Ohio University professors do research for their books that will be published for classroom purposes
Samuel Crowl, a retired trustee professor of English literature, was the first to teach the “Shakespeare and Film” course in 1972.
But beyond being an authority in the classroom, his knowledge is immortalized in print.
Crowl wrote the book Shakespeare in Film, which was published in 2008. It’s now used in many colleges, and the only one published on the subject, he said.
Crowl will be one of the undergraduate commencement speakers at graduation this year.
Howard Dewald, vice provost for faculty and academic planning, said some faculty members will write a textbook, but there are others that will experience the process often.
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“In many cases, the nature of the work that they do in putting together a textbook informs them very much in modern thinking in terms of what should be in a modern textbook,” said Howard. “Then (that) translates into the curriculum that’s offered in courses … there’s an investment in time and effort and it pays off in the sense of the final product.”
Kasi Reed, a senior studying magazine journalism, said if her professor has been published, she sees it as another feather in the professor’s cap.
“If I know the professor has been published, I have more trust in them,” Reed said. “I feel like what they’re saying is backed up by real evidence rather than something they might have heard or might not fully know.”
Crowl said writing a textbook is rooted in a passion for the subject, not the money.
“You do it because you love it, or you are devoted to it as a professor,” Crowl said. “You do it for the fact that it gives you some acclaim and in some cases it’s an acclaim you want for your department and your university.”
The Norton publisher approached Crowl and asked him to write the book for them and gave him an advancement that is subtracted later by his 10 percent earned from every book sold.
“It’s been great to have been a part of that from the beginning,” Crowl said. “And to have written about three or four books having to do with different aspects of Shakespeare and film.”
Steven Miner, a professor and the director of contemporary history institute, said there are popular misconceptions that historians are only interested in doing their research and aren’t interested in teaching. He said, however, writing history and doing research enormously informs what they do in the classroom.
“The students are getting exposure not just to the course on that subject but they’re actually getting the most up to date, the most informative and to me, the most exciting stuff,” Miner said.
Miner published two works of his own, Between Churchill and Stalin and Stalin’s Holy War published by UNC Press and co-edited Failed States in Fragile Societies published through Ohio University Press.
He is currently working on his third book, The Furies Unleashed: The Soviet People at War 1941-1945 to be published through Simon & Schuster in the United States and Bloomsbury in Great Britain. Miner makes 6 percent of every book sold.
Neither of Miner’s first two books are used specially for a class, but they’re referred in the profession as monographs, or detailed, specialized texts.
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