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Mend Fences to Round Up On-Time Adoptions
04/04/08
If you want more professors to get textbook requests in on time, you'll have to resolve differences separating the bookstore from faculty. Shawna Cawthorn, director, University Bookstore, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, explained how to do that in her CAMEX education session, Improving Faculty Relations to Increase Textbook Requests.
In Cawthorn's view, three big issues dividing the bookstore and the faculty are communication differences, timeline differences, and the store's failure to recognize faculty success.
The communication differences are rooted in the divergent workstyles of bookstore staffers and professors. "The bookstore is team-oriented, faculty are independent-oriented," Cawthorn pointed out. "If you tell faculty to turn in book information on time because it's good for the school and the students, is that going to work? It's not. What's in it for them?"
On top of that, each academic discipline may prefer a different type of interaction with store personnel. For example, education professors often like to socialize first and then get down to business. Mathematics and science profs, on the other hand, want you to get to the point right away. Business faculty are interested in the hard financial ramifications, while arts and humanities professors "are most likely to accept feelings and needs as legitimate goals," Cawthorn noted.
Forming a bookstore advisory committee is one way to bridge the communication gap, Cawthorn said. The committee gives both faculty and the store a chance to explain their needs and offer suggestions for improving communications.
Cawthorn suggested including at least one faculty representative from each college or department; ask the deans for recommendations. Also include the registrar and at least a couple student government representatives. Be sure to pick students who are capable of active participation, Cawthorn warned, because it's crucial for faculty to hear their input.
"Make sure faculty know the committee is for information sharing, not forming policies or procedures," she said, adding that it's also important to clarify bookstore terminology and the committee's goals in advance. The committee should lay out the timeline for deadlines and the reasons for them, outline expectations for outcomes, and identify criteria for generating solutions from discussions and brainstorming.
Timeline differences usually arise when the bookstore and faculty get out of synch with adoption deadlines. The key, Cawthorn said, is to "bombard faculty with information but do it subtly."
Some professors honestly forget the deadlines, while others just don't understand why the store needs the information so early. Remind them in as many ways as possible. Cawthorn said her store takes advantage of the free monthly calendar templates available online to create an easy-to-read academic calendar for faculty. All store deadlines and other dates of importance are clearly marked, including buyback, textbook reservation pulls and deliveries, returns to publishers, store closures, when class lists with no adoptions yet would be posted online, and when e-mail blasts would be sent to students.
E-mail is another tool for nudging faculty, especially if it wields a little peer pressure. "Send out group e-mails to each department and say we don't have textbook information from these people yet," Cawthorn suggested. Also, e-mail students to inform them the store can't buy back their textbooks until faculty provide next term's book information, and include a message about deadlines that students can pass along to their profs.
"Students have the largest voice. Make sure you use it," she added.
Stores also need to remember to reward faculty when they do meet deadlines, Cawthorn said. Her store often sends candy to those who get their information in on time, such as a Crunch bar wrapped in the message "You really helped us out in a crunch!" or a roll of Life Savers with "You're a life saver!"
The University Bookstore also provides a $500 textbook scholarship to the department with the highest percentage of on-time textbook requests. Scholarship recipients are selected by the top department. The scholarship, which is publicized in the campus newspaper, has become a source of pride to the winning departments.
Public recognition also works wonders. Cawthorn suggested buying an ad or submitting a letter or story to the campus newspaper naming professors who submitted adoptions by the deadline and encouraging students to thank them. If the paper isn't an option, try sending the information to students through campus e-mail.
—Cindy Ruckman
Sound Off!
Cheryl Hogan (clhogan@westshore.edu) 4/29/2008 8:49:54 AM
Cindy, you have some great ideas in your paper! Thank you for sharing. At WSCC the bookstore has a solid and good repor with our faculty. This is due to a great deal of communication and relationship building, and find anything I can do to save them time makes them happy. Some of the things I do to encourge quicker returns on adoptions:
~ meet with all dept. chairs and v.p. each semester, we talk of everything books/supplies and adoptions
~ I send, each semester, a list of up-coming new editions to faculty.
~ Fun, weekly reminders are sent to faculty during the adoption season..we call it our count down. We use fun pics...and encouraging sayings...
~ we make appts. with faculty if they need help adopting thru our online system
Sound Off!
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