Friday, August 8, 2008

Bookstore Update

Below is an update and comments on bookstore developments over the summer from Professor Leonard Nevarez:

Dear readers of the Urban Studies Majors Committee blog:

While I don’t have a formal relationship with this blog, I have been keeping up with the on-going developments regarding the proposed relocation of the Vassar bookstore into the current Juliet Café space in Arlington. Because most students are currently off-campus, I thought I would report on these developments so that everyone is up to date and ready to respond when they return to campus in the fall semester.

On May 14, at the last faculty meeting of the 2007-08 school year, President Cappy Hill reported on the college’s progress toward moving the bookstore into the Juliet Café. Faculty had requested special time at this meeting to discuss this proposal with the President, and Cappy heard fairly extensive concerns about various aspects of the relocation, including its effects on Arlington businesses and the ways that the proposal was conveyed to the campus. Cappy expressed continued support for the bookstore relocation, but she indicated that if she heard a groundswell of faculty sentiment against the bookstore (“300 faculty” was the number she cited; note that Vassar has around 250 faculty [!]), she would reconsider the project. On June 23, 61 faculty sent President Hill a letter reiterating their concerns about the relocation, see below:


June 23, 2008

Catharine Bond Hill,
President
Vassar College

Dear Cappy:

We write to you as concerned citizens of the College and members of the Arlington and Vassar community. All of us are troubled by the possibility that the College might establish a corporate-owned bookstore in what is currently the Juliet Café. We are especially concerned for the well-being of the Three Arts Bookstore, a small business with a long, proud history in our area. Recent research into the effect of large chain establishments on particular communities has shown, among other results, that they generate a huge disparity between gross income, and income that actually stays in the community.

We are all excited about the potential usage of the space now occupied by the Juliet Café, and we appreciate how this initiative has developed out of collaborative work the college has done with the Project for Public Spaces and area community organizations. However, turning the Juliet into a corporate-owned-and-run bookstore, albeit with Vassar’s name on the front of it, seems to us to be an impoverishment of such a space. It is one thing to have a corporate entity such as Barnes and Noble tucked away in the basement of the College Center; it is quite another to invite such an entity into a large, highly visible space in the Arlington business district. Many of us have spoken directly to the owners of the stores in the area, especially the House of Nutrition, Babycakes, the Dreaming Goddess, and the Three Arts, and we have found that they are unanimously opposed to and upset by the College’s plans.

While it is impossible to know with certainty what the effects of opening such a store will have on The Three Arts, there is a good chance that they will not be positive. Indeed, it is difficult to think of a single example in the United States when the establishment of a corporate bookstore near a tiny independent one has in any way ‘helped’ the latter; we can, however, point to many cases where the exact opposite has occurred, one of the most recent being in New Paltz, where the Ariel Bookstore was forced to close its doors due to the influence of the incoming Barnes and Noble. Given such outcomes, we strongly feel that it is worth the extended effort to develop and ensure a “win-win” solution.

Currently we have two interconnected requests:

(1) That the decision to build a bookstore -- specifically, one run by a chain -- be postponed until further faculty and community discussion.

(2) That other possibilities as to how to use the Juliet space be discussed.

The closing and renovation of The Juliet presents challenges and exciting opportunities for imaginative and creative thinking to rework the nature of relations between Vassar and the greater community. For that reason and more, we look forward to your response and hope to meet with you to exchange ideas.

Respectfully submitted,

1) Carlos Alamo, Assistant Professor of Sociology
2) Mark A. Amodio, Professor of English
3) Light Carruyo, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Latin American and Latina/o Studies
4) Carol Christensen, Professor of Psychology
5) Colleen Cohen, Professor of Anthropology and Women’s Studies
6) Mary Ann Cunningham, Assistant Professor of Geography on the Mary Clark Rockefeller Chair
7) Eve D’Ambra, Professor of Art
8) Beth Darlington, Professor of English and Director of Victorian Studies
9) Barbara A. Durniak, Head of Reference & Interlibrary Loan
10) Marc M. Epstein, Associate Professor of Religion and Director, Jewish Studies
11) Laura Finkel, Special Collections Librarian
12) Rachel Friedman, Assistant Professor of Classics and Jewish Studies
13) Brian A. Godfrey, Professor of Geography
14) Wendy Graham, Associate Professor of English
15) Hayden Harker, Visiting Assistant Professor of Mathematics
16) Diane Harriford, Associate Professor of Sociology
17) Susan Hiner, Assistant Professor of French and Francophone Studies
18) William Hoynes, Professor of Sociology
19) E. H. Rick Jarow, Associate Professor of Religion
20) Lucille Johnson, Professor of Anthropology
21) Michael Joyce, Professor of English
22) Jonathon Kahn, Assistant Professor of Religion
23) Martha Kaplan, Professor of Anthropology and Asian Studies
24) Dorothy Kim, Assistant Professor of English
25) Amitava Kumar, Professor of English
26) Margaret A. Leeming, Visiting Instructor in Religion
27) Eileen Leonard, Professor of Sociology
28) Gretchen Lieb, Librarian
29) Candice Lowe, Assistant Professor of Anthropology
30) Karen Lucic, Professor of Art
31) Lawrence H. Mamiya, Paschall-Davis Professor of Religion and Africana Studies
32) Brian McAdoo, Associate Professor of Earth Science
33) Robert McAulay, Associate Professor of Sociology
34) Kirsten Menking, Associate Professor of Earth Science
35) Quincy Mills, Assistant Professor of History
36) Seungsook Moon, Associate Professor of Sociology and Director, Asian Studies
37) Lydia Murdoch, Associate Professor of History
38) Molly Nesbit, Professor of Art
39) Leonard Nevarez, Associate Professor of Sociology
40) Joseph Nevins, Associate Professor of Geography
41) Laura Newman, Assistant Professor of Art
42) Dan Peck, Professor of English
43) Ismail Rashid, Associate Professor of History and Africana Studies
44) Christine Reno, Professor of French
45) Harry Roseman, Professor of Art
46) Paul Russell, Professor of English
47) Elliott Schreiber, Assistant Professor of German Studies
48) Joshua Schreier, Assistant Professor of History and International Studies
49) Tyrone Simpson, Assistant Professor, Department of English
50) Andrew Tallon, Assistant Professor of Art
51) Dan Ungurianu, Associate Professor of Russian Studies and Chair
52) Linta Varghese, Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology
53) Agi Veto, Visiting Instructor in Jewish Studies
54) Jeffrey R. Walker, Professor of Earth Science
55) Michael J. Walsh, Assistant Professor of Religion and Asian Studies
56) Tova Weitzman, Senior Lecturer, Department of Religion and Jewish Studies
57) Nancy Willard, Lecturer
58) Neil Worden, Visiting Assistant Professor of Drama
59) Laura Yow, Assistant Professor of English and Associate Chair
60) Yu Zhou, Professor of Geography and Asian Studies
61) Susan Zlotnick, Associate Professor of English

