Dear Editor,
University Books and More is a strong partner to students, faculty and instructional academic staff, and it has been for many years. It is a face of the university for prospective students, and serves athletes, artists and a variety of scholars in search of apparel, specialty supplies and of course, books.
Bookstore employees think hard about how to reduce barriers for students, finding the most affordable options for textbooks, whether in print or digital formats. University Books and More has been a team player, pulling more than its financial weight during the COVID-19 shutdown period.
This past August, a university task force on the bookstore reported that changes must be made to the bookstore for financial viability, and that:
While current volatility in the chain bookstore industry makes the exact timeline and financial benefits of outsourcing difficult to predict at this early stage in the process, the trade-off here can likely be summarized as one between a) accepting a bit longer time period before the bookstore is in the black (estimated by end of FY26) but retaining most of our bookstore’s high service quality and commitment to mission or b) receiving more immediate financial relief but accepting an inevitable decrease in service and less control over an uncertain future (An Analysis of Self-Operated and Third-Party Business Models for the UW Oshkosh Bookstore, 8-9-24).
In the last month, UWO administration entertained bids to outsource book sales to a for-profit corporation. University Books and More was not allowed to make a bid in this process. Meanwhile, an outside consultant was paid to make recommendations about outsourcing our state university bookstore to a private vendor. Outsourcing would include the layoff of UWO employees who have many years of experience helping students find affordable books. UWO administration wants those employees to be offered jobs with the outside corporation, but the wages, benefits, job descriptions and priorities set by a new employer are all unclear. Now, Chancellor Andrew Leavitt reports in his blog that the university is negotiating with Follett Corporation to take over University Books and More. That outside corporation would have the goal of maximizing profit more than serving our students as part of our public university. Moreover, Follett has been plagued by layoffs over the last decade, including in 2024, according to employee reports on indeed.com. Given the certain downsides and uncertain upsides to outsourcing the bookstore, we urge Leavitt to choose the task force’s option A: invest time in our current bookstore instead.
Given time, University Books and More can have an opportunity to bounce back from its COVID-19-related deficit. Given time, our university administration can make a better-informed decision on this important question: whether our in-house bookstore or a for-profit corporation would best serve students. University Books and More has done so much for students and for our university. We urge Leavitt to give it a chance to keep this business in the hands of university employees, for whom student success is top of mind.
Sincerely,
Gabriel Loiacono, together with Bryan Engelhardt, Ben Hallett, Michelle Kuhl, Tony Palmeri, Stephanie Spehar and Paul Van Auken, all on behalf of the United Faculty and Staff of Oshkosh Executive Board.
