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Meet the Staff (above image)
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Members of the Campus Bookstore staff, from left: Accounting Supervisor Marie Petrecca, Store Manager Cheryl Cartier, Textbook Manager Erin Maghery and Sales Associate Karen Wendland. Not pictured: part-time Customer Service Coordinator Mario Pierce.
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Interview with Store Manager Cheryl Cartier:
Briefly, what is the Bookstore’s goal?
We strive to provide the best possible customer service to the students and community of the University of New Haven.
How do you manage that?
We provide used books at a discount, and we stock products that students want, including clothing to promote their school spirit, and merchandise and products that do the same.
You’ve had a number of book signings recently, including one featuring Roya Hakakian, a winner of the Connecticut Book Award and author of Journey from the Land of No: A Girlhood Caught in Revolutionary Iran. Talk a little about the signings.
Roya worked out great. We sold about twenty-five books in an hour. We also had Sandra Rodriguez-Barron, who wrote The Heiress of Water. We did that signing in conjunction with Women’s History month. This is something we want to build. The more signings we have, the more interest we’ll generate. People will start to look forward to them.
What books do you carry?
We stock every single book the faculty requires on campus.
What about other items?
We stock a few general reading books, and study aids that go along with course books. We also stock a few general trade items for general-interest reading. We had twenty copies of the most recent Harry Potter book for sale the day the book was released. Although they were sold out before they even went on sale! We also carry:
Contemporary fiction.
All the books that faculty and staff have written.
Clothing that bears the University name and its logo in a variety of typefaces. Hooded sweatshirts are the most popular right now: Everybody wants a hoodie.
Long and short-sleeved T-shirts, shorts, crew necks, sweatpants, Capri pants, outerwear, hats and dorm wear - or boxers and flannel pants that were once called pajamas - which many students now wear to class.
Lanyards, key chains, pens and pencils, decals, school supplies – notebooks, rulers, graph paper, calculators, and all the supplies a student would need for any particular class on campus.
We will special-order any item a department needs.
What is your busiest time of year, and what departments do you work with most frequently?
We work with the faculty to gather textbook information. A faculty member adopts a book and tells us what they want to use; we have to research each work to ensure there’s a current edition and that there is adequate stock available. That’s our biggest collaboration.
We were part of the SOAR program Information Day as part of Student Activities. We raffled off an item every day. We work with Greg Overland to get him supplies and donate items for giveaways for students. We work with Admissions coordinating our schedules so we are open when students are visiting the campus. We provide a 10 percent off coupon to all student visitors on those preview days. We also opened for Alumni Weekend, and gave away a ten percent coupon to everyone who participated in the weekend.
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