Though the committee considering the future of the Brown Bookstore is expected to release a report in the next few days that will explore possible reforms, bookstore employees told The Herald they believe the University has made the decision to outsource the bookstore to an external vendor.
Larry Carr, director of bookstore and services, announced to bookstore employees Wednesday that Elizabeth Huidekoper, executive vice president for finance and administration, and Vice President for Administration Walter Hunter would meet with book-store employees today to give them a "preview" of the report, according to Peter Sprake '07, a customer service clerk at the bookstore who originally enrolled in 1966, left Brown before graduating and re-enrolled in 2001.
"They decided that it would be good manners that they meet us before (the report's release) to tell us the contents," Sprake said.
Sprake said University human resource administrators met Wednesday with bookstore employees to address their concerns about "the tremendous range of benefits (bookstore employees) stand to have adjusted or lost." Those administrators told the employees that the committee report "will include the information that the committee is leaning toward (outsourcing the bookstore) to Barnes and Noble," Sprake said.
Huidekoper, who chairs the bookstore review committee, said in a Feb. 15 interview that "the committee looked primarily at how the bookstore is doing and the ways it could be improved" but that "a decision has not been made."
Once the report is released, University officials will solicit feedback from a variety of campus constituencies, including the Undergraduate Council of Students, the Graduate Student Council, the Faculty Executive Committee and the Staff Advisory Committee, before making a final decision, Huidekoper said.
The decision will ultimately be made by administrators without the involvement of the Brown Corporation, she said.
Huidekoper declined to comment about possible courses of action outlined in the report, but it is expected that the report will consider two main possibilities: First, the University might continue to independently operate the bookstore, making significant capital investments in the bookstore's physical and information technology infrastructure. Second, the University could outsource operation of the bookstore to a company like Barnes and Noble College Booksellers, a division of the bookselling giant.
Sprake and two other bookstore employees told The Herald in a Feb. 10 interview that Huidekoper, Hunter and Brendan McNally, special assistant to the executive vice president for planning, met with bookstore employees Feb. 9, delivering an update on the report and saying that the University was "leaning" toward outsourcing the bookstore.
The administrators glossed over other possibilities for the future of the bookstore at the Feb. 9 meeting and instead spoke mostly about outsourcing, Sprake said.
When asked about the employees' concern that a decision to outsource implicitly has been made, Huidekoper denied the claim and stressed that a decision would only be made after soliciting campus feedback.
Though it is not yet clear how a decision to outsource the bookstore would affect its employees, Sprake said they fear expulsion from the University community, losing benefits and perks such as access to Brown athletic events and facilities. "We would be grotesquely affected when amputated from the University," he said.
Bookstore employees said an unsettling attitude of fear and uncertainty has permeated the bookstore in recent weeks, caused in part by what employees have perceived as vagueness from University officials. "You don't treat your family like this," one employee said.
The three employees interviewed by The Herald said they would not remain at the bookstore if it is outsourced to an external company.
Huidekoper said administrators are aware of the employees' fears. "We know absolutely that there are a number of concerns. If this were to be a path that the University decided to go in, before we made a decision we would have to go through a process of addressing the employees' range of concerns," she said.
Barnes and Noble currently operates bookstores for five Ivy League schools - Columbia, Harvard and Yale universities, Dartmouth College and the University of Pennsylvania - and hundreds of other colleges and universities.
Hunter, McNally and Carr all cancelled interviews with The Herald.
