Rebecca L. Lubas
Dean of Libraries
Central Washington University
Maura Valentino
Scholarly Communications Librarian & Head of Digital Initiatives
Central Washington University
In the fall of 2018, Central Washington University (CWU) Libraries was awarded a grant to incentivize faculty to stop using an expensive textbook in a course and use a free or open access resource instead. This grant had a very short timeline, from January 2019 to September 2019. In this same time frame, faculty was re-designing courses for the new General Education curriculum to be implemented in fall 2019. So, it seemed a perfect confluence to create a path through the General Education curriculum where a student would not have to purchase a textbook. The program was very successful and 26 courses in General Education now required no textbook purchase, creating many ways for a student to complete the entire program with no textbook costs. The next step was to publicize the success of the project. Our Faculty Senate runs the General Education program and we asked for time before the Faculty Senate Executive Committee, which includes the provost and the university president. When university leadership became aware of the program’s impact, the CWU Libraries were asked to work on a three-year, campus-wide, open educational resources (OER) initiative. This plan involves a bridge program of textbooks on reserve for the top 50 enrolled courses, building a culture open to OER by opening a dialogue with faculty chairs and partnering with early adopter faculty to be champions.