As part of the Strategic Plan, the board of trustees requested that the university look into the possibility of outsourcing bookstore services as it did with dining services years ago. There were two primary reasons given for the request. First, the textbook market has been going through rapid changes in recent years with the emergence of digital texts, online purchasing, textbook rentals and the increasing demand for used textbooks. Keeping up with these changes can be costly to both students and the university. Second, more students are choosing to buy their textbooks and supplies through businesses other than our bookstore, thus putting the university at financial risk as it deals with inventory that goes unsold.<\/p>\n
After a lengthy review process of four companies (including our own bookstore), the board\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Finance Committee unanimously voted to outsource the university\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s bookstore services to Validis, a company that currently manages 277 bookstores (125 of which are colleges, many similar to George Fox), beginning Oct. 1, 2010. A Bookstore Review Committee of 10 people, including faculty, staff and a student representative, which conducted several interviews with universities using Validis, unanimously agreed that, if the university were to outsource, Validis would be their choice.<\/p>\n
Validis comes to this agreement with an outstanding reputation for student service and employee satisfaction. They have the highest employee retention rate in the bookstore management industry and have agreed to employ all of our current bookstore staff with comparable salaries and benefits. And the university will continue to provide tuition-remission benefits to those bookstore employees currently using them.<\/p>\n
The Validis administrators overseeing the agreement with the university were also Christians and have agreed to encourage bookstore staff to continue to function as Christian mentors. It is the university\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hope and expectation that the Validis relationship will be similar to our work with Bon Appetit, and our reference checks on the company seem to confirm that this will be the case.<\/p>\n
Validis has also agreed to commit funding for bookstore renovations, as well as funding toward a new student center, which is the next major building project planned for the university.<\/p>\n
The board and President Baker are grateful for the service of the bookstore staff and believe the new partnership will help to serve the growing needs of the university community.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As part of the Strategic Plan, the board of trustees requested that the university look into the possibility of outsourcing bookstore services as it did with dining services years ago. There were two primary reasons given for the request. First, the textbook market has been going through rapid changes in recent years with the emergence […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,32,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-boise-employee","category-newberg-employee","category-portland-employee"],"yoast_head":"\n