Six projects involving 15 faculty are underway in VCU Libraries’ ninth round of Affordable Course Content Awards. This grant program supports faculty who enhance the learning experience for students through free and/or open course materials. 

Each of this year’s awardees will create or customize open materials with a potential for large impact at and beyond VCU. The awarded projects have the potential to save approximately 3,200 VCU students more than $391,000 annually.

The Affordable Course Content Awards program is made possible in part through funding from the Barbara Ford Endowment for the 21st Century Fund and The Friends of VCU Libraries.

Interest in the program was strong again this year, highlighting continued faculty dedication to student success.

2025 Award Recipients

Maurice Brown, Ph.D., instructor of Business, and Joseph Paulchell, MBA, adjunct instructor from the VCU School of Business, will create a workbook for BUSN 212, Business Problem Solving and Analysis. This resource will remix existing open math resources and tailor the problems to a business context. The workbook will explore the concepts of algebra as applied to the formulation and solution of problems, mathematics of finance, matrices and introductory linear programming, introductory calculus and optimization. With an emphasis on applications in business, it will allow students to build their understanding of mathematical models and how to use functions and data to solve real-world situations. 

Volkan Aytar, Ph.D., teaching faculty in the Department of Sociology, will continue ongoing open education work to create open course material for SOCY 307: Sociology of Food. Dr. Aytar was previously awarded a 2024 Affordable Course Content Award to create custom open materials for SOCY 370: Media and Society and SOCY 202: Foundations of Theory, all of which aim to decolonize and de-Orientalize the sociology curriculum as well as to provide freely accessible course materials for a future online sociology major/minor track. 

Associate Professor of Music in the School of the Arts, Dr. Justin Alexander, will create a new, open source textbook for the teaching of the Percussion Methods class and comparable courses offered at any institution that offers a music education degree. This text is written with non-percussion music education students in mind and will introduce students to the playing techniques of different percussion instruments from both Western and non-Western cultures. While most current texts approach the course material from the perspective of private lessons, Percussion Techniques and Pedagogy will address how to teach percussion through the modality in which most educators teach percussion - through the full band class.

Eli Coston, Ph.D., assistant professor and the associate chair in the Department of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies (GSWS), Liz Canfield, Ph.D., associate professor in GSWS, Dawn Johnson, J.D., Ph.D., assistant professor in GSWS, Paulina Guerrero, Ph.D., assistant professor in GSWS, Brooke Taylor, M.Div., M.A., instructor in GSWS, and Francesca Lyn, Ph.D., assistant professor in GSWS, will create an open textbook for GSWS 201: Introduction to Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies. This project will update an existing open resource, created with a 2018 Affordable Course Content Award, alongside a pedagogical restructuring of the course, resulting in a comprehensive and updated resource that addresses student learning objectives.

Dr. Andrea Reed, D.N.P, M.S.N., RN, clinical assistant professor of VCU School of Nursing, R. D. Featherstone, PMHNP-BC, WHNP-BC, M.S.N., adjunct professor of VCU School of Nursing, Lyons Hardy, Ed.D., M.S.N, PMHNP, concentration lead, Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner Concentration, clinical assistant professor of VCU School of Nursing, and Roy Brown, MLIS, AHIP-D, associate professor and research and education librarian at the Health Sciences Librarian and liaison to the VCU School of Nursing, will create an open resource to serve as a supplement to the existing open textbook, Community and Public Health Nursing: A Call to Action that will address the needs of commonly unacknowledged or overlooked, including erotically marginalized folks (2SLGBTQIA+, the nonmonogamous, those engaging in alternative sexual practices, sex workers), religious minorities, stateless people (Palestinian, Roma and Ashkali, among others), and non-nuclear families. This resource will serve NURS 535: Population Health, Prevention, and Wellness Concepts Across the Lifespan, NURS 547: Chronic Care Concepts Across the Lifespan and NURS 550: Acute Care Concepts Across the Lifespan.

Professor of Mathematics in the College of Humanities and Sciences Richard Hammack, Ph.D., will complete an ongoing project to create a comprehensive resource for MATH 200: Calculus I. This resource, already being used by students and professors globally, includes an original open-source textbook, 54 video lectures, and a Test Archive on which students can find over 400 tests and quizzes from previous semesters, with solutions. This project fills in content gaps with new chapters and video lectures. 

About the Affordable Course Content Awards

The Affordable Course Content Awards provide financial and project support for faculty as they adopt zero-cost resources or create or customize openly-licensed alternatives to expensive course materials. By removing the financial barrier to access, free course materials increase the possibility that students can succeed in their academic careers. Course materials with open licenses also allow faculty to tailor materials to their specific classes, creating engaging learning experiences for students. While many resources resemble traditional textbooks, supported course materials can take a variety of forms, including interactive websites, videos, or ancillary materials. 

To date, the program has supported 42 projects in different academic 28 departments across eight cohorts. 

Past projects include Digital Histology, Foundations of Business, 2nd Edition, Language and Culture in Context, and Biological Basis of Behavior. Through Spring 2025, funded projects have saved 73,340 students (duplicated headcount) $7.2 million.

Learn more about the Affordable Course Content Awards or VCU Libraries’ support for open and affordable course content.