{"id":7564,"date":"2026-04-15T10:29:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T15:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/?p=7564"},"modified":"2026-04-12T14:35:36","modified_gmt":"2026-04-12T19:35:36","slug":"50-history-majors-agree-to-just-share-required-textbook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/15\/50-history-majors-agree-to-just-share-required-textbook\/","title":{"rendered":"50 History Majors Agree to \u201cJust Share\u201d Required Textbook"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>COBB HALL\u2014Professor Alyssa Rayner of the History Department always has low expectations when she puts her course\u2019s textbooks on reserve. \u201cI\u2019ve seen history majors ambush each other outside the Reg to steal textbooks. They use tactics straight out of a medieval siege\u2026\u201d she told the <em>Dealer,<\/em> shuddering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This quarter, for her class \u201cEarly American Politics and Political Culture,\u201d Rayner is trying a new policy. Each of her fifty students will get the Regenstein Library\u2019s copy of the required textbook for exactly 28.8 minutes a day. Once a student\u2019s time is up, they will meet the next student in front of Cobb to pass the book. \u201cThe students get the book in alphabetical order,\u201d Rayner explained. \u201cIt\u2019s perfectly fair.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Fourth-years Gil Abercrombie and Kaitlyn Zhou disagree. \u201cWe have to go to Cobb at midnight every day to pass the book to each other,\u201d Abercrombie said. \u201c<em>And<\/em> I\u2019m supposed to finish the reading in 28.8 minutes? It\u2019s two hundred pages a week, minimum!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cOn the plus side, neither of us is asleep at midnight because we\u2019re both working on our theses,\u201d Zhou added. \u201cAnd Professor Rayner says this is a good way for us to practice the republican virtues of disinterestedness and self-sacrifice.\u201dTensions are rising, however, over alleged misuse of the textbooks. A student in the class, who spoke to the <em>Dealer <\/em>on condition of anonymity, went so far as to say, \u201cI can\u2019t hold out for another week. Someone is marking all the vocab terms with \u2018smiley face-star-exclamation mark.\u2019 Another person highlights every quote in purple\u2014and then a third person underlines all the footnotes in orange crayon! I can\u2019t hold out for much longer!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This quarter, for her class \u201cEarly American Politics and Political Culture,\u201d Rayner is trying a new policy. Each of her fifty students will get the Regenstein Library\u2019s copy of the required textbook for exactly 28.8 minutes a day. Once a student\u2019s time is up, they will meet the next student in front of Cobb to pass the book.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2090,"featured_media":7565,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2090"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7564"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7564\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7566,"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7564\/revisions\/7566"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}