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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 21, 1972)
The Co-op: a bookstore owned by students The first or second day of classes you’ll find yourself needing books to complete assignments in a hurry. Where do you go to get those books? Most students walk to a two story white building on the corner of 13th and Kincaid. The building is the University Co-op. It orders and sells most of the textbooks used by University classes. That amounts to about 1.25 million books a year. Quite a business for a business begun by students. “In the spring of 1916, under the leadership of Lamar Tooze and other enthusiasts, the associated students organized a co-operative store which was successfully operated until the stormy war in the spring of 1918, when it seemed ad visable to sell the store because of war conditions,” states an Emerald from 1920. TlMOioney made from the liquidation of ! tflB-op was used to pay the wages of a football coach. The co-op was reestablished in 1920 independent of the ASUO. Capital for the j store was raised through shares sold in the | co-op to interested faculty. The co-op finally became financially independent in 1933. The business was first located at 13th and Kincaid in 1920 and moved from there to an alley off Kincaid. From there it moved to Chapman Hall on campus and eventually returned permanently to its original location. The building now oc | cupied by the co-op opened for business May 9, 1966. The co-op is governed by a board of directors consisting of eight students and two faculty members. The faculty members serve two year terms and are appointed by student members of the board. Three students are elected to the board each year, a sophomore to serve a one year term and two juniors to serve two year terms. The board of directors receives a great deal of guidance from Gerald Henson, who has been manager of the co-op since 1948. According to Henson, large decisions are made by the board of directors and small everyday ones are made by him. The board of directors is elected by members of the co-op. Any student or faculty member of the University may be a member by paying an annual 50 cent membership fee. The membership fee entitles members to more than voting rights in the co-op board elections. It means a rebate for those who are members and save their cash receipts. The receipts are turned in at the end of the year and the amount of rebate is dependent on the amount spent in the co-op. The per cent of rebate has fluctuated between a 30 per cent rebate given in 1947 to a ten per cent rebate given between 1947 and 1969 to the present rate of 5.9 per cent. Henson doesn’t see a higher rebate rate in the next few years. “Inflation has sky rocketed our costs, shipping, postage, merchandise, payroll,” he said. “Anything that affects the normal store around campus affects us. One thing that affects us is the cost of textbooks, our bookstore operates at a loss. All publishers maintain a 20 per cent mark-up and our operating costs are a little over this. “The textbook end of the college store is a losing proposition, but this is the most important reason we are here,” Henson said. The rest of the merchandise sold by the co-op keeps it out of debt, according to Henson. According to Henson the co-op “is one of the few in the nation where students and faculty maintain control. To build a bookstore like this today would take over $1 million. “This is completely independent, this is kind of rare,” Henson said, “only about 3 per cent of some 2000 college bookstores are co-ops.” Photo by James Link Co-op sells lots of supplies. The co-op is a $400,000 mortgage short of owning the property it is built on, ac cording to Henson. It does own the building and everything else in it. This, too, is rare, he said, the co-op is the only bookstore in the state that owns its own building. The co-op has a lot more to offer than books. It carries record albums, toiletries, candy, cigarettes, greeting cards, t-shirts, stationery and many many other items. It has one item that it sells more of than anyone else in town, according to Henson, school supplies, such as typing paper, spiral notebooks and index cards. “Our prices are lower than anywhere else in town and the quality is better,” Henson said. The-co-op offers other services such as: a check cashing service, which handles two to three million dollars each year; it buys back used books; sells stamps and money orders; provides free notarial services; rents typewriters; provides a package wrapping service; provides ticket booths, voting booths and displays; fur nishes bulletin boards and windows for the use of campus activities; provides academic apparel and announcements for commencement; operates a branch store in the Art School for the convenience of art school students ; and provides many jobs for students and student wives. As