Mt. SAC has made drastic changes to the campus in the past years by partnering with corporations such as Barnes & Noble College and Sodexo.
According to Vice President of Administrative Services Michael Gregoryk, the choice to partner with Barnes & Noble was favorable to students.
“I do believe choosing B&N has benefited the students,” Gregoryk said.
Follett and Barnes & Noble were the two companies Mt. SAC received proposals from and both were reviewed and scored by an evaluation committee which was based on a uniform set of criteria. The criteria included the vendor’s record of performance in higher education bookstore operations, their conformance to the requirements of the specifications, service aspects of vendor’s proposal and the financial return they would bring to Mt. SAC.
The nine committee members also visited Barnes & Noble College and Follett bookstores on other campuses before making their decision to unanimously choose the former to take over the Sac Book Rac by Jan. 29, 2018.
Barnes & Noble College currently operates bookstores on 773 campuses nationwide with 31 campuses in California. Of the 31 campuses, 13 of those are community colleges.
Gregoryk said the current commission is 11.5 of gross sales and that the school received the guaranteed commission of $600,000 for the first year which was used in the operations of the bookstore. According to Gregoryk, the prices have not increased since the partnership with Barnes & Noble.
Gregoryk said he believes the partnership has made school supplies and textbooks more accessible for students. The Sac Book Rac director of 17 years, Suzanne Luetjen, added that Barnes & Noble College is helpful for students on campus.
“B&N’s ability to access and tap into more global services will help students succeed in college,” Luetjen said.
She also explained that Barnes & Noble gives the college a commission based on sales, which is then used for students.
“When the Sac Book Rac was run independently, there was a similar relationship with the college,” Luetjen added.
Mt. SAC has also since partnered with the Day & Nite Copy Center that is located across the street from campus.
While there is no formal contract between the Day & Nite Copy Center and the Sac Book Rac Bookstore, Luetjen said that they buy course packs and lab manuals that are printed by Day & Nite.
“We buy them from there because it is our mission to have all materials available to students, especially those with financial aid,” she said.
Victoria Casillas, a previous employee of the bookstore, worked there in 2018 from August to October, and she said she remembered a students coming in to look for a certain lab book for their class. The bookstore did not have the lab book.
“After trying to help the first student look for it, and asking for help from someone that has been there longer than I have, they told me that the bookstore wasn’t selling those lab books,” Casillas said. “Of course, the students seemed very confused because it was required for the course but the on campus bookstore was not providing them.”
Casillas was told by her coworker that the manager would talk to the professor of the course and ask what lab book was needed so they could order it and have it in stock.
According to Luetjen, students have not struggled to get their required textbooks from the bookstore. “To my knowledge there hasn’t been any difficulty for students to obtain their textbook from the Sac Book Rac,” she said.
The Sac Book Rac has stated that they accommodate to students, but they do not open until 7:45 a.m., even on days of finals, when finals start at 7:30 a.m. for some students.
