Watch out Panthers, the winds of change are blowing across campus this week. This week marks the beginning of the Follett Higher Education Group’s managerial role of the UNI bookstore. A Request for Proposals to find a private company to operate the store was sent out last spring. Follett was selected, and the Board of Regents approved an agreement between the company and the university at their Aug. 2 meeting. However, it was not until Oct. 22, that the bookstore temporarily closed its doors for this transition to take place; along with a quick bout of restocking and remodeling.
“The store will be closed most of the third week of October, right after homecoming,” explained Michael Hager, Senior Vice President of Finance and Operations. “We have some things to wind up, and then there will be a full inventory. Follett will also install all their own cash registers and put their systems into place, before hopefully, opening back up around Oct. 30.”
Though Follett plans to invest up to $84,000 in point of sale equipment and other inventory management technology in the bookstore and up to another $900,000 in renovations to the bookstore, these renovations are not expected to impact students that much.
“There may be some subtle changes, but the transition should be pretty seamless,” said Pete Moris, Director of University Relations.
“We hope that no huge differences arise, we are just handing over the wheel for the betterment of the students. The only big change should be the investment in new equipment and renovation of the space.”
Hager agreed, stating that; “Not much will change. They are working very diligently to make sure students have their textbooks and course materials. They are working with faculty to make sure that the correct materials are ordered, whether that be electronic or physical print versions. On the other hand, there will be a massive organization working behind the scenes that will be able to support the store and our students in a way that we just were not able to. So I think students can expect a larger variety of apparel and textbook options that will be available both in store and online.”
Across the board, UNI officials say that all updates and changes are being done primarily with the students in mind. Just five years ago, the university paid nearly $3 million to acquire the bookstore. The store was previously run as a private entity for 80 years. However, under UNI’s direction, issues arose surrounding the buying of textbooks and, in turn, the costs of books for students.
“Follett will be able to buy the textbooks at a lower price than we were able to,” Hager said. “When we were running the store, we were being shut out of the market because we were only buying 100 textbooks, whereas Follett can buy thousands of books for all of their stores. So at the end of the day, the textbook prices should remain the same, or maybe even a bit lower than they were.”
“The goal is always to have the best prices for the students. They will still be allowing students to charge their textbooks to their U-Bills so that financial aid can cover it, and they will still be hiring student employees. In fact, most of the current students who work there will be retained through this transition,” Hager said.
Talia Doan, a TESOL major and current bookstore employee, has been working at the bookstore since the summer, but has decided not to stay on with the store through the managerial transition.
“A lot of the people that have been working at the bookstore have been here for a very long time, and so some of the managers were very emotional,” said Doan. “Before I started working there, I think they came to terms with it…The people of the Follett company have been coming in and going through stuff, but I also think that it has still been a hard transition because for some of the people that have worked there, it was run by fellow people for the university, and so I think it was more of a community.”
According to Doan, most of the current student-employees did choose to re-interview with the Follett Group, and will be staying in their current positions. On the other hand though, the upper level managers were each given positions within other university departments or opted to either retire or step away from their positions. Doan continued on, stating that there is still some uncertainty from employees about what the future may bring.
“I think that some people are like, ‘what is going to come from this,’ because we don’t know what these people are going to be like. So who knows if there is going to be employee turnover from this because some of them might think ‘this is so different from what I’m used to.’”
While there will be new people stepping into managerial roles, some are already current employees. For instance, the university announced that Follett’s new manager of the bookstore is Alex Brandt. He is currently a member of the UNI Bookstore staff and a UNI alum.
One major change that students will expect to see in the coming semesters is the consolidation of the store. The basement level will no longer be a part of the sales floor, so all of the products being offered will be on one level. Official plans for the area have not been solidified.
“We always knew that the store was bigger than it needed to be, and we always intended to consolidate it down to one level, but then COVID came and we just never got around to it. It is expected that the lower level of the store will partly stay the same, maintaining the loading dock and the storage areas. But the university has not made any final plans for the rest of the floor space.” Hager said.
Students can also expect to see the store get a facelift in the coming months. The current timeline suggests that up to $900,000 will be put towards the renovation of the bookstore, hopefully within the next year. Currently, those renovations are planned to happen over the summer months, resulting in the store being completely updated and ready for the fall 2024 semester.
“Hopefully sometime within the first year of this transition there will be a remodel of the space. We want it to be new and fun and fresh, it should be exciting to give it a new look and a new feel.” Moris said.
