VCU Libraries donor supports ‘multiplier effect’ of affordable course content

By Chelyen Davis

When Leslie Brown thinks about what kind of place Virginia Commonwealth University is, she recalls a story about The Workshop in the basement of James Branch Cabell Library. A student had written a poem about bread and wanted to know if they could actually print it on a piece of toast. (Answer: yes.)

For Brown, who served as VCU’s budget director from 2015 until her retirement in 2020, that story speaks to the heart of what makes VCU an incredible place.

“Can you imagine that you get to work in a place where you get to be adjacent to that?” she said. “It’s like your inner self gets this spectacular view all the time: creativity and invention and that bravery.”

That’s why Brown has made gifts to support the Open and Affordable Course Content Initiative, which she views as one of the most powerful ways to invest in VCU.

VCU Libraries started the initiative in 2017 to reduce textbook costs for students, which the Education Data Initiative says increased more than 1,000% between 1977 and 2015. It’s a particular burden at VCU, where students may already be struggling to afford education costs. More than one-third of VCU undergraduates are eligible for Pell Grants, and a School of Social Work professor’s research estimated that 33% of VCU students are food-insecure. A Virginia Course Materials Survey conducted at VCU and published in 2025 found that approximately 75% of VCU students expressed some level of worry about meeting their course materials costs, with 14% saying they were extremely worried.

The Open and Affordable Course Content Initiative works with VCU faculty members to identify, customize or create free alternatives to expensive course materials, either by using or creating freely available openly licensed course materials or by leveraging the libraries’ extensive collections of ebooks, journals, databases and digital collections for classroom use. 

Making courses more accessible and beneficial for students

The initiative helped School of Business faculty members Jodie Ferguson, Ph.D., and César Zamudio, Ph.D., create a new marketing textbook that won national recognition as Pressbooks’ Book of the Month in May 2026. This textbook is used in MKTG 301, a foundational course for business majors, which impacts roughly 1,400 students each year. Ferguson and Zamudio were inspired to undertake the project when they heard that some students were struggling to pay for the $100 book that was used in the course previously.

With support from VCU Libraries’ Affordable Course Content Awards     (ACCA) program, a project of the Open and Affordable Course Content Initiative, they worked with subject matter experts in their department who pitched in to develop different sections of the new e-book for the course.

“The feedback has been positive overall,” Ferguson said. “Students like that each of the chapters is from a subject matter expert. That is one of our moments of pride, that our faculty who don’t teach the course have stepped up and said, ‘Let me contribute to this book.’ [Students] really like free. They comment, ‘Hey, thank you. I didn’t have to pay for a book in this case.’”

Zamudio added: “Every chapter is written in our own voice, with our own expertise. At VCU we have this unique culture that flows with the students. … It wouldn’t have happened in another place other than VCU.”

Since 2017, Open and Affordable Course Content Initiative has saved more than 161,000 students more than $15 million in course materials costs. When registering for classes, students can search for free and low-cost course materials.

For Brown, donating to the initiative means her support keeps on giving. Once a course is converted, it can be used over and over — for that course or by other faculty.

“So you have changed the course for [that first class of] students. The next time that faculty member teaches that course, you didn’t have to put any more money in, and it keeps going,” she said. “Think of that multiplier effect. … I mean, there’s no other thing I can imagine that you give to, that it just keeps getting bigger. It doubles every time. You don’t get that kind of return on investment. And it’s a very cool thing.”

Psychology professor Caroline Cobb, Ph.D., a VCU alum, participated in the ACCA program to adapt resources into a textbook for a graduate-level psychology course that all VCU psychology doctoral students take. The textbook she previously used was “quite expensive,” she said, while only providing relevant content for part of the course.

Her new text includes content from various openly licensed resources, which she was able to reuse and customize due to the special permissions granted by an open license. The textbook addresses health inequities and includes representation from groups often underrepresented in science — two things missing from the previous textbook, Cobb said.

The text has been adopted for a course at one other university, she said. Because it is openly licensed, anyone can use it for free, including other faculty at VCU and faculty at other institutions. Since the textbook’s publication, she has also gone on to create a website for student presentations that grow out of the course, so students can learn from those as well.

“I keep thinking about ways to make the course more accessible and more beneficial for others,” Cobb said.

One of the magical things to me about the library is how effective it is at making people comfortable. We’re not precious here.

Leslie Brown

A magical, safe and inclusive space

Brown first learned about the VCU Libraries Open and Affordable Course Content Initiative when she was serving as VCU’s budget director and preparing documents for the university’s government affairs team to share with state leaders. She was immediately taken with the affordable course content idea because of how it benefits students and how it demonstrates to state leaders and VCU Board of Visitors members how the university is stewarding public dollars.

“This was a great example of how we’re improving the costs to students. And the library did a really good job,” she said. “They knew how much money they gave out. They knew what the course attendance was, so they actually had pretty good metrics on it.”

When Brown and her late husband looked at how they wanted to designate a planned gift, she was very aware of the need for scholarships. But, she said, she has always loved libraries and reading. This spring, she designated her planned gift for the Friends of VCU Libraries to be used to reduce costs for students, meaning it could be used for the Open and Affordable Course Content Initiative or other direct support for students.

“It just seemed to make sense to make a bequest to the library. It felt to me like they would use the money well,” Brown said. “And then I would come, and I would kind of see how the library functioned as a space. It’s like this magical, in-between, very safe space. It’s inclusive.”

She recalls a day when she watched students in the library drag chairs to a different area — something she says she can’t imagine seeing at New York University, where she worked for 20 years, or at most other libraries. To her, that scene represents the way that Cabell Library and VCU itself welcome people.

“One of the magical things to me about the library is how effective it is at making people comfortable,” she said. “We’re not precious here.”

The library is also the place where Brown goes to feel VCU’s mission come alive. Walking through Cabell Library, watching and hearing students learn and discover, reminds her that their VCU experience changes their lives forever, and that everyone at VCU has a hand in making that happen.

“If you work at VCU and you haven’t been to the library around exam time, or you haven’t gone downstairs to see the makerspace, do yourself a favor,” she said. “It’s going to give you that sense of intense satisfaction about why we’re here.”

Brown uses a diving board as a metaphor for how VCU works to launch students into their lives.

“You don’t dive without the diving board,” she said. “You don’t get that height unless we’re doing a superior job, unless we’ve got the perfect ladder to get you up. That 20 feet in the air unless we have just the right amount of bounce. How cool is it that we are that launch? … There’s no place, there’s no other industry I can think of, where you have this kind of legacy.”

To learn more about ways to support VCU Libraries and the Open and Affordable Course Content Initiative, visit library.vcu.edu/about/giving.