Banking off Books

Following an extravagant dinner at Ambrosia and some business talk, a Central New York sales representative from a major textbook publishing company finally bought one Syracuse University professor with a $36 glass of scotch.

"That scotch inevitably came out of students' pockets," said the professor, who asked not to be identified.

Some college faculties are facing increasing ethical scrutiny regarding their textbook selections. Consequently, some schools have established policies to monitor, restrict and even eliminate these conflict of interest situations.

There are no policies at SU, and at many other colleges, preventing professors from being wined and dined at restaurants by sales representatives. There are also no policies to stop other schemes including selling free desk copies to independent bookstores for a profit or earning royalties through assigning self-authored books in classes they teach.

"If a book is good, you shouldn't need to wine and dine me," said Laurence Thomas, professor of philosophy and political science. "I don't know why I would need a dinner to figure it out."

Critics of such practices say textbook prices are negligibly influenced by professors who accept such luxuries. Yet it is unclear how prevalent such behavior is from simply relying on single instances.

Thomas describes the behavior as unethical because it is open to criticism.

"At that point, this dinner is meant to give the person something that the person wouldn't otherwise be committed to doing, and that's very clear to me," he said. "It could be that I am already interested in buying and using the book and I just get a good meal out of it, but that's just bad form."

As Thomas surmised, this unnamed professor said he was already interested in the textbook and had assigned it to classes for previous semesters. These circumstances have made the Office of Academic Affairs at SU reluctant to establish an extensive policy.

Thomas challenges that.

"I don't think it's a borderline issue," Thomas said. "Is it a crime? Is it the worst thing anybody can do? Of course not, but there are lots of things that aren't the worst thing that someone can do that are still reproachable."

Kal Alston, Academic Affairs associate provost, said the word "textbook" does not show up anywhere in SU's conflict of interest policy. However, the Office of Sponsored Programs, which deals with conflicts of interest regarding research grants, does not require professors to report royalties from books and manuscripts as significant financial interests.

"The conflict of interest piece isn't about the money. It's about the control of the interests," Alston said. The issue of assigning one's textbook or being wined and dined is not as clear and direct as other examples.

She cited that being married to an owner of a major publishing company would be a potential conflict of interest.

And when such a conflict is playing into the professor's decisions, "all we say is: 'Stop doing it,'" Alston said. "We don't haul them up. There's not some big inquisition. If we discover it, we try to remedy it."

Neither Alston nor Thomas had heard a story like the $36 scotch, a practice Thomas called "woefully inappropriate."

On the other hand, professors requiring their own self-authored textbooks for classes is more common on college campuses. Some colleges wrote policies to restrict it; others proposed recommendations for ethical behavior.

The class with the largest number of students that have a required text authored by a faculty member at SU is an eight-credit, yearlong general biology sequence, BIO 121 and BIO 123, part of the core curriculum for the biology major.

Between 600 and 700 students buy biology professor Marvin Druger's textbook set each year, said Kathleen Bradley, University Bookstore textbook manager. The package cost $78.50 this semester.

Author royalties are usually between 10 and 15 percent of the sale price, said a former CEO of a textbook publishing company. But the Rutgers Senate committee report regarding textbook adoptions stated that royalties are normally less than 6 percent of a textbook.

Jerry Evensky, an SU professor of economics whose textbook is used by his department, said royalties fall between 10 and 15 percent of the textbook's cost.

For Druger, who said the royalties are modest, this could provide an annual income anywhere from $2,896 to $8,242.50, but the royalties are most likely around $6,000. This does not include other lenders like Follett's Orange Bookstore or surrounding high schools that buy the textbook to earn college credit.

In any case, these figures are more than enough to make some universities, like the University of South Florida, require professors earning more than $500 in royalties to inform the school's provost.

In contrast, Alston was reluctant to mark $5,000 or even $10,000 in royalties as a conflict of interest.

"Even if a professor here taught a huge enormous course of 1,000 students and used that (self-authored) textbook, that's not how people make money," Alston said.

USF policy also states that the professor must certify that the book is uniquely suited for the class.

Druger said the first five chapters of his textbook are unlike any other he has seen.

Natalie Borisovets chairs a committee at Rutgers, which recommended a series of guidelines for professors in selecting textbooks.

"This particular issue tends to be rather emotional because the instant response from faculty members is, 'You're going to tell me what textbooks to use,'" Borisovets said.