Cal State Fullerton is insisting on the use of a textbook written by members of the school’s math department for academic reasons, not money, school officials said.

“Like its authors, the text is well-respected,” Cal State Fullerton officials wrote in advance of a grievance hearing Friday sought by Alain Bourget, an associate math professor who was formally reprimanded after assigning a different, cheaper textbook than “Differential Equations and Linear Algebra.”

Bourget believes the text, published in 1991 by Stephen W. Goode, chairman of Cal State Fullerton’s math department, isn’t a great learning tool and is overpriced.

School officials say otherwise. And during the hearing, a school representative defended the reprimand, saying Bourget broke policy by assigning different texts even after being told he could not do so.

The reprimand was written “because Dr. Bourget elected to, on his own accord, act contrary to the department policy when he chose to single-handedly pick a textbook that was not approved by the multisection course,” said Maria Osorio, Cal State Fullerton’s interim director for faculty labor relations who represented the school in the public hearing.

The debate – which has struck a nerve with faculty, students and others – centers on a textbook that has been used to teach Introduction to Linear Algebra and Differential Equations, or Math 250B, for 25 years.

After Goode published the first edition, Scott A. Annin, now vice chair of Cal State Fullerton’s math department, was added as a co-author. Today, a new copy of their book costs $180 at the campus bookstore.

Bourget wanted to use two other texts – one that is $76 and the other free – because he felt they were a better fit for his students. Bourget told the faculty-review panel assembled Friday that he was “trying to do what’s best for my students.”

The school argued that the Goode-Annin book is required as a part of school policy.

“The policy was and still is … reaffirmed that (professors) will use the single text,” Osorio said.

That policy, she said, was made clear in a 1984 document that indicates the text for Math 250B would be “approved by department.”

But the first edition of the Goode text was published in 1991 – seven years after the policy was set.

During the hearing, Goode said there is no written evidence that his book was formally adopted as Math 250B’s common text. Instead, he said, the book was “smoothly taken in.”

“Nobody questioned it,” Goode said. “My recollection: It was just acclimation. ‘Yes, we’re going to do this.’ There was no formal vote taken.”

Last year, after Bourget asked to use a different text, the department formally approved the Goode-Annin book as the single text for Math 250B. That decision was recorded.

Mahamood M. Hassan, a union representative who spoke for Bourget at the hearing, asked Goode whether the book, today, should remain as the primary text for Math 250B.

“Did the department select the best book in the market, or are they just doing that to show loyalty to a colleague?” said Hassan, Fullerton chapter president of the California Faculty Association.

Goode’s response: “Remember, this book … we’ve used it for over 20 years, before I was chair. Other chairs … were in charge of the department. From what I could tell, from both of my predecessors, they had no complaints about the textbook.”

Others at Cal State Fullerton also defended the book on academic grounds.

The Goode-Annin text “was specifically written to address the needs of higher-level math courses at CSUF, as well as to support specific learning outcomes requested by the College of Engineering and Computer Science,” according to a statement provided to the Register by Jeffrey D. Cook, a university spokesman.

The text shared by Cook also indicated that the Goode-Annin text is used by “at least 200 institutions.”

Later, Cook acknowledged that the Goode-Annin book actually is used by 30-plus institutions, and the 200 figure refers to “the authors’ knowledge of both current and past use since the book was first published.”

The issue, in the view of some, is about academic freedom.

Faculty members have the “freedom to teach,” which includes choosing course materials, “without having their decisions subject to the veto of a department chair, dean, or other administrative officer,” according to the American Association of University Professors.

But the organization also says that in a multisection course, such as Math 250B, books should be picked by a group of instructors, not an individual.

Cal State Fullerton echoes this.

“The shared responsibility bespeaks a shared freedom, which trumps the freedom of an individual faculty member to assign a textbook that he or she alone considers satisfactory. The individual’s freedom in other respects, however, remains undiluted,” according to the university’s statement to the Register.

The grievance hearing ended Friday with no decision. The three-member faculty panel is expected to report a decision on Bourget’s case by Nov 6.

The school offered 25 tickets to view Friday’s public meeting that morning; standing room was not allowed.

Contact the writer: 714-796-4976 or lleung@ocregister.com Twitter: @LilyShumLeung.

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