TO THE EDITOR:
I joined the Student Stores Advisory Committee with deep concerns about how possible changes in the store’s management might undermine employee well-being and the intellectual community that we value and seek to sustain at UNC-Chapel Hill.
I feared that outsourcing the management of our Student Stores would almost surely threaten the public mission and identity of our University.
I therefore attended all of the advisory committee meetings and company interviews with five main goals for the future of the Student Stores: to ensure protection of our outstanding staff, including part-time student employees; to ensure the continuing vitality and academic quality of the Bull’s Head Bookshop; to ensure the highest possible levels of financial support for student scholarships; to find new ways for the textbook department to succeed in this era of national online competition; and to renovate the store in ways that would make the space both more modern and more supportive of intellectual and social exchanges.
After listening to presentations from all of the would-be managers of the store, I definitely came to believe that Barnes and Noble College offered the best plan to achieve the goals that are essential for a first-rate student store on the UNC-CH campus. The leadership team at this company seems to understand UNC’s distinctive mission and traditions.
Nobody can ever exactly predict the future, of course, but I think the Barnes and Noble plan for the UNC-CH Student Store offers an innovative strategy to serve the professional needs of our talented staff, the interests and book-buying practices of our students, and the teaching and scholarship of our 21st-century faculty. There will also be new spaces to enhance the collective life of our intellectual community.
I began as an outsourcing skeptic, but I am now optimistic about how Barnes and Noble can support our public academic mission and help us adapt to an always-evolving social, economic and cultural environment.
Prof. Lloyd Kramer
Department of History
