ACTS Program Rollout Poses Headaches for Students

The start of this year’s fall semester featured a unique new image: a long line of students waiting outside of the Alumni House for course materials.

As part of the new Amherst College Textbooks (ACTS) system, which was implemented across the college this fall, the cost of course materials is now included in the college’s comprehensive fee, with students receiving their physical textbooks and additional course materials on-campus through the education products company Follett.

While the ACTS program promised to make it easier and cheaper for students to receive their books, many students expressed exasperation with the inefficiency of the program.

Matt Kasper ’28 said he had been forced to return to the Alumni House four times since not all of his course materials arrived on time. “The first time, the line was around 45 minutes, then the past couple of times have been 20 to 25 minutes,” he said. “I’m still waiting on like six more books,” Kasper added.

Ralph Johnson, executive director of campus operations, estimated that “96% of the course materials in-scope arrived on time this year.” According to Johnson, the reasons for the delayed arrival of some books are plentiful: “Some course materials were delayed due to publishers giving errant delivery dates, some course materials are out of print, and some course pack materials need to have their copyrights cleared,” he said.

Professor of Psychology Catherine Sanderson, who serves on the committee overseeing ACTS’ implementation, attributed part of the trouble with the missing course materials to Amherst’s extensive add-drop period. “One of the challenges with the Amherst add-drop system is that it's a moving target. So, in some cases, the instructor said it was going to be a class of 20, and then all of a sudden, it was a class of 30. So the publisher had ordered 20 books, but they hadn't ordered 30 books,” she said.

The Alumni House opened for students to pick up course materials on Tuesday, Aug. 27, a week before classes started, though students who arrived over the weekend had to wait until Monday to claim their materials.

Sanderson admitted that the physical distribution of books prior to the first day of classes was “not ideal.”

“We cannot have one day in which Amherst students can pick up their books,” she said, adding that in the future, she believes the college could consider allowing students to pick up books over the weekend to reduce the volume of the line.

While students were automatically enrolled in ACTS, they were able to opt out of the program and receive a stipend of $288 instead — an option that the college did not widely publicize and that many students were unaware of.

One student who chose to opt out of ACTS, Daniel Martin ’25, said that he believes “it’s not really financially worth it” to be a part of the program. “A good amount of students aren’t spending $300 on books,” he added.

David Hanneke, Professor of Physics and another member of the committee overseeing ACTS’ implementation, said he disliked the availability of an opt-out option for students, comparing ACTS to other subsidized features of the Amherst experience. “How much does a typical student pay to use the fitness center at the gym?” He asked. “You could take the cost to run the fitness center, divide it by the number of students, and say that’s the per-student cost, but we don't unbundle things like that here,” he said.

Sanderson agreed. “This is a college in which students are taking classes. So, why is it that what we allow students to opt out of is the learning?” she asked.

However, even some professors have also hedged their bets when it comes to ACTS. “Ever since Covid when we moved our classrooms online, my course materials have been available on Moodle. This seems the easiest way to make them accessible,” said Monica Ringer, professor of History and Asian languages and civilizations. “While I did submit my material to Follett for copyright purposes, just to be on the safe side with the new system, I made sure to have PDF backups," she added.

While both Hanneke and Sanderson agreed there were issues in this year’s ACTS rollout, they emphasized the positive impact they believe ACTS will have on the Amherst community.

Hanneke argued that ACTS will have extensive pedagogical benefits for the college. “This is the first time in my 14 years at the college that every student in my class has the official course materials,” he said.

In the past, Hanneke says that although he never assigned substandard materials, he would sometimes “assign a textbook that was out of date, just because there was a more vibrant used market for it, for the students to save a little bit of money when the students are buying it out of pocket.”

“I don’t have to do that anymore. I can look around and say, you know, this textbook might be a little bit more expensive, but it is the best book out there, so I’m going to assign it,” he said.

Sanderson also argued that ACTS will go a long way toward making the college a more equitable place among its students. “There are a lot of divides already,” she said. “When you’re sitting around a seminar classroom of 15 people, and some people have a brand-new copy of the book, and some people have an old, out-of-date copy of the book, it’s visible, and it’s not fair,” she said.

To improve ACTS going forward, Hanneke says that there could be improved communication with faculty and department coordinators about the availability of some materials. He added that basing the delivery of books in the Amherst College Store, which was not ready this fall, would help improve the program’s efficiency.

When reflecting on this semester’s rollout of ACTS, Sanderson acknowledged the inconvenience to students and faculty brought about by this year’s growing pains. Yet, she emphasized that ACTS should eventually have a largely positive impact on the Amherst community.

“I really hope that the challenges with the rollout don't make everybody think, well, this is a crappy program. This was the rollout, and it was not flawless, but I think we’ve learned a lot about how it needs to go better,” she said. “Let’s not let perfect be the enemy of good.”