The Embarrassing Irony Lurking Behind Our Great University
Photo courtesy of Walker Chuppe
Michael R. Kelly | Op-Ed contributor | The USD Vista
Spaces and places are imbued with meaning, their style or lack thereof “says” something. Our new “bookstore” sure says something. I “hear” this place say something to students about what students want from their college experience. And I don’t like what I “hear.”
I imagine a scene — a real spectacle — a team of consultants. They’re speculating about (among other economic ends) some consumer statistics believed to speak the interests and desires of — to speak for and not on behalf of — 18 to 23-year-old university students. These statistics (facts) and their ventriloquists put on a show for our “fill-in-your-favorite-blank-
In giving us the idea of a “bookstore” without books these consultants have said that university students — our university’s students — do not find books important, do not (highly) value books. In giving us a “bookstore” without books, our decision-makers ratified that assessment and poured significant resources into the kind of “bookstore” university students — our university’s students — purportedly want. What these groups have agreed about in the saying is, in essence, that students want swag and gadgets, paraphernalia and devices — but not books. What they’ve said was said obliquely but means — I translate bluntly — that university students — our university’s students — do not prioritize their education among the other goods of their college experience. What these groups have agreed about in the saying is that university students — our university’s students — believe that one of the most necessary conditions for their education (books) are secondary to their college experience. What these groups have agreed about in the saying is, in essence, that their education itself is of secondary importance to their college experience.
I do not believe that our students believe such things.
Yet, our new “bookstore” stands there as a monument to the purported values of university students — our university’s students. This monument symbolizes paternalism masquerading as care (“We know what you want, we’re listening”). This monument symbolizes the infantilizing of our students, telling them that what they want isn’t the liberating power of books and ideas but toys and identity markers that double as advertising paid for by the consumer. This monument symbolizes condescension and pandering.
Students should be insulted.
And they should keep aware of the great losses begotten in and through this place that appears to be (but is nothing like) a bookstore.
Think about a university with a “bookstore” with no books that likewise by its very structure denies access to the realm of the books. The books are now “sheltered in place” behind the Torero Store. Consider the meaning that emerges from such a place. There’s something ridiculous (literally) about the organization of this place, for we have quarantined the books! Seek (the) truth and (the) truth will make you sick. Does not this structure itself express that certain truism that we hide those parts of ourselves of which we’re ashamed? Stashed in the recesses of our UC (University Center), “sheltered in place,” the books are the bones of the skeleton in USD’s closet (we talk of ourselves as a family, after all).
Consider further the process of ordering and collecting books at the start of each semester. The process is more efficient and convenient, I suppose. But, the process by which students acquire books for their courses systematically denies them access to the realm of the books. Students order their books at a distance and then arrive to the dispensary where a functionary of the state delivers the books to them — these allergens and pathogens now adequately sanitized. We cannot have students wandering about a place that may enchant and allure the mind, after all. They could stray off the path! Lose their way, like a child! Let us keep them from their wanderings and give them what they want from this experience — a more time-efficient process that affords more time to shop across the way for what they really want.
Something quite fundamental and essential is lost in this arrangement, something without which we cannot form the lifelong learners we promise students they’ll become if they chose to spend some of their most formative years with us: intellectual curiosity.
The experience of wandering about a traditionally structured bookstore — its aisles upon aisles of different books for different courses and different books for the same courses with different sections — provides students with the opportunity — stunted by the structure of our current “bookstore” — to have their curiosity sparked. Waiting in line or moving along an aisle toward books for a course for one’s approaching semester, perhaps a student’s glance accepts a solicitation from the environment: a book on Taoism, another on the economics of elections, another on the history and culture of jazz, another on the virtues of nursing, and another and another and so on and so forth. The student may come to see things in her or his life about which she or he now has an interest where before there was none. Interest — inter-esse — to be among the things. A new world unfolds — at least a glimpse at it and maybe too the desire to travel to it and dwell in it. These environmental solicitations are there because such affordances just are that environment (a traditional university bookstore). (Maybe a student in a traditional bookstore makes a note to look next semester for that course that uses that book on the economics of elections, or maybe she or he decides to take a different section of introduction to sociology because the texts for one course grab her or his attention over the texts for another.)
