Cost discussion avoided at bookstore forums

Southeast Missouri State University students and faculty were left with unanswered questions about the cost of textbook rentals and other services proposed by two potential vendors for the university's bookstore, Follett Higher Education Group and Barnes & Noble College, at two open forum discussions in Glenn Auditorium on Thursday and Friday afternoon.

Bruce Snyder, vice president of marketing at Follett, spoke for the company at Thursday's forum. Several students and faculty members from a crowd of about 50 people asked questions about the cost involved in the proposed services Follett was offering, and Snyder said he was unable to answer them.

Laura Stock, director of business operations at Southeast, offered her explanation on the matter during the presentation.

Follett presented at Southeast for their textbook rental forums on Feb. 28. Photo by Kyle Thies.

"When you are talking about a contract of this scope where it involves the bookstore and textbook rentals, it's got so many different pieces and fingers. There are a lot of negotiation points," Stock said. "So we're hesitant to get a lot of pricing information out there because, quite frankly, we're just at the relative beginning of this process of working with Follett and some of those price points could change."

Ben Dixon, vice president of campus relations at Barnes & Noble College, represented his company along with regional managers Cynthia Bader and Marc Eckhart in a crowd of about 60 people on Friday. When asked if they could match the schools current rental prices, he said it was a university decision.

"We have a rental program that we described to you here much different: 50 percent," Dixon said, meaning the charge to rent the book would be 50 percent of the cost to buy the book. "That's not what this university wants, I don't think. I think that what they want to do is come up with a solution to where they can modernize their program, be prepared for the future ... and at the same time continue a low-cost book program for you as long as possible. We are going to try to work with them if we are selected to do so."

Stock said the purpose of the open forums are to give students the opportunity to voice their viewpoints and opinions about the venders. This is the university's way of getting student feedback since they are not yet directly involved in any decision.

"What [the students] think is very important to us, and it could change things, but it's a long process," Stock said.

Southeast student Lauren Bethel voiced her concern of Barnes & Noble College's program to its representatives.

"I had gone on to your corporate website and had looked at comparing the current books I have this semester to your prices you have online through there, and the prices sort of scare the bejesus out of me," Bethel said. "Right now I'm paying $25.94 per text book no matter what the original retail price was. ... My cost for this semester would have come to about $400. That's more than double what I'm paying now."

Dixon replied by saying Southeast students receive a "super-duper bargain" with the current system. The university is correct to look toward the future to when their system no longer works for them, Dixon said. He also said that Bethel may have gone to Barnes & Noble's website, which is not directly associated with Barnes & Noble College.

Jake Leffler, a senior at Southeast, expressed questions and concerns multiple times during the Follett presentation.

"Right now our textbook rental program is really good. I came from a community college before I came here, and I was forced to buy textbooks there," Leffler said. "So this is a great improvement to that, but I'm kind of still curious to how this is an improvement from what we have now."

"We've got the objectives: student success, accessibility and affordability, and all of those things are closely related," Snyder said. "But when you just take one scenario and say how does it benefit you, and it's cost-basis only, yours may come in cheaper, or it may not. I don't know where we'll land. But it will change."

Even though no specifics on cost were provided, Snyder proposed Follett's IncludED Program to the university to help reduce the price of book rentals. This program decreases the cost of rentals by including the fees in tuition. They can pretty closely match the current prices of renting books with this program, according to Snyder.

"There are already changes that are happening now. ... We don't know what all those changes are, but these folks, they're national," Stock said. "They work with schools all over the place. We're a small school. We have a great staff, but a limited number of staff, whereas they have lots and lots of minds to pick. We don't like to recreate the wheel if we don't have to. So, that's why whether we go out and partner with a third party or not, we'd at least like to see what's out there in the market."

The university's decision to look for different venders for the bookstore came after Jan Chisman, the manager of the Southeast bookstore, announced her retirement.

"I think they are using Jan's retirement as an excuse to change," said Billy Schmitz, a Southeast senior at the Barnes & Noble College open forum. "The current bookstore already does everything just fine. They are talking about preparing for the change to digital, but our current staff is already doing that. There were a lot questions that people asked that weren't answered."

Students and faculty are encouraged to take a survey to provide feedback on this process. The link to the survey can be found at southeastbookstore.com. The survey will be available until midnight on March 10.