Staff Editorial | Bookstore process should be transparent, student-centered

At an open community forum organized by the Urban Studies Majors Committee, participants ranging from students to professors to local business owners voiced their concerns about plans to move the bookstore from its location on-campus to the space now occupied by Juliet Cafe. “The goal here is to transmit this information and challenge everyone to be more transparent,” said facilitator Naomi Fair ’08 at the start of the panel.

The forum was a worthwhile attempt by students and community members to have their questions and doubts about the future bookstore heard. Vice President for Finance and Administration Elizabeth Eismeier and Director of Human Resources Ruth Spencer explained the rationale behind the move at the beginning of the forum. Still, it is fitting that Fair called for more transparency on the issue, since transparency is something that has remained elusive to students who are not positioned to be “in the know” about the decision-making process.

Since the December announcement of the bookstore’s move, two unofficial advisory groups—the Bookstore of the Future Committee and an advisory group looking at space issues on campus—have been formed, despite the fact that the Bookstore Advisory Committee (BAC) still exists.

The BAC was formed in the aftermath of the College’s controversial decision to share management of the bookstore with Barnes & Noble. After the Barnes & Noble decision in the summer of 2000, the Vassar Student Association (VSA) formed a committee to explore other options for the management of the bookstore. Most notably, they submitted a request for an independent bookstore option to the administration and trustees. Although the proposal was ultimately ignored, it resulted in the committee (the future BAC) being established as a forum for voicing student ideas regarding the bookstore.

Despite having been conceived to address student concerns about the bookstore (especially concerns about corporate control), the BAC did not discuss the newly proposed transfer of the bookstore. Its student members were not even made aware of the decision until the entire campus was informed through an e-mail sent out on Dec. 18, 2007.

Committees at Vassar exist in order to address the important issues within their purview, be they curricular policies or campus life. For the College not to consult the student members of the BAC was a gross breach of the committee system which chips away at the trust VSA constituents place in the system. That trust will continue to erode unless students are involved in big decisions made by the College and its trustees.

VSA President Sam Charner ’08 reported to VSA Council on March 30 that he sat in on “a space committee, which is looking at various spaces on campus, and is discussing what will happen when the bookstore moves out of the College Center.” A similar committee, “The Bookstore of the Future Committee,” has apparently replaced the BAC. VSA Vice President for Student Activities Jimmy Kelly ’09 is one of several students who sit on this committee.

These new committees consist of student members chosen by senior officers. They do not employ a democratic selection process. Students selected for positions sat on other committees, but the student body was never given the opportunity to weigh in on which students they believed would best represent their bookstore-related interests and concerns.

Even worse, these are secret committees; reports of their proceedings are not open to the public. This is in contrast to every other committee of similar importance, which all make regular, public reports to Council. Secrecy surrounding the new committees makes little sense and breeds distrust.

By avoiding the democratic appointment process for the creation and staffing of committees and by keeping the committees’ activities unknown, the College has taken a step backwards in student voice. The students on the new bookstore committees may be well-versed in College policy and the issues surrounding the bookstore move, but we as students (and voters) were never given a chance to propose a lesser-heard voice—someone who may not have already had a committee position.

Creating a “need-to-know” policy does little to support the notion that we as a community are in it together on these issues. Instead, it serves to sow dissent among the stuent body.

In the case of the two bookstore groups, secrecy and the subversion of the democratic process are not helpful or justifiable. Clearly, the bookstore move and its future implications for the Vassar and Poughkeepsie communities are complex issues, as demonstrated in the public forum on the topic.

The VSA, the College and the Poughkeepsie community are best served when College decisions are transparent and open to the public. This is most likely to happen when all students have the opportunity to represent their colleagues on committees addressing issues important to College life.

—The staff editorial reflects the opinion of at least two-thirds of the 16-member editorial board.