Marist Sidelines Student Bookstore Workers With No Heads Up

Fifteen Marist University Bookstore employees, most of whom are students, learned about the change not through a meeting or even a passive conversation, but through a campus-wide email released prematurely on April 2. Photo by Emma Gaecklein '26

This transition is more than a change in management. This is a case study in how institutions can forget the humanity within the operation. 

Fifteen Marist University Bookstore employees, most of whom are students, learned about the change not through a meeting or even a passive conversation, but through a campus-wide email released prematurely on April 2. 

“Finding out that we might lose our jobs through an email sent to the entire school was deeply upsetting,” Karyn Devine ‘28 said. Her face slipped into confusion and frustration. Her eyes traced the patterns of the Student Center’s glass ceiling. 

No longer will the bookstore operate under Barnes & Noble management. Now, it will be through Follett. 

The bookstore employees came together to formulate an email to President Kevin Weinam asking for answers. But what followed the announcement was not clarity; it was a vacuum, a stretch of silence where answers should have been. 

Days passed. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

No concrete information about whether these employees, the ones who open the store, close it, run it, carry its daily weight, would still have jobs. The people who know the inventory by memory, who guide first-years through their textbook scrambles, who keep a smiling face through the Admitted Students Day rush. 

The administration eventually responded. It was polished; the kind of message that reads well but lands hollow. 

Weinman’s response acknowledged the “communication gap,” but the gap wasn’t a minor oversight. It was the entire experience.

“We were notified that current employees of the bookstore are welcome to apply for positions,” Devine scoffed through her words. “I have to apply to the job that I have held for two years, as the rug was pulled out from under my feet.”

But this idea feels abstract to most students. Most students at this school haven’t been laid off through a school-wide email before. 

The campus email read, “Over the past year, a group of key Marist stakeholders reimagined the way we deliver course materials and campus retail experience to support the learner of the 21st century.” 

How does this “communication gap” survive a full year of discussion and preparation?

The anger? It’s not from the transition itself. It’s from being removed from the process.

Not the vendor. Not the contract. 

The erasure. 

And that erasure is not abstract. It has a cost.

“As student employees, we heavily rely on our long-term positions at the bookstore for financial income, like expenses with tuition, textbooks and groceries, just like most students at Marist,” said Natalie Wirta ‘28. 

Many of these student employees started working two or three years ago, having spent their time working at the bookstore from the moment they arrived on campus. Their positions evolved from a simple campus job into a community. These students shared hours, pressure and pride in running the store. The transition to Follett didn’t just threaten their income; it fractured a space that had quietly become a source of stability.

Abrupt. 

As if the people who kept the bookstore alive were incidental to its future. 

It was, undoubtedly, abrupt. 

And in the aftermath, the silence became its own kind of message. One louder than any official statement. It told these students exactly where they stood in the hierarchy of decision-making: essential enough to keep the store running, but not essential enough to be informed about its fate.

The administration speaks of “reimagining” and “supporting the learner of the 21st century,” but the students who actually keep the bookstore functioning were left to piece together their futures from a misfired email. They weren’t invited into the conversation. They weren’t given a warning. They weren’t given clarity.

They were told to be patient. Why be mad? Apply again. We’d love to have you!

But patience is a luxury when your job, income, stability and sense of belonging are suddenly in question. 

These students aren’t asking for sympathy. They’re asking for transparency. 

Devine cleared her throat. “We don’t need understanding, we need answers.”