Colorado Mesa University administrators have decided that while partnering with community businesses and organizations can be a good thing, it cannot come at a price to the university itself. Such is the instance of CMU’s decision to end future partnerships with Textbook Brokers, which is in direct competition with the university’s Maverick Store. The business had been previously working with CMU’s student-run Programming Activities Council (PAC).
When PAC works with Textbook Brokers to promote events, the subsequent advertising can steer students away from purchasing books at the CMU bookstore and lead them into crossing 12th street for all of their textbook needs.
That is something that CMU saw as counterproductive to the interests of the university.
“We are appreciative of the fact that we have businesses in the town that want to partner with us and with students. That’s a positive thing for students,” vice president of student services John Marshall said. “I think in this particular case, partnering with a business that is in direct competition with our auxiliary that is putting money back into the university is just not a great choice for us.”
From CMU’s perspective, having one of its organizations indirectly promote business to be done elsewhere led to money being diverted away from improving the campus and university programs.
“The university’s bookstore has been an important asset and an auxiliary which helps to reinvest back into the campus and the programs,” Marshall said. “It’s in the university’s interest to continue to promote the axillaries that put money back into the university.”
Marshall claimed the decision to move away from having university organizations work directly with a competing source of textbooks is also motivated out of a desire to protect students.
“The university bookstore has a number of controls in place and a variety of guarantees that allows us to safeguard student books,” Marshall said. “Over time I think we feel like the better approach is trying to promote our own bookstore. We know what’s going on there. We know what the policies are.”
Textbook Brokers also claims to have student needs at the height of their concern.
“We know that our business would not be a business without the students,” Marvin Lopez, student relations and marketing manager for Textbook Brokers said. “We’re trying to create that culture that students are the reason all of us are in business. CMU, Textbook Brokers, a lot of the surrounding businesses, housing, you name it; the students have their hand in it.”
This has served as their motivation in working with different organizations and businesses to help make Grand Junction a college town. Just as Boulder is synonymous with the University of Colorado, Lopez hopes to see Grand Junction become synonymous with CMU.
Textbook Brokers is part of the CMU20000 visibility committee and is trying to increase the visual appeal of Grand Junction to students from outside the area. Recently, they had a hand in changing the name of North Avenue to University Boulevard.
Another avenue that Textbook Brokers has used to promote a culture that centers around the students is to work with PAC in creating events and giveaways for students.
“We worked with PAC to do two events. The first was a giveaway at one of their PAC nights,” Lopez said.
Textbook Brokers wanted to work with PAC to make a bigger impact on students, and that led to the creation of Mavs on Main.
“Just recently, we created our largest event, which is Mavs on Main. We did that with PAC to create a more well-rounded student event. The past few events that we’ve thrown, we haven’t been able to reach out to the students as much as we’d like,” Lopez said. “We wanted to have this event to make our presence known more to the students and to make them know that we are giving back.”
Shortly after the partnership began, though, it came to an end.
“As far as we have understood, PAC has been instructed not to work with us any longer,” Lopez said. “There wasn’t a reason. They were just instructed that they were to not work with Textbook Brokers. The students kind of assume that it is because we are direct competition to the bookstore.”
Textbook Brokers won’t allow the setback to stop them from participating in events steered towards student involvement.
“We’re already trying to get another event going with a lot of businesses downtown for Hurricane Harvey relief,” Lopez said. “It’s not our show, but we’re assisting the show.”
As far as continuing to reach out and try to partner with CMU and its organizations, Textbook Brokers is undeterred from the current situation.
“We’re never going to give up trying,” Lopez said. “One step back isn’t going to stop us from trying to convince students that we are the best choice for their college needs.”
The partnership between Textbook Brokers and PAC may be at an end, but all parties are still focused on CMU students and trying to make college both a fun and affordable experience. The future will determine if they will continue to work toward these goals separately or find new ways to work together.
