Tiara McGhee
John Alex Nunnery
The fall semester at Mississippi University for Women is winding down, but students and faculty still haven’t forgotten the multiple problems encountered at the campus bookstore in August.
The bookstore is operated by the Barnes and Noble company, which provides textbooks ordered by students and faculty. Many professors and students were dissatisfied with the delivery of books this semester, as students went up to a month without receiving their book orders. Others had their book orders cancelled with no warning. Professors wound up being stranded and having to provide alternative sources for students. Students had to quickly adapt without a textbook in cases where it was required to continue class.
“I had to wait two weeks for all my books to come in,” said Amanda Sims, a Business Administration major. “We were reading from our textbooks, and since only two students had the book, the teacher had to post PDFs for us to do the homework.”
While it’s easier to pick up a book on campus, some students were left with no option but to order from another vendor or do without.
“I ordered my book a week before we came to school, and I was getting emails saying that I need to go check on my book. I went to the bookstore and asked if my book came in, and he checked and said it’s not in and said a shipment is arriving,” said Arnicha Cherry, an Exercise Science major. “I went back that Tuesday, and he didn’t have my book, and I came back that Wednesday, and he still didn’t have the book, so he just went ahead and cancelled my order for the book. After that, I just never even worried about getting that book anymore.”
For students with bookstore vouchers that allowed them to order books with their leftover scholarship money, this became an even more pressing issue. Vouchers do not work outside of the school bookstore. This, along with a slightly confusing process on how the bookstore vouchers are activated, has left many with questions about the process and where the money goes when a voucher order gets cancelled.
“The book voucher only works here at our current bookstore on campus,” said Nicole Patrick, director of Financial Aid at The W. “Once the student has accepted their financial aid and registered for classes, we run a process that shows university accounting what money the student has, and then Accounting is who coordinates the voucher with the bookstore. So, if your charges are $5,000 and your financial aid is $5,500 you would have a voucher for $500 for the bookstore.”
It is unknown why many students’ orders were canceled weeks into the school year. Some question whether it was because there were not enough books shipped to the store, orders were misplaced, or none of the books were shipped by the provider at all.
“We used to print every single voucher, they would have to come to us and have to have the paper to bring to the bookstore, it was supposed to be an easier process by letting the bookstore know what credit the student had online, so they didn’t have to come to us for everything,” said Renee Veazey, the head cashier of University Accounting. “When an order is cancelled, it’s never charged to the student account if you never receive it. If you never receive your order, they are not going to send an invoice to the university for that.”
It is hard to say if these issues will continue next semester. Though to students and faculty it might seem that the cancelling and delay of orders may have just come at random, it may be a bigger issue than that. The W’s campus bookstore is not as big a seller as some of the larger college campuses, which mean that the priority of the store and its orders may be lower for Barnes and Noble.
“We are a pretty small outlet for Barnes and Noble, and so there have been many years of them not paying attention specifically to our needs. I’m sure they have a much bigger staff at locations like State, so that just raises problems with the kind of service they give us,” said Dr. Brian Anderson, the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at The W. “The problems this semester were really about the transition from one manager to another and how corporate did not aid the transition, and so we had a situation where entire courses were without books ordered.”
With classes almost completed for the semester, some students are worried about whether this problem will reoccur next spring. Many are left to wonder what the root of the problem was and if it will continue to bring problems in the future.
“This was a very unfortunate example of corporate negligence, about making sure things work well so that when the new manager comes in, so he doesn’t walk into a chaotic situation, which is what he did end up walking into,” said Anderson. “We heard from the previous store manager that it is Barnes and Noble’s corporate policy to just sort of guestimate the number of books each course needs based on what they feel is a fair estimation of how many students enrolled will buy the books from their store rather than buying them online or some other way.”
While that method might work most of the time, it can’t take into account increased enrollment in a class.
“Especially when you end up with a course that, surprise, has six more people enrolled than we did last semester, and they go to the bookstore, and they have to backorder,” Anderson said.
With miscommunication and confusion surrounding the bookstore on campus, the future use of Barnes and Noblemay be in question as fewer students put their faith in buying textbooks from the store. Whether the issues students faced this semester will be resolved is yet to be seen, but they can only hope things go smoother next semester, especially for those who are using a voucher for books.
The Spectator reached out for comment at The W’s Barnes and Noble but received no response. Requests were also made for comments from Mark Ellard, The W’s chief financial officer, and Dr. Scott Tollison, The W’s provost, but none were received by publication deadline.