Course Value Committee

Course Materials Value & Effectiveness Committee

Working in partnership with the provost’s office, the faculty senate is forming a joint committee charged with identifying innovative ways of reducing student course expenses while maintaining high quality.  Two ongoing programs include:

These are only two such programs.  We believe that faculty and administration, working together, can identify and implement unique solutions to address rising textbook and course materials cost.  Our mission is to :

  1. Partner with provost’s office to form a senate ad hoc committee whose charge is to continually examine ways to reduce course costs for students while ensuring efficacy and quality of these materials.  This committee will be comprised of faculty, students, Bookie staff, and administrators across a variety of disciplines, colleges, and campuses.  Administrative members will be charged with facilitating infrastructure changes that will help enable cost reduction strategies.
  2. Continue to move the dialog beyond terms such as “free” or “cheap” to more inclusive and mission-oriented terms such as “affordable,” and that terms be descriptive not only in terms of expense but also in terms of student use and quality of course materials.
  3. Develop methods for assuring proposed cost-saving strategies are faculty-driven and not promoted at the expense of quality.  Inexpensive but poorly crafted materials offer little value to our students.
  4. Thoroughly explore the underlying the assumption surrounding student textbook use and impact on learning.  For example, if the text is less expensive or free, do students use it more than a traditional textbook and how does this use impact student learning?
  5. Oversee all current projects including OERs and First Day.  As other course cost-saving projects are generated, this committee will assume oversight for them.
  6. Continue to improve communications between administration, faculty, and students around the issue of course costs.
  7. Recommend internal resource allocation to support projects as well as to foster project self-sustainability.  Self-sustainability includes identifying and applying for external funding opportunities.

An open call for appointments will be made during fall 2018.  For more information, contact committee co-chairs Matt Hudelson or Rebecca Van de Vord.

Committee Membership

Faculty Members

Greg Crouch

Department of Chemistry

Co-chair


Tariq Akmal

Department of Teaching and Learning

Matt Bumpus

Department of Human Development

Carrie Cuttler

Department of Psychology

Sabine Davis

School of Languages, Cultures, and Race

Mark Gibson

School of Economic Sciences

Babu John Mariadoss

Department of Marketing and International Business

Chuck Moore

Department of Mathematics and Statistics

Andy O’Fallon

School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Melissa Parkhurst

School of Music

Alex Prera

School of Economic Sciences

 

Student Members

Bailey Fillinger

ASWSU representative

Ashley Vu

Student Book Co-op board member

Luke Brossman

Undergraduate Student

 

Administrative Members

Rebecca Van de Vord

Assistant Vice President, Academic Outreach and Innovation
Director of Learning Innovations
Liaison to the Provost’s Office

Co-chair


Talea Anderson
Pullman – Holland/Terrell Libraries
Digital Scholarship/Curation
Eric Rogers

Director of Purchasing Services

Christopher Coons

Director Information Services
Academic Outreach and Innovation

Mike Corwin

Associate Vice President for University Information Systems

Leslie Martin

General Manager
The Bookie

Todd Mordhorst

Communications Coordinator
Office of the Provost

Vicky Murray

Executive Director, Finance and Administration