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."
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