On July 22, Cappy met with 11 faculty who signed the letter and intended to ask for a broader campus discussion in the fall before the college moved further with the bookstore relocation. However, she announced that the college had by this point already chosen Barnes & Noble as the future bookstore operator, although no contract between Vassar and B&N has been signed yet. For the rest of the meeting, the faculty in attendance advocated further mitigations of the relocation and expressed continued interest in a broader discussion of the relocation. See “second concerned faculty letter (7/31/08).doc”, which was sent yesterday by the meeting’s attendees to the other faculty who signed the first letter, for a list of these mitigations and further comments on Cappy’s response.

July 31, 2008

Hi, Everyone,

We would like to provide the bookstore letter signatories with a short summary of the meeting with Cappy on July 22.

The meeting began with Cappy's unexpected announcement that, despite our letter, the plans for the bookstore are going forward. It will be a Barnes and Noble store—a decision that the Board of Trustees has already made, she told us. There will be some sort of coffee-selling café within—one that the College will endeavor to keep to “a minimum” so as not to undermine Babycakes, the Crafted Cup, and the Cubbyhole. Cappy said that to the best of her knowledge no contract had yet been signed with Barnes and Noble (which she confirmed after the meeting).

Cappy’s opening statement effectively prevented us from discussing other possible uses for the Juliet space, ones that, among other things, might better ensure the survival of the local businesses, specifically Three Arts and nearby coffee shops. We spent most of our time discussing the process by which the College made this decision, how best the College could mitigate any negative effects the bookstore would bring to the neighboring stores and the effect on the current Vassar employees at the bookstore.

Everyone—Cappy included—seemed to agree that the decision-making process was less than transparent. In this regard, the process was a learning experience for all of us. For Cappy, she learned the importance of needing greater levels of public consultation on issues such as the relocation of the bookstore; she did not anticipate as strong a reaction as it has elicited. For all of us, the process highlights the inadequacies of current governance and intra-faculty communication mechanisms; while there are four faculty members on a bookstore sub-committee, the decision to close down the College Bookstore and put a Barnes-and-Noble-type operation into the space now occupied by the Juliet took most of us by complete surprise. That said, Cappy's position is that the various voices and perspectives of the College were represented within the committee. At the same time, she is confident that most people—faculty, administration, board of trustees (from whom she seems to be getting pressure to move forward) and members of the Arlington business community—support the bookstore project.

Regarding the current bookstore employees and possible negative effects a large Barnes and Noble operated bookstore would have on surrounding businesses, Cappy agreed to the following list of items:

--work with Human Resources to ensure the current Vassar bookstore employees receive, if needed, training to enable them to transfer to new (unionized) jobs within Vassar;

--have a formal conversation with the owner of Three Arts to determine how best to ensure that store’s continued viability in the face of the presence of a large, neighboring Barnes and Noble;

--help The Juliet Cafe relocate in the Arlington area (or other suitable location);

--provide greater levels of public information about Vassar's plans for renovation to ensure transparency with the Arlington community—in part by erecting an informational kiosk on the corner of Raymond Ave. and Collegeview; and

--consider delaying any signing of a contract with Barnes and Noble until a larger meeting among faculty (in early September) could take place so that additional concerns and ideas reach those responsible for making decisions regarding this project. (Cappy hesitated on this matter as she sees nothing to be gained by delaying the project any further. She is convinced that she and other people working on the bookstore have heard and considered all the various objections and alternatives. On this basis, they have made the assessment that the bookstore project is best—for Vassar and the Arlington community. That said, she has agreed to an “open meeting” so more people can offer input before a contract is signed.)

We would appreciate any thoughts you might have on the above, and what you think the next steps should be.

Sincerely,
(Attendees of the meeting)
Beth Darlington
Marc Epstein
Hayden Harker
Diane Harriford
Rick Jarow
Larry Mamiya
Leonard Nevarez
Joseph Nevins
Agi Veto
Jeff Walker
Michael Walsh

To summarize where the proposed relocation stands right now, it appears that no contract has yet been extended to Barnes & Noble to extend its rights to manage the bookstore and specify the conditions/restrictions under which it can do so. The concerned faculty remain very interested in resuming discussions about the bookstore relocation early in the fall. As for what students can do, your sustained vigilance over the project, its potential impacts, and the various constituencies’ input is critical. Please stay tuned as we look toward the new semester and continue urging the college to heed concerns about the bookstore relocation.

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