Ever since Gutenberg invented movable type, students have been sharing textbooks.
No more, if Professor Joseph Henry Vogel gets his peers to use his patented system. He is going to force every student to buy the assigned textbook. Any student who refuses gets a lower score.
Here is the deal. He will force students to participate in discussion forums. They must provide a code: “Yes, I bought the textbook.” No code => lower grade.
Can a student share his textbook? Yes, but his friend will get a lower grade.
This is a system of forcing smart students who can read fast and take good notes to buy a book they do not need.
This is especially hard on minority students who just barely get by. They will now pay $150 for expensive textbooks.
Basically, this is a system where a professor discriminates against smart students without much money.
Prof. Vogel will get paid for all this. He patented this system.
“Professors are increasingly turning a blind eye when students appear in class with photocopied pages. Others facilitate piracy by placing texts in the library reserve where they can be photocopied,” Vogel writes.
For centuries, libraries have placed textbooks on reserve. My parents benefited from this at UCLA in the 1930's. No more — not if Prof. Vogel gets his way.
Publishers think the idea is terrific.
I don’t think Prof. Vogel fully understands the word “boycott.” Students can easily target a professor who adopts this program and organize boycotts.
Department chairmen will get the message real fast. Professor Garotte finds that not enough students enroll in his classes to justify keeping him on the payroll. If he is not tenured, he will find himself driving cabs for a few years, until he gets a job selling life insurance.
Can Prof. Vogel visualize the words “La Raza”? Can he visualize the words “Black Students Union”? Does he fully understand what his proposal means? It is open discrimination against certain races on campus. If he does not see this, they will. To the sons and daughters of the prosperous, he says, “If you’ve got the money, honey, I’ve got the time.” But for those whose parents have not written the checks it’s “A grade of B at best, and maybe a C+. You did not buy the textbook.”
It’s about a professor forcing students to pay money up front for a better grade.
The department that lets its professors adopt Prof. Vogel’s patented system will learn what this phrase means: “Sticking your finger into a hornet’s nest.”
Do the words “Saul Alinsky” ring a bell?
Continue reading here.
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Published on June 15, 2012. The original is here.
As far as I can discover on the Web, no university has adopted this software/policy, nor has any professor. They figured out what students could do to retaliate. But it's the thought that counts: Professor Vogel's.
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