The Textbook Crisis Valor Students Faced

Because a majority of Valor’s student body is online, books in their library were collecting dust. Additionally, they have many non-traditional students already in ministry, so Valor sought to overcome both financial and access barriers to get every student the textbooks they needed.

Students would order their books online but inevitably there would be a delay—sometimes because students would wait until classes began to order them.

With such predictable but insurmountable delays, faculty often spent the first two weeks of every semester adjusting content—sometimes until the third or fourth week of class. “Our on-campus instructors often could catch up on the content of each course, but our online students are doing sixteen weeks of work in eight weeks,” says Dr. Laquetta Cortner, Valor’s provost and interim president. “For online students, missing two weeks of content is like missing a whole month.”

Valor’s challenge became clear: Find a solution that gets students their books on time, more affordably, that they can access from anywhere.

Why Valor Turned to Logos

Valor’s first attempts included financial aid and textbook vouchers, but those ideas all fell flat. When it came time to find a lasting solution, Valor turned to someone they knew they could trust.

Valor had already worked with Logos to set up bulk licenses, giving new bachelor’s degree students access to select Logos tools and books. On top of that, students were seeing their professors (most using Logos since their own college days) using Logos resources and tools in class. Logos seemed like a potential solution, but Valor administration was left with the question: How could they equip every student with the books they need, not just incoming bachelor’s degree students? That’s when they learned about Logos’s Inclusive Access program.

Inclusive Access allowed Valor’s faculty and administration to send their syllabi to the Logos team, who would unlock the textbooks students needed each semester. Then students would be able to open their digital textbooks directly through Populi, Valor’s learning management system (LMS), and pay for those books via the Educational Resource fee added to their tuition—making them eligible for financial aid. And since faculty were already familiar with Logos, it didn’t take much convincing. “Our faculty had been very frustrated with students being unable to get their books in a timely manner,” says Dr. Cortner. “The idea of students being able to have their books on the first day of class, ready to go, was very appealing.”

How Logos Inclusive Access Is Equipping Students

Logos’s Inclusive Access was a promising solution to Valor’s administration, but their next question was about which texts were available. The faculty and admin rounded up the list of books they’d need and sent it to the Logos team, hoping Logos could provide enough of their required texts to make it worth continuing conversations. Soon, they had a snapshot showing that Logos could provide the majority of the books they needed.

Now Valor can thoughtfully blend the worlds of digital books with what fills their physical shelves—and Valor’s students can access more high-quality books and do better research than ever before. Dr. Cortner says, “Logos gives our students access to resources we simply can’t provide through our on-campus library.”

Valor’s decision to partner with Logos ensures students can afford their books, have their books on (or before) the first day of class, and take them beyond campus. “Our arrangement with Logos helps us serve our students better,” Dr. Cortner says. “Now, we are confident that we are preparing our students for success.”

Valor Christian College Today

Since adopting Logos Inclusive Access in 2022, Valor estimates around 90 percent of students are using digital books through the Logos platform. And since students can use financial aid to cover the cost of textbooks, money isn’t as big of a stressor to students as it used to be.

In addition to making books more accessible to students, faculty enjoy being able to focus on what they do best—teaching students—instead of problem-solving for books. “It’s been a great benefit to our instructors,” says Dr. Cortner. “They can teach course material right away.”

Now, Valor students can approach their studies with confidence, knowing their college has empowered them with the resources they need to succeed in their studies and to serve the kingdom.