Member Spotlight: Robert Awkward
A community college economics professor turned state leader watched withdrawals drop to zero when he left behind the $225 textbook.
For years, Dr. Robert Awkward taught Principles of Macroeconomics at a community college using a Cengage textbook that cost students $225. It was excellent. His students still failed at alarming rates: six out of twenty-five withdrawing each semester, grades middling at best. "I know students cannot afford the high cost of textbooks as it often comes out of pocket," Bob says. "And this is combined with students' challenges with housing, food, and healthcare." The $225 wasn't just expensive. It was prohibitive.
The switch to a low-cost textbook rewrote the equation. Withdrawal rates dropped to zero, and grades improved. Bob did the savings math: "$200 per student x 25 students per course x three semesters. That is $15,000 in one year from one faculty member that keeps repeating year after year!" And, most strikingly, something pedagogical had shifted in the students’ final reflection papers. "Their ability to write properly about macroeconomic concepts, theories and principles, AND to apply them to their life as a consumer, employee and voter has significantly improved," says Bob.
Now, as Assistant Commissioner for Academic Effectiveness at the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education, Bob leads a statewide initiative for OER, working with representatives across the state to deepen the use of no- and low-cost textbooks through professional development and education. When the first statewide results came in, he was stunned: $7.6 million saved in FY22, based on only seventeen of twenty-eight institutions reporting. “I had no idea it would be that much savings,” he says. And that was just the seedling. “It has only gone up exponentially since then.” In the most recent data from FY24, student savings reached $21.5 million!
His hope for the field is that open education becomes recognized as a discipline, and as a pedagogy. Bob's vision goes beyond savings. “It will change how faculty teach, how they design their courses, and engage students to become co-creators of knowledge.” It’s the logical extension of Bob’s simple guiding principle: "Knowledge grows when we share it."
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