One of the perks of attending Southeastern is renting required textbooks for a $45 flat rate. 

Even with this perk, one of the growing concerns for some students who are renting textbooks is how outdated they are. 

“I checked to see what year my textbook was made, and it was made in 2001,” said senior psychology major Aubree Colombo. “It kind of defeats the purpose of an education. The whole purpose of an education is to have updated information. You don’t want to be talking about outdated information.”

Another problem with outdated books is they can take away from the passion for some students in their area of study. 

“I am one of the makeup designers for the Vonnie Borden Theatre. Makeup is an art form, especially in the theater world,” said junior spanish major with a minor in theater Anthony Gary. “In my eyes, makeup designers are illusionists in the way that we trick the audience’s eyes with our techniques and styles. Theatrical makeup is one of the main aspects in the performing arts, which is why we need to have up-to-date books, because we can never have too much knowledge.”

A way in which some teachers are able to offset the problems of outdated textbooks is by making lectures, PowerPoint presentations and other methods of teaching. The rental textbook requires professors to rent out a textbook each semester, and it must be used two years or for three semesters, whichever is the greater time period. 

“When I took [my classes], we barely used the book,” said Gary. “The book was there for us to basically refresh our minds because as an instructor, [our teacher] explained things with details and experience to the point that we felt confident on our own projects. Makeup is constantly changing with new brands, techniques and ideas being introduced. When taking the class, you will find everything [taught] in the book, but [the teacher] has an updated book to keep us up-to-date if we would like to be.”

Even with teachers being able to stray into their own material while teaching, an outdated textbook can cause someone to declare a major far different from what they originally attended to have. 

“When I took sociology, I felt like the information I was learning was way outdated, and I wasn’t sure about it,” said Colombo. “It kind of made me not like sociology as much because I want to be learning updated information because I feel like it could have a reverse-psychology on people and make people think these things are still an issue.”

According to some department heads, the structure of the renting system itself is faulty. 

Textbook rental has contracts with corporations in which departments may have free reign to choose a textbook, but they are limited to the books offered.

Also, if more than one teacher takes a core 101 class that thousands of students have to take a semester, the university tries to get a standardized curriculum in which the professors vote on a book and if three out of five agree on one but the other two would hate to teach from it, the majority vote is the textbook that is used. 

Another conflict that is out of the professor’s hands is if they begin to teach a course after a certain textbook is locked into contract. Even if they do not like the textbook they have to now teach from, they are unable to choose another textbook until the contract ends.

These are only some of the concerns when it comes to textbook rental. To find out all polices and procedures for the university adopting textbooks, visit the policies and procedures that can be found for textbook rental on the Southeastern website.