Luis Martinez-Fernandez was a freshman in the late 70s when an English professor assigned one of his own books for their class. The instructor’s requirement didn’t initially faze him, Martinez-Fernandez said, yet as the semester passed, and the expensive book stayed closed. He couldn’t explain it at the time, but he knew something was off.
“Even back then I realized it was completely inappropriate, mainly because it didn’t fit and it wasn’t used,” said Martinez-Fernandez, now a professor of history at the University of Central Florida. “It was my first year, and I was in love with the university and with books, so I didn’t think that much about it, but there was a slight discomfort in knowing — at least I recognized that was inappropriate.”
Professors say assigning one’s own work for a class is often the most logical way to round out a syllabus. But the mild self-enrichment — or appearance of such — that comes with it is enough to make many academics jump through hoops to avoid appearing as though they profit from their students’ book bills.
Perhaps it’s the sting of past manipulation, but these days Martinez-Fernandez is cautious when he assigns his own work in the classroom. First, he asks himself, is it really the best material for his students? Martinez-Fernandez has written several books about the history of Central America. And he says it can be a benefit for students to have direct access to the author of the work they’re studying.
One time when he assigned a book he wrote, he arranged for the publisher of the book to offer a discount for students buying it directly through the press. And he said that while the book was required for the course, he also offered to lend copies of it to who students who didn’t want to buy it. One person, he said, took him up on the offer.
And for the students who ended up buying the book, Martinez-Fernandez calculated what would have been the royalty earnings on full-priced sales and donated that sum to the university’s honor society. Of course, those discounted sales meant less in royalties, but he said he felt obligated because the overall number of books sold could still mean an increase in future royalties in the long term.
My first desire is to establish an atmosphere of mutual trust and therefore avoid anything that could be perceived as manipulation.
It’s a less of a logistical challenge to assign the book now, though. It’s online and available through the university’s library system, a fact he makes sure to include in his syllabus. Martinez-Fernandez said his efforts to avoid the perception of bias might seem puritanical, but he finds it necessary.
“We’re role models,” he said. “My first desire is to establish an atmosphere of mutual trust and therefore avoid anything that could be perceived as manipulation.”
Jane Robbins, an adjunct instructor at Bryant University, studies conflict of interest in higher education, and she questioned the need for assigning one’s own work. Robbins, who has written about the topic, said it’s a human response to think one’s work is the best material on the market, even though most textbooks could be interchangeable. The issue, she emphasized, is not about using self-produced material, but in getting paid for that material. In doing so, she said, an instructor raises the appearance of assigning material for personal gain.
But she does have a preferred method to deal with the moral complications of a professor assigning their own work. The professor should negotiate with a publisher to eliminate royalties for any book purchased at the professor’s institution while agreeing to take lower royalties overall. That’s similar to the route chosen by Martinez-Fernandez and others reached by The Chronicle.
“It’s actually more income to the publisher,” she said. “They would actually have an incentive to agree to provide those books royalty-free because it would not lower the effective list price.”
‘Awkward and Tacky’
Kathryn Blanchard has now twice assigned the book she co-wrote with Kevin O’Brien, An Introduction to Christian Environmentalism, and though the material worked for the course, she said, she felt “awkward and tacky.”
On one hand, Blanchard, a professor of religious studies at Alma College, said she knows her students are strapped for cash and she wanted to avoid adding to that struggle. On the other hand, she had firsthand experience with the material and knew exactly how to translate the book to the classroom. She added that she had spoken to the publisher and they had agreed to provide copies of the books at a discounted price for the class.
Many professors, like Martinez-Fernandez, have chosen to donate the royalties associated with the sale of their books, but others make an effort to provide the book, or chapter or essay or similar material, free when possible. In other cases, the professor buys the class a meal or snacks based on the money the sales might have generated.
Some instructors also said they provide copies of their books to their students or place holds on the material through campus libraries. Roger Richards, an associate professor at the Baptist College of Florida, said he requires students to use his book, History of Southern Baptists, but then always offers to buy it back at the end of the semester. He also said he keeps a few copies on hand for students who don’t have the money to purchase it.
A faculty-written textbook can be a point of pride for both the professor and the university. That’s the case for David Zgarrick, an associate dean and faculty member at Northeastern University, who is the lead editor on a book on pharmacy management.
“It shows that you’re a leader in your field,” Zgarrick said. “It was certainly useful for me when it came up to time for promotion and tenure and all that good stuff. And honestly, this is the kind of thing they wanted their faculty to do, and in some way they wanted to send a message to our students that faculty at our school are leaders in this area.”
His publishing story is familiar. As an instructor in the late 90s, he didn’t have a book that covered the topics he felt his students needed to learn. “Like a lot of faculty, it was somewhat out of necessity,” he said. “You become an expert in that area, and you teach in that area, and you find yourself pulling resources from articles and chapters and everything like that, and you think, geez, why I don’t I put something together all in one place.”
It was a small project initially, but now the book, Pharmacy Management, has been through four editions and is used at more than 100 institutions.
Zgarrick said he’s aware of the perception that assigning one’s own book is self-serving, but he said he’s not making a living off royalties. He has received, at most, $5,000 in royalties in a year, he said, and he estimated the amount that came from his students at $100 to $200.
And that doesn’t even take into account the changing way that students get access to textbooks. For Zgarrick’s book, many of them read it digitally through the university rather than buying the book directly, which means he receives royalties based on page views.
But there’s more than money at stake. Students may be less willing to criticize the text written by their professor compared with a book written by someone they don’t know. The solution? Kevin Burke, an associate professor of education at the University of Georgia, said to embrace the weirdness.
“Not acknowledging it as an awkward situation would make things worse,” Burke said.
Burke doesn’t assign his work in whole because he is uncomfortable with requiring his students purchase it, but he does provide copies of chapters. And he said he often assigns his work as a secondary reading.
“I am modeling for our students how to talk about their own work,” he said. “And there’s a way in which one can assert one’s expertise while also demonstrating the kind of humility that says, I am not only the person who is writing in this field, and I don’t have all of the knowledge, and we’re in conversation.”
Chris Quintana is a breaking-news reporter. Follow him on Twitter @cquintanadc or email him at chris.quintana@chronicle.com.