Bookstores with books spark curiosity. Sometimes to be among the things — inter-esse — one needs to be among the things. A student in an online textbook shopping experience easily can avoid the experience I described above; indeed, the default position of the online textbook shopping experience is to avoid such wanderings. In taking the course that conforms most naturally to the online textbook shopping experience a student doesn’t have to pass by (courses in and books for) theater to get to theology, doesn’t have to pass by one section of introduction to communications to get to another section of that same course. No “browsing,” here. An opportunity to generate new interests is forfeited. An opportunity to unfasten oneself from the harness of schedules — or to choose courses no longer based only on schedules or preconceived paths — is missed. Worse, an opportunity for a student to become more discerning about the courses or sections of courses he or she will sit is missed.
What are we doing here?
Lost in this new arrangement are opportunities for students to foster intellectual curiosity, to become more self-determining, and to develop new interests. Lost, too, is the opportunity for students to become more discerning and deliberate about the classes they take on the way to — and as a part of — discovering who they want to be.
If students should be insulted by the assertions made about what they want from their college experience, they should be angry that one of the very front lines of learning (the “bookstore”) itself — by its very structure — neglects and inhibits a central element of the learning process and college experience.
Can you hear the potential responses — if they come? There might be some predictable, formulaic corporate speak telling us that the facts surrounding the loss of our old bookstore and the construction of our new “bookstore” don’t match my narrative, that I’m misinformed and I misinform, for there were no consultants, etc. A defense might be offered, a claim that insists that the intentions of the consulting agency and the deferential college committee that ratified their vision were nothing like those I speculatively express, that these meanings I attempt to express at best capture unintended consequences. Or, we might be told that bookstores are becoming obsolete. Maybe. I doubt it. But none of that would really matter. What matters is this: The symbols of our “bookstore” and its processes surrounding access to books remain, and their meaning transcends the facts about their origin. Facts don’t always exhaust the meaning. Books long have told us this.
Michael R. Kelly
USD Philosophy Department
P. S. Faculty, be the change you want to see. Join me in not using our “bookstore” for your textbooks. For five semesters running, I’ve boycotted our “bookstore” without inconvenience to me or my students. Students, if your faculty will not do this, then you should buy your books elsewhere online. Your experience of book shopping won’t be diminished. Actually, other online book retailers provide recommended titles (although that technomarket construct (echo chamber) reinforces already narrowed perspectives and raises another problem for another time). I am certain that at least one student will be happily moved by what I’ve written.
Note: I was a long time employee at both stores. I cover a lot of ground in this comment.
Good brief, how many negative things are you going to make the Torero Store represent? How many lofty aspirations can you expect a store to meet? This seems more a grievance against the university than just the store.
Michael R. Kelly you talk about problems that the store certain has, but the responsibility and aspiration you associate with it are inappropriate (I’ll address this later). Also, the overly pompous attitude toward the Torero Store made me struggle to finish your article. I am going to point out the glaring note of implying that ‘books aren’t valued’ or ‘aren’t valued as highly as they should be.’ First, the USD Torero Store is only partially affiliated with the university. They are a BUSINESS. Sorry to burst your dream and philosophical wants, but students want cheap books, which makes them go elsewhere (even before the store moved locations. This is an effect of the textbook industry mainly and the store doesn’t have a lot of control of book prices. In most cases the store had a very small profit margin with books, sometimes only marking them up from the base price by 10 to 30 percent) [Aside: also your protest is just fueling them to not have books even more]. Second, this is the main reason why when the store moved it was changed to the “Torero Store” from the original “Torero Bookstore.” Third, as a long time worker in the books department, the romanticized version you give of going to the old bookstore during the new semester is almost silly. The first week to two weeks of each semester was awful, too many students, and certainly not enough space to “enjoy” looking through the books and experiencing some form of intellectual stimulation and awakening. Fourth, after the rush almost NO ONE comes to do the things you describe here (at the old store). Sure, we sometimes had faculty come to check the amount of books that were left, but most students did not participate in what I would call the ‘bookstore grandeur’ you seem to be describing. Fifth, you remark upon the economics or statistical reasons why things may have not been done. I would say yes, this is the case. My co-workers and I often discussed how easy it would have been to add a second story to the Torero Store, and this wasn’t done because it apparently didn’t fit with the architectural theme of USD (despite the SLP being 4/5 floors high). However, we live in a neoliberal system where economic and profit driven decisions are key to most processes over anything else. For this very reason, employees were not laid-off, and it made sure that managers didn’t have to get laid off/reduced work hours during the transfer as well. You would do well to realize that most of the STUDENTS staffing the store aren’t the 1% of the university. We are the working class and lower middle class students. Needless to say, I am not so sympathetic to all of your lofty complaints.
