(The Tennessean, March 17, 2010) For 10 years, Janet Belsky researched, revised and polished the manuscript for a textbook that would become required reading for countless psychology and nursing students around the country.

Her reward? A 15 percent royalty — about $13.50 — each time a new copy of her book, Experiencing the Lifespan, sold for its list price of $90.

But to at least one state representative, those book royalties are "kickbacks" to state university professors, earned by "forcing their students to purchase certain books." And that representative, Knoxville Republican Stacey Campfield, wants the practice stopped.

Campfield's bill, stalled in a House subcommittee, would discourage professors from assigning their own textbooks to their students by banning them from collecting royalties on those sales.

Appalled academics have blasted the bill from one side of the state to the other this week.

"You just tell this guy that writing a textbook represented 10 years of full-time and Saturday work," said Belsky, a professor of psychology at Middle Tennessee State University and an expert on aging issues — an expertise she poured into her book. "The idea that somehow I am ripping off my students is crazy."

The legislation taps into the deep frustration many students feel over the mounting cost of college textbooks, particularly in the middle of a recession, with college tuition rising every year.

"These professors are lining their pockets," said Tres Wittum, a senior at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, who was required to purchase a professor's book for a class. "They are not well known, and they are probably not going to sell a bunch of copies."

'Expense can be crazy'

Campfield, whose district includes the UT-Knoxville campus, drafted the bill after hearing complaints from students who were tired of being assigned textbooks written by their professors — textbooks that were constantly being updated, forcing them to buy new, instead of used.

"If any of you have paid for college books lately you know the expense can be crazy. Hundreds of dollars for a single required book that the author/professor changes," Campfield wrote on his blog Tuesday, after the bill was blasted at a meeting of the UT trustees.

The bill would give students the right not to buy textbooks from professors who have a financial interest in the materials assigned. Of course most students already have that right — university libraries stock surplus copies of assigned textbooks to be checked out for free.

Belsky recently revised Experiencing the Lifespan — a process that took another two years of nights and weekend work. This semester's sales will be the only time she collects royalties. Professors earn nothing from the resale of used textbooks, and nothing from the countless pirated copies that are posted online.

Like most professors, Belsky also donated multiple copies of the book to the MTSU library and has been known to loan copies of the book to students who cannot afford to buy it, new or used.

"We are not bloodsuckers out for the money," she said. "If I didn't revise my textbooks, the information would be hopelessly out of date. Particularly in behavioral sciences, the landscape changes so quickly, textbooks have to be revised."

At a recent meeting of the UT Board of Trustees, the board's government liaison scoffed at the legislation, saying professors who have written textbooks should be prized, not punished.

Anthony Haynes told trustees it doesn't make sense to recruit the nation's top academics and tell them that students don't have to buy their published research for class work.

UT board Vice Chairman Jim Murphy said colleges should make sure professors are assigning the best textbooks for their classes, but he said it is shortsighted to limit professors in what they can or cannot ask the students to read.

"The reality is we encourage our professors to publish and be leaders in their field, which is recognized by a publisher publishing a textbook that they write," Murphy said. "We need to be careful if there is an abuse of that situation. We need to be careful about using books because they are good books, not just because a professor has published them."

For now the bill is on hold, but Campfield said he plans to push the legislation in the next few weeks.

By Jennifer Brooks