This time last year, UNC Student Stores was an independently operating entity on campus. Since July 1, it has been operated by Barnes & Noble College.
In July of 2015, Follett, an educational products company that used to provide textbooks to the University, sent UNC an unsolicited proposal to manage the stores which had been University-owned for 100 years.
The campus community quickly responded to the possibility of the stores being privatized with petitions, Facebook pages and protests.
UNC issued a request for proposals to manage the stores on Jan. 11 with companies expected to submit their proposals by Feb. 18.
“What the document tries to do is describe all the operations of the Student Stores and what the University would like to see if we did decide to have an outside operator,” said Brad Ives, associate vice chancellor for campus enterprises, soon after the request was issued.
The Student Stores RFP Advisory Committee — a 13 member committee made up of faculty, staff and then-student body president Houston Summers and Chief of Staff Harry Edwards — reviewed eight proposals to manage the stores, one of which came from the Student Stores.
The committee unanimously recommended Barnes & Noble College to administrators. On April 21, the University announced Barnes & Noble College would begin operating the stores July 1.
According to the University news release, the 10-year contract between UNC and Barnes & Noble College states the company will spend $3.8 million on renovations in the retail space of the stores.
The University received a $1 million signing bonus that Ives said went toward need-based scholarships and financial aid. For this year and the next, UNC will be guaranteed $3 million from Barnes & Noble College which will be used to pay university expenses and then need-based scholarships. After that, the University will receive 95 percent of sales commissions, Ives said.
