Key points:
- Meaningful change comes from vision, courage, and commitment
- Equitable access can improve course completion and student success
- 10 ways to support nontraditional students on your campus
- For more news on supporting students, visit eCN’s Student Success hub
As I retire from college store management, outside-the-box approaches have led to some of my most successful results. These approaches are unified in addressing students’ core needs–including food, focusing on learning, transportation, technology, and course materials–to achieve academic success.
These approaches result from managing five college stores, serving four institutions of higher learning, across three states. The stores include an off-campus privately-owned college bookstore, two community college bookstores owned by the college, a store at a four-year private college owned by the college, and one store managed by a bookstore management company at a university. The three states include Illinois, Missouri, and Vermont.
The depth and breadth of these diverse experiences formed the framework for my creative and unconventional problem-solving approaches, which break away from traditional or expected patterns of college store management.
One quote reflects my time working in the college store industry, and has been on my email signature line for the last decade, when I worked for a community college.
“There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.” –Niccolo Machiavelli
Leadership principles
Vision: “Nothing more difficult to take in hand”
Initiating change is difficult. It requires effort, the ability to see into the future, the ability to visualize an ideal future, and the ability to see the big picture. It requires clarity and the ability to focus on what matters most.
Courage: “More perilous to conduct.”
Fulfilling the vision requires courage, risk, and the willingness to risk failure, embarrassment, loss, and criticism. Change often encounters resistance from those comfortable with or benefiting from the status quo. It requires boldness and the willingness to initiate action without guaranteeing results.
Commitment: “More uncertain in its success”
It requires a commitment to the vision, but there is no guarantee that the change will be successful. Leaders must be passionate about the vision, taking their passion and making it happen. Commitment is the catalyst that activates and organizes an organization’s resources to achieve success.
Meal plan card
One of the most outside-the-box ideas was creating a meal plan card. Started in 2014, working with ecardsystems.com, the card is built on a gift card network that allows students to use their financial aid (Pell Grants and loans) to purchase food and groceries at local restaurants and grocery stores. Students can also use it to buy fuel for their cars. Students could use their excess financial aid, which was calculated as total financial aid minus tuition and fees. Students could load up to $700 during the first four to six weeks of the start of each semester.
The meal plan card bridges the gap between the start of classes and around four to six weeks later, when their financial aid pays out. The meal plan network includes two grocery stores, four locations for fuel, and seventeen restaurants. Cost of attendance (COA) provides board (food) and transportation (fuel). Transportation to and from campus is essential in a community college where most students do not live on campus. The card was limited to food and fuel; students could not buy alcohol, tobacco, lottery, gift cards, or other non-food items.
In 2016, the Athlete Meal Plan Card was started. This card allowed athletes on athletic scholarships to buy groceries and eat at restaurants, minus the fuel for their cars–the same restrictions as the meal plan card. These cards were reloaded every two weeks during the fall and spring semesters, through a .csv file sent to eCardsystems.
Amazon Special Order program
This program allowed students on financial aid (Pell and loans) to use their excess financial aid to buy mainly technology items–primarily laptops, and some school supplies. Restricted items include clothing, food, supplements, health and beauty, gaming-level equipment, memberships, extended warranties, gift cards, and any other item we decided to restrict. The college store adds 10 percent to the order cost, charges students sales tax, and shipping costs if any. We set up as an Amazon Business Prime customer. Students could spend up to $1,000 during the first four to six weeks of the start of each semester of their excess financial aid to order from Amazon. We had a minimum order of $100. Students emailed us hyperlinks to the item they wanted on Amazon, and after we checked to make sure the student had enough excess financial aid remaining, we placed the order on Amazon and charged the item through our point-of-sale cash register in-store for the cost of the item, plus a 10 percent service fee, sales tax, and applicable shipping. Items shipped to the college store and students came in to pick up the items.
Equitable Access Program
We started our Equitable Access Program in the summer semester of 2021. What distinguishes our program from many other Equitable Access Programs is that it begins with 75 percent print and 25 percent digital. We are now closer to 50/50 print to digital. The other distinguishing feature was that we did not exclude any required items from our program. We included physical lab kits, nursing uniforms, calculators, welding equipment, and other supplies needed. We charged a flat rate fee per credit hour at registration. We provided free shipping to homes; approximately 50 percent of students order their physical course materials online. We require students to be registered for a course before we shipped an item, or they could pick it up. We need most physical course materials back at the end of the semester, and we track those items through a serial barcode system. We have three external campus locations and have placed a return book drop at each location for 24/7 convenience for returning books. Because our program is so robust in the items included and in convenience, we only had one student opt out of three hours in four years.
A new order of things outside-the-box
My 30 years managing college stores have produced meaningful change at institutions of higher learning through vision, courage, and commitment. A new order of things happens when outside-the-box thinking is part of college store management. What I have learned is that student success is not about affordability; it is about access. Access must be granted; it is the new order of things. When students do not have access to food, fuel, technology, or course materials, they cannot succeed. Sometimes life impedes student success, so the institution must grant access to these basic living and thriving pathways to success.
Robert Jansen is director of retail operations at Three Rivers College in Poplar Bluff, Mo. He has worked for more than 25 years at institutions serving higher education, including five college stores (both public and private) and four institutions (both two-year and four-year) in three states. He has a B.A. in philosophy and an MBA from Southern Illinois University.