Urban majors keep up bookstore cause

Hayley Tsukayama News Editor

Time for step two. The Urban Studies Majors Committee is going forward with its plan to include more community voices in the College’s decision to move the bookstore into the space currently occupied by Juliet Café.

Over 100 members of the Poughkeepsie, Arlington and Vassar communities attended a forum hosted by the Committee on April 2, after which the group promised to hold a follow-up forum. The purpose of the second forum, held on April 23, was to produce a “collective document”regarding the bookstore move and future development in the Arlington District. “We hope to generate concerns, demands, policy changes and ideas for immediate action,” read the group’s campus-wide e-mail.

Although the Committee always intended to produce this document, they had not originally planned to host a second meeting. “It wasn’t until the forum, that [the College] said that the bookstore is definitely moving, and that’s set in stone,” said Committee member Chloe Gutelle ’08. Gutelle hopes that they will be able to “inform how we can shape the space.”

But first, they hit the Web. On April 10, the Committee created a blog at urbsmajors.blogspot.com, where they posted documents relating to the bookstore, helping Vassar students and the greater Poughkeepsie community understand the history and impetus behind the move.

The documents include the College’s original analysis of the Juliet Café building, the development plan for the Arlington Business District, the results of the 2007 student survey that the College conducted to gauge student and faculty interest in moving the bookstore, the 2002 Bookstore Research Report and documents describing student opposition to Barnes and Nobles’ management of the bookstore.

The reports on the Arlington Business District and the Juliet building found that because Arlington is not an “economically vibrant” community, a major retail operation was preferable to a movie theater.

According to the survey, 51 percent of faculty, staff and administration respondents and 37.4 percent of student respondents approved of the move. Twenty-one percent of faculty, staff and administration and 18 percent of students participated in the survey.

Approximately one-fourth of faculty, administrators and staff and one-third of students surveyed opposed the move. The remainder of those surveyed responded that they were “not sure.”

The College also appears to have conducted a survey of local business owners, but that data was not available at the time the report was published.

Gutelle said that the Committeee obtained the documents from Vice President for Finance and Administration Elizabeth Eismeier.

Wednesday’s meeting was to be conducted differently than the first forum. The Committee decided to use a town-hall style, utilizing small groups who were to answer two or three questions about their vision for the bookstore. They then wrote suggestions on index cards.

The cards were to be grouped by topic and affixed to a “sticky wall” that allowed everyone at the meeting to see which issues most concerned the attendees.

The Committee hoped that the meeting generated ideas and allowed people to share their visions for the future policy and function of the bookstore.

The document, said Gutelle, will not be a list of demands but rather an expression of the concerns of the entire community.

“It’s important to consider how we’re impacting the community. Even if we’re only here for four years, we are always connected to Vassar and the community as alumnae/i,” said Gutelle.

After compiling the document, the Committee will post it on its blog and personally deliver it to members of the College’s senior administration, including President Catharine Bond Hill, Dean of the College Judy Jackson and Eismeier. The group also plans to send a copy of the document to the Board of Trustees.

The point of the document, the Committee reiterated, is not to take a side on whether the move is good or bad, but to ensure that Vassar and its community are well aware of the College’s plans. “It’s always been my goal to get people informed,” said Gutelle. “We’re trying to continue the precedent in Vassar’s history of standing up and making change.”