Board of Regents approves outsourcing of the university bookstore

The Southeast Missouri State University Board of Regents approved outsourcing the functions of the bookstore to the vendor Follett Higher Education Group and declared that the operations of textbook rental program will remain with the university during an open session meeting held Wednesday morning in Glenn Auditorium.

Students will not be paying more for textbook rentals in the coming semester. This decision by the Board of Regents will keep the institution's current textbook rental program the way it is now.

"Follett was able to offer a [similar program in terms of] the services and the way it was set to our traditional textbook program where students pay per course for the course that they have with a textbook," Kathy Mangels, vice president for finance and administration at Southeast, said. "Currently we're at $25.94 per course. It is not per credit hour, but per course. ... The best offer that Follett as a company could offer was a phased-in approach that started at $34 per course.

"That's about $40 for a full-time student more per semester than they're currently paying and so, from our perspective first and foremost, that was not an acceptable program for our students."

The university administration previously considered two options from this Follett: outsourcing the operations of both the bookstore and the textbook rental program or outsourcing the operations of the bookstore with the university maintaining the operations of textbook rental, according to the Board of Regents' motion consideration form.

These same conditions were presented to the other potential bookstore vendor, Barnes & Noble College. Both vendors were invited to campus for a chance to describe their goals for the institution at open forums held on Feb. 28 and March 1.

Barnes & Noble did not offer textbook rental options, but Follett provided many pricing options that seemed to come close to the current rental program. However, the prices were still higher than university officials were hoping to see.

"Looking at the textbook rental, I think that we are correct in assuming that it wouldn't be beneficial to students. I don't think that the advantages of Follett outweigh the extra cost of students right now," student representative Kevin Magnan said.

By outsourcing the operations of the bookstore, the university has the opportunity to partner with a leader in higher education in the textbook industry, according to the motion consideration form. This means that the university now has a method to pilot new technologies and keep up with the trends of the industry.

The university will receive annual commissions based on the percentage of sales at the bookstore as well as contribution in other areas of revenue, such as budget. Follett also has plans to finance improvements to the bookstore.

"They have proposed that they would put in [$490,000] to renovate the bookstore in addition to installing a new [point of sales] system that is their company format," Mangels said.

Mangels also said that the university will end up with more revenue than if it was managing the renovation themselves. If the university funded the same project over the next five years, it would end up with $10,000 less in revenue.

The university has set up a one-year contract with four optional renewal periods. The administration intends to put the contract in effect by July 1, but there is a lot of transition that has to happen, according to Mangels.