The Classroom

Tomorrow’s Promises — Why the Kindle Won’t Have a Dramatic Impact on College Course Materials for at least Five Years

by Rob Reynolds

There has been significant buzz recently about Amazon’s announced plans to create a special version of its Kindle e-book reader of the college market. However, a Kindle reader for the college market will not have a significant impact on the price of textbooks or course materials for at least five years. [Disclosure: The author is a former teacher and administrator at a large public university, a former author and employee for multiple major textbook publishing companies, a parent to two college students, and the lead product designer for a proprietary online e-book platform built and sold by an educational software company.]

Understanding the College Textbook Business — How Sausage Gets Made

With the many articles written about textbook prices of late, there have appeared a number of general statements about the textbook publishing industry. These include claims that publishers profit at the expense of their authors, that publishers create unnecessary new editions of existing textbooks in order to drive the sale of new textbooks, and that publishers inflate artificially the prices of their textbooks simply to add to their profit.

There is no doubt that major textbook publishers are big business. The college textbook market represents between $5 billion and $6 billion and the the last 18 months have seen the sale of two major publishers (Houghton Mifflin College and Thomson Learning) for $750 million and $7.75 billion respectively. The overall consolidation of the college textbook market has left four primary players (listed in order of size and market share): Pearson, Cengage Learning, McGraw-Hill, and Wiley. While each of these companies has different strategies and discipline emphases, their business models are largely identical. An understanding of their business model is critical to appreciating why they will not be quick to adopt the Kindle reader is a primary distributor for their content.

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Ivory Tower

A Peek Behind the Door

by Shari Dinkins

FOR MOST APPLICANTS, the Hiring Committee is a mysterious entity. What happens behind the closed doors of a conference room on our own campus can affect hundreds of lives. Yet, the details of what is discussed cannot be revealed to candidates. After attending a Hiring Committee orientation at a very large urban community college where I have taught and talking to a number of tenured instructors who have served on hiring committees, I would like to try to unravel some of this mystery for applicants—particularly adjuncts. Although your campus may have different processes, depending on size and function, this exploration may help some understand the complex process of hiring.

POSITION POSTING
After the department head requests a position, the Human Resources department gives information about faculty hiring, the search and other forms to the department head. The Position Allocation and Budget Planning committees must concur before the search committee is formed. An Affirmative Action monitor is identified, and the Human Resources department checks that the search committee includes underrepresented groups (this percentage varies from campus to campus).

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The New Adjunct

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Posted: January 6th, 2010

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