far as jobs go “we give preference to students and student wives,” Henson said. “We hire as many students as possible, but because of this turnover is high. Economically there’s a point of diminishing returns, the turnover is so high you are constantly training people.” According to Henson the co-op has some trouble keeping everyone happy. “It’s pretty darned hard to make 15,000 students and 1000 faculty happy all the time,” he said. "We’re trying to keep a population the size of Bend happy.” When you head for the co-op to buy those books you will be reading in the next three months, think of all the other things you may need to buy that the co-op has and then think about buying a membership. It is only 50 cents and it is sort of nice knowing you will get about 5.9 per cent of your money back in the summer. No longer a strict denominational affair Campus ministry brings religion to the student By KATHY O’GRADY Of the Emerald “We try to be a prophetic voice, to try to bring Christian and human values to the fore, to try and make the student more than a number,” said Father Cassian Lewinski, a Roman Catholic priest and a member of the Cooperative Christian Ministry (CCM) staff on the University campus. “Ten years ago campus ministry programs were strictly a denominational affair,” states a CCM brochure. “Lutherans took care of Lutherans, Presbyterians tended their own constituents, ets. A complex web of new awareness and the pressures of declining support for ministry to higher education has brought us beyond that isolation, into ecumenical structures which reflect fresh cooperative strategies. Our ministry to the total university community now exhibits a sense of the church’s oneness, while preserving the richness of our different traditions,” it said. CCM is housed in three buildings around campus. They are the Koinonia Center at 1414 Kincaid directly across from PLC. the Wesley Center at 1236 Kincaid in back of the Co-op, and the Newman Center at 1850 Emerald A staff of 11 from various religious organizations work out of the three locations. “There are two sides to the ministry." said Gary Young, a Presbyterian minister and member of the CCM staff, “one is personal helping people un derstand themselves and the world around them, and the other is a ministry to the community.” “We try to provide a cooperative Christian witness on campus,” Lewinski said, “to help students search out their religious values.” “The ministry is not to Catholics or Presbyterians, but to the community as a whole, we’re all Christians,” Young said. “The ministry is involved with the whole community trying to find ways it can be a part of people’s lives,” he said. The CCM does quite a bit of counseling from marriage counseling and preparation to “religious problems or just human problems, whatever you need help with,” Lewinski said. “We’re there if you just need an objective person outside the situation to talk to,” said Sister Katherine O’Neill, a Catholic nun and another member of the CCM staff. “Trying to help students find a meaning to life is our ministry,” she said. “A lot of people come in with different problems, we try to solve them and if we can’t, we send them to someone who can,” said Robbin Emmens, a fourth member of the CCM staff. Members of the CCM staff participate in more than problem counseling. Bob Peters, another staff member, is the head of the local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) whose office is in the Wesley Center. During demonstrations the CCM formed a liaison between police and demonstrators, ac cording to Young. Other CCM staff members are active in White Bird and the Governor’s Youth Council. During registration CCM provides emergency housing for students who come to campus and find they have nowhere to stay. The Newman Center serves as a sort of annex to the Eugene Youth Hostel for hitchhikers. When the Hostel is filled the Newman Center takes the overflow on an emergency basis, according to O’Neill. Seminars and retreats are held at the CCM buildings different times during the year and some University classes are held there. “We’re thinking of having a conference on what kinds of dissent can be effective against the war and things like that,” said Young, “like the one they had a few years ago with Daniel Berrigan and Father Groppi." Worship is an important func tion of CCM, according to O’Neill. Services are held Sundays in both the Wesley Center and the Newman Center as well as daily mass in the Newman Center. “The church is more than a place you go to for a few hours on Sunday,” Lewinski said, “it can be a creative force in society, it can be a beautiful and fun ex perience." s ? Ill o 5 O >» o -o o o k CO « £ o> 340 RTV All Solid State 30 Watt P.M.P. Built-in AM / FM Antennas Regular $229°° Welcomes you with the sound of the Seventies . . . NOW $199°° .. .with Grundig, hearing is believing GRUflPIG )
