I sat so captivated during visiting writer Gerda Klein’s speech that I almost forgot I was there in a capacity of reportage. Then she’d say something poignant, something I knew people in the room would remember and people who weren’t there needed to hear, and I’d jot it down in my notebook and remember, Oh yeah, I’m working. And while I can recall at least twelve quotes from her speech forever etched in my head, I think the true legacy of Gerda Klein, of her visit, of her book, is a renewed commitment not just to education, our reason to exist as a university, but, on a more fundamental level, to the beauty of learning. After the lecture I caught up with Destine Holmgreen, Associate Director of the Writing Center and my former boss. Sitting in her office on opposite sides of her busy cherry wood desk, we raved about Klein, compared our experiences reading her book All But My Life, and compared our observations as to the effect of the Reading in a Global Context program, which introduced all of TAMIU to the book. She mentioned going out for a cigarette and seeing students reading on the benches under the oak trees on the TAMIU Green. I told her how I’d walked into the Great Room of the Killam Library and seen several students reading the book, among them a couple on a couch. They sat affectionately close, his arm around her shoulder, and read the book together in silence. I wanted to take their picture for this very publication. They sat under the sunlight shining through the room’s huge geodesic dome and held the book so that the cover was perfectly viewable. It would’ve been a great image to accompany my story about the book, but the moment was too perfect to disturb, so I left them to their reading. My conversation with Holmgreen also reminded me of some unfortunate realities of the university that run directly counter to the mission of learning and towards the business of higher education. As a student, textbook prices and the scam of “new editions” always annoyed the hell out of me, but now that I teach ENGL 1301, I’m embarrassed at the situation with our class texts. Among the four-book bundle that students need for the courses (they’re used in 1302 also) is The Curious Writer. Now, usually when a new edition comes out the publishers have added a chapter or updated some research. But with the new Curious Writer, they’ve actually taken stuff out, producing what I call Curious Writer Light. The publishers didn’t even change the pagination, so when you turn page 33 you end up on 94 or something like that. This shouldn’t be a problem, right? Seeing so little difference in the subsequent editions, students taking 1301 for the first time might just borrow an older Curious Writer. Not so, because students also need The Mercury Reader, an anthology of classic and contemporary literature. Because it’s a customized publication, our Department of Language and Literature decides which selections to include in its Mercury, and the latest version differs substantially from the one used as recently as Summer Session II. So even if a student has an old Curious Writer, he or she still needs the new Mercury Reader, and-here’s the kicker-the two are not sold separately. The book store only sells them together, along with two other books, in a packet costing almost $250. I spoke with Student Body Senator Juan Sebastian Mendive about the matter (see the interview on pg. 12), and he told me he experienced the same switch when he took ENGL 1301 in 2006. He, too, bought the packet twice because of changes in The Mercury Reader. We agreed that this warrants looking into.While I believe the department makes changes to the books based on legitimate pedagogic concerns, I’m starting to think that custom texts best serve the publisher, as they limit the students’ alternatives. Try going on Amazon.com and finding the exact version of the By Mike Herrera IVBridge Staff Writer
I sat so captivated during visiting writer Gerda Klein’s speech that I almost forgot I was there in a capacity of reportage. Then she’d say something poignant, something I knew people in the room would remember and people who weren’t there needed to hear, and I’d jot it down in my notebook and remember, Oh yeah, I’m working. And while I can recall at least twelve quotes from her speech forever etched in my head, I think the true legacy of Gerda Klein, of her visit, of her book, is a renewed commitment not just to education, our reason to exist as a university, but, on a more fundamental level, to the beauty of learning. After the lecture I caught up with Destine Holmgreen, Associate Director of the Writing Center and my former boss. Sitting in her office on opposite sides of her busy cherry wood desk, we raved about Klein, compared our experiences reading her book All But My Life, and compared our observations as to the effect of the Reading in a Global Context program, which introduced all of TAMIU to the book. She mentioned going out for a cigarette and seeing students reading on the benches under the oak trees on the TAMIU Green. I told her how I’d walked into the Great Room of the Killam Library and seen several students reading the book, among them a couple on a couch. They sat affectionately close, his arm around her shoulder, and read the book together in silence. I wanted to take their picture for this very publication. They sat under the sunlight shining through the room’s huge geodesic dome and held the book so that the cover was perfectly viewable. It would’ve been a great image to accompany my story about the book, but the moment was too perfect to disturb, so I left them to their reading. My conversation with Holmgreen also reminded me of some unfortunate realities of the university that run directly counter to the mission of learning and towards the business of higher education. As a student, textbook prices and the scam of “new editions” always annoyed the hell out of me, but now that I teach ENGL 1301, I’m embarrassed at the situation with our class texts. Among the four-book bundle that students need for the courses (they’re used in 1302 also) is The Curious Writer. Now, usually when a new edition comes out the publishers have added a chapter or updated some research. But with the new Curious Writer, they’ve actually taken stuff out, producing what I call Curious Writer Light. The publishers didn’t even change the pagination, so when you turn page 33 you end up on 94 or something like that. This shouldn’t be a problem, right? Seeing so little difference in the subsequent editions, students taking 1301 for the first time might just borrow an older Curious Writer. Not so, because students also need The Mercury Reader, an anthology of classic and contemporary literature. Because it’s a customized publication, our Department of Language and Literature decides which selections to include in its Mercury, and the latest version differs substantially from the one used as recently as Summer Session II. So even if a student has an old Curious Writer, he or she still needs the new Mercury Reader, and-here’s the kicker-the two are not sold separately. The book store only sells them together, along with two other books, in a packet costing almost $250. I spoke with Student Body Senator Juan Sebastian Mendive about the matter (see the interview on pg. 12), and he told me he experienced the same switch when he took ENGL 1301 in 2006. He, too, bought the packet twice because of changes in The Mercury Reader. We agreed that this warrants looking into.While I believe the department makes changes to the books based on legitimate pedagogic concerns, I’m starting to think that custom texts best serve the publisher, as they limit the students’ alternatives. Try going on Amazon.com and finding the exact version of the Mercury TAMIU chooses to use in a given semester, especially when they change so frequently. Given the high rate of poverty and startling ambivalence to education on the part of many Laredo parents, TAMIU can’t let the business practices of the textbook industry throw another hurdle onto the path of learning. I’m reminded of a story I heard from a friend who teaches language arts in the elementary schools. The public schools obsess over inventory of textbooks and drill into their teachers the importance of vigilance in the matter. One teacher, apparently afraid of coming up short in his class count, decided to lock up certain books not immediately in use. But he didn’t hide them from the students; he left in plain sight a fully-stocked bookcase behind bars. Given the visual message this sends to kids on a daily basis, I’m not sure the stealing of books in a case like this is such an undesirable delinquency. An enterprising child might find a way, but then he’d grow up, go to college, and find the hardest bars to bend on the price tag.