I will agree that the new store is over the top. Its part of the branding of USD, which I don’t necessarily think was done in a suitable way. It was necessary to upgrade the store, but to the extent is now? Likely money was not wisely spent. But, the store is more a representation of how education is more about profit and less about ‘education,’ which I think is more of your overall complaint (the bookstore was just an easy target to represent this national issue). However, the extent to which you equate the store to student education or how students value education is a stretch. During my four years there, no one ever went to the store to just look at books, the store was always complained about (students & faculty), and quite frankly the staff and workers were under-appreciated for the way we were treated by faculty and students. I think you should have asked what students valued in their education at USD before assuming that the store somehow was part of their perception. I am fairly sure the old store would have never been brought up and even now, would still not (unless you ask leading questions). I am sorry to say, but a majority of students do treat college as a pay-and-go system–the kind where ‘I paid for these classes, so you should give me an A’ kind of pay-and-go mentality (I will say, I do NOT agree with this mentality, but it does affect the “value” of education).
Next: Onto the numerous issues you note in the article. All I have to say is the following: Certainly students complained, but most of the conversations I heard and what students and faculty imparted to me wasn’t the apparent disregard of ‘educational values’ or even the decrease in spreading of ‘knowledge’ or what a university store should represent. Rather, it was about control and power. Students wanted to pick the books themselves (which takes much longer because they are unfamiliar with the structure of the store/alphabetical ordering/book placement), not to grab additional ones they may find interesting due to budget limitations [Aside: I would say 85% of students I assisted during my time were happy that I helped them pull books at the old store because it saved them time and was frustrating for them. This is also about space issues]. Second, strong-arm faculty were a frequent problem. For example, “Why isn’t my order in yet? I am sorry Professor X, Y, & Z, you placed your book adoption late and it will not be available by the time classes start.” Cue the verbal bombardment of blaming the staff, which may I remind you are mostly USD STUDENTS. [Also again, your book boycott doesn’t have an affect on the university, only on the employees. So, the structural issues you are against, are likely to never change in your favor and only worsen for those currently at the store now].
I should state now the reason I am harping on this article. You don’t take any care to speak about or mention that you may have spoken to the managers at the store or even current employees. A lot of your statements that implicate ‘we weren’t included’ or ‘we don’t know what the decisions were’ could have been easily clarified. I could even clarify them more, but I am frankly insulted by the article, so take my standpoint as you will. But, here we are, bashing the store which, from this article, you know not much about.
Your point of “What these groups have agreed about in the saying is, in essence, that their education itself is of secondary importance to their college experience. I do not believe that our students believe such things,” and then going onto say in the next paragraph that “Students should be insulted.” Do you even know that most students after freshmen year don’t step foot into the then Torero Bookstore and the now Torero Store? The only time would be during graduation, or because one book at the store is somehow cheaper than anywhere else. I greatly valued my education at USD, but the idea that students think about the knowledge that books will impart to them, or the store as being the vehicle of that is absurd. It is precisely faculty, administrators, and the university as a whole (not a partially affiliated business) to galvanize student educational values.
(Note: this next section was written earlier and I moved it here. Ignore the weird transition. You can view this more as a summation of my thoughts when I was employee)
I’m also going to chime in as a previous employee who worked in the books section at the old Torero Store location and the new one (with both undergrads and law students). Yes, a lot of employees who were there during the transfer to the new store noted frequently that there wasn’t a “books” section. However, every year we had less orders, faculty who couldn’t get their book adoptions in on time (leading to late orders and frustrated students), students who only wanted one type of book (new, used, used/rentable, new/rentable, etc), and this isn’t even getting into the safety hazards we had at the old location where there was really just too many people in the store at once during each start of the semester. This article is just a romanticization of the old “bookstore” which wasn’t even a “bookstore” it just had the texts faculty requested. If you want an actual bookstore where you can leisurely peruse go elsewhere. OH YEAH, and why should they bring back books if you are protesting ordering anything from them? I can surely tell you that it won’t do anything, it only further re-enforces the already cascading problem of decreasing book sales at USD.
Final point:
If you do actually want some information ask current, old, and new employees. I also suggest rather than using the store as a target to complain about issues that are directly related to the commercialization of education and the textbook industry, that you simply just write a piece on those topics. It would be far more persuasive.
I appreciate the sentiment of this piece, but couldn’t you just go to Copley Library? Wandering my college library is where I had the experience you are referring to… I’m not sure the bookstore is the best place for that, because it will always have a limited number of “for sale” books, and need to pay attention to sales…