to reassigned time as "release time." That makes RT sound like some kind of time off. No. RT involves relieving an instructor of some of his or her teaching duties so that he or she may perform other duties, such as chairing a committee or presiding over the Academic Senate.

This discussion is bound to be fun. Genuine shared governance—at least the kind that gives a voice to faculty—depends on granting reassigned time. That's why it is routinely granted throughout the state.

Textbooks at IVC: a quick browse

As of 11/20/20; Assembly Language is $122.95!

I FIGURED
it might be interesting to follow up on my earlier post (about the high price of textbooks and new legislation aimed at helping to remedy the situation here in California) by taking a quick look at some textbooks sold here at Irvine Valley College.

Naturally, my efforts below are unsystematic. So, for what it’s worth:

LOGIC

My area is philosophy, especially critical thinking and ethics. In my own courses (sections of Introduction to Philosophy and Ethics, etc.), students have access to readings (mostly secondary readings that I have written) for free online.

But we teach logic as well. So I visited the IVC Bookstore website (Follet) and selected Introduction to Logic (Philosophy 3). Our logic instructors always seem to use Hurley’s Concise Introduction to Logic, a standard text.

For the first section listed, a “custom edition” of Hurley’s book sells for $70.25 new and $52.75 used (it is the only required text).

For the second section listed, an “abridged” version of Hurley’s text is sold new (only) for $44.25. (Evidently, it comes with a CD-ROM.)

I went to AMAZON and looked up Patrick Hurley. Here, I encountered a problem, for it was hard to tell which versions of Hurley’s text correspond to the texts sold by IVC/Follet. The hardcover version sells new for $115.95 and used “from $109.95.” The paperback (I think) sells new for $90.88 and used “from $14.00.”

There’s no reference to “custom” editions.

Nowadays, the paperback is $32
MATH


So I moved on to an area with which I am unfamiliar: Math. Once again, I went to the IVC bookstore. At random, I selected Math 10 (Intro to Statistics).

For the first section listed, one book is required and another is “recommended” (evidently by the instructor; there is yet another section entitled “suggested by bookstore”).

The required text is Statistics & Probability Theory, by Dachslager (5th edition). New, it sells for $76.50. Used, it sells for 57.50.

The recommended text is Statistics & Probability Theory (SSM), again by Dachslager (5th edition). It sells new for $43.50 and used for $32.75.

I went back to AMAZON and searched under that title. It popped up as the seventh book listed, so I clicked on that. Statistics & Probability Theory, by Howard Dachslager, is available at AMAZON “used & new…from $48.00.” Nothing about editions is mentioned.

AMAZON sells the latest edition (2004) of what appears to be the recommended text (Solutions Manual for All Unsolved Problems in Statistics & Probability Theory) for $40.00. Also, “6 used & new [copies are] available from $33.00.”

Something by Howard Dachslager entitled Statistics & Probability Theory: A Tutorial Approach (2004) is available at AMAZON for $28.90. [See graphic: as of 2020, the paperback is $32]

Howard Dachslager is an Irvine Valley College math instructor.

(A quick perusal of math texts sold at IVC indicated that it is typical for a student to spend between $130-150 for a new text and about $90-100 for a used text. See.)

LIT

At random, I selected “Literature.” Again, at random, I selected “Lit 1.”

I went to the IVC Bookstore website and selected the books sold for the first section listed of our Lit 1 course.

Two books are required for the course: (1) Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, which is listed at $10 used, $13.25 new; and (2) the Bedford Intro to Literature, which is listed at $62.50 (used only).

Unfortunately, the precise edition of Conrad’s famous work is not indicated. But the prices seem pretty reasonable. On the other hand, I did find editions available at AMAZON that were cheaper still.

AMAZON lists several versions of the Bedford text. The latest edition (hardcover) can be purchased for $81.95.

On the other hand, it is “available [used and new] from $45.75."

$1,000 a year on textbooks! Relief could be on the way

To their credit, some SOCCCD trustees have sought to address the high price of college textbooks. If I remember correctly, Mr. Wagner and Mr. Fuentes have occasionally expressed dissatisfaction with high prices and the reasons for them.

Having witnessed the occasional board discussions on textbook prices, I have come to understand that the finger of blame should not be directed only at publishers. A part of the problem concerns high mark-up at college bookstores. (As I understand it, some of those profits go to Student Government. Please do correct me if I am wrong.)

In this morning’s OC Register, Assemblyman Jose Solorio proclaims a legislative victory in the war on high textbook prices:
As a former student-body president at UC Irvine, I know firsthand that high textbook prices are a huge issue for college students. I am pleased to announce that sunshine and relief are on the way. ¶ On Oct. 13, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill I authored, Assembly Bill1548, which would ultimately curb the dramatic increases in the prices of college textbooks by placing additional transparency and disclosure requirements on all parties involved in creating the high prices – publishers, colleges, faculty and bookstores. ¶ …California college students spend an average of nearly $1,000 per year on textbooks. According to a 2005 report by the General Accounting Office (GAO), college textbook prices have increased by 186% between 1986 and 2004 – nearly triple the rate of inflation over the same period. ¶ The cost of textbooks in many cases now outweighs the cost of college fees, especially if you go to a community college. ¶ …While doing research on the price of textbooks, I was shocked by much of the information uncovered. Perhaps the most noteworthy finding was the mark-up of books at college bookstores. According to the National Association of College Stores, new books are marked up an average of 33% and used books are marked up 50 percent to 100 percent. This cost is on top of the high cost that publishers charge for their books. ¶ AB1548 … requires publishers to print on or inside the book a list of substantive changes made to the current edition of the book from previous editions. Additionally, they are required to provide faculty, upon request, a list of textbooks' wholesale prices, copyright dates of previous editions, and list of substantive changes from prior editions. ¶ …Textbook adopters are … prohibited from demanding or receiving anything of value for adopting specific textbooks. ¶ College bookstores are required to post in their stores or on their Websites a disclosure of their new and used textbook retail pricing policy….
An important part of the debate over textbook prices concerns publishers’ practice of “bundling” questionable supplements, such as CD-ROMs, into textbook packages.

See also:
High textbook prices spark debate as students seek out alternatives

Roy's obituary in LA Times and Register: "we were lucky to have you while we did"

  This ran in the Sunday December 24, 2023 edition of the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register : July 14, 1955 - November 20, 2...