BURLINGTON — The University of Vermont bookstore was authorized Monday to spend up to $7 million over the next three years to purchase textbooks for students through a noncontractual arrangement with five vendors.
The approval gives bookstore staff the ability to procure books without putting university funds on the line, UVM’s vice president for finance, Richard Cate, told the university’s board of trustees’ executive committee Monday afternoon.
“The students are actually providing the funding,” Cate said after the meeting.
The bookstore will use the money to buy texts as they become needed, and books that aren’t sold to students are returned to the wholesalers for a refund, he said. This eliminates the need for the university to assume financial risk from investing in books that it may not need.
“Whatever books students buy, those funds are used to pay the vendors, and if there are books left over at the end of the day, they go back,” Cate told trustees Monday.
The $7 million sum reflects what the bookstore expects to spend on acquiring texts for students, but the university is not contractually obliged to pay that amount, Cate said.
This deal with book vendors comes as a result of changes occurring in the textbook market that have made traditional retailing less attractive.
“It’s not nearly financially as viable as it once was,” Cate told executive committee members.
This is in part due to offerings available over the Internet, Cate said.
Students can find textbooks at a discount online, and are often able to rent their texts, UVM Student Government Association President Jason Maulucci said.
Students also frequently sell texts to one another through notices posted on Facebook and similar sites, Maulucci said.
“People are looking for whatever they can do to get the texts for as low of a cost as possible,” he said.
Because the university bookstore is sometimes the only source through which certain texts are available, it’s important that the store find a successful model to continue offering books, he said.
The purchasing arrangement came before university trustees because of the amount of money under consideration, Cate said.
Dean search
University President Tom Sullivan apprised executive committee members at the meeting’s outset of several other recent developments.
A nationwide search continues for deans in the College of Education and Social Services and the College of Arts and Sciences, Sullivan said.
The two colleges are under the direction of interim deans, Sullivan said.
Interim Dean Cynthia Gerstl-Pepin has been leading the College of Education and Social Services since July. A professor of educational leadership and policy studies, Gerstl-Pepin took on the role of interim dean following the departure of former dean Fayneese Miller, who resigned this year to accept a post as president of Hamline University in Minnesota.
“It’s been a nice opportunity to work with faculty and staff, and helping them think about where we want to be in the future,” Gerstl-Pepin said.
Her tenure as interim dean is expected to last one year. She may seek to extend that term by applying for the permanent position, Gerstl-Pepin said.
“If I have the support of the faculty, then I’d do that, but if not, I won’t,” she said.
The College of Arts and Sciences since July has operated with psychology department chair Bill Falls serving as interim dean. Falls replaced former Dean Antonio Cepeda-Benito, who served in that capacity since July 2012.
Record fundraising reported
The University of Vermont Foundation reported record-setting fundraising for fiscal year 2015, Sullivan said.
The foundation raised more than $60 million in the period between June 2014 and June 2015.
The university has set fundraising records each year for the past four years, and that’s primarily due to the establishment of the UVM Foundation in 2012, the foundation’s Associate Director of Communication, Jay Goyette said.
“We’ve been on a really good trajectory since the foundation launched, and we think we’re going to stay there,” Goyette said.
More than $14 million of the total raised in fiscal year 2015 will go toward student scholarship support, Goyette said.
“That’s our priority for fundraising these days,” he said.
Tobacco-free campus update
The UVM campus enacted a tobacco-free policy that went into effect Aug. 1, Sullivan told executive committee members.
The policy was under discussion and debate for four years before it was adopted, Sullivan said. The University of Vermont joins more than 1,000 other colleges and universities with similar bans in place.
“We want students, faculty and staff to have a healthy place to learn and work,” Student Chair of the Tobacco-Free UVM Steering Committee Allison Giroux said.
The university is offering cessation classes to help students learn to cope with the trials of college life without the aid of tobacco, Giroux said.
“Now, especially since the policy is enacted, we’re trying to make sure people are aware of those resources,” she said.
Students appear to have overwhelmingly supported the ban, based on what she has heard while soliciting public comment on the issue in previous years, Giroux said.
