A few days ago, I walked into the bookstore of our illustrious University to see if they would buy back any of the books I spent so much money on last semester. Of particular interest to me was a $300 calculus textbook I had been forced to buy instead of rent because it came with — wait for it — a Webwork key. I did not do well in math, so I thought I might as well try to get a little money back to buy beer and never think about Riemann sums ever again. My interaction with the cashier went like this:
Me: “Hello, I would like to sell back this calculus textbook that I bought last semester.” (For $300).
Cashier: “We can give you $5.”
Me: “Actually?”
Cashier: “Yes.”
Me: “I’m keeping it out of spite.”
I walked out quite annoyed. If it were a pawnshop or something, that would be one thing, but this is the University bookstore! I’ve always known in the back of my mind that the University has other obligations besides knowledge, but these academia-adjacent functions seemed especially salient post-bookstore visit.
Specifically, I began to realize that higher education is sometimes lacking in, well, education. There is a beautiful new brick-and-white-columned building on Rugby, O’Neil Hall, which just opened this fall. It does not have a single square inch of space devoted to learning. Upon further internet sleuthing, I discovered the real name of this building: the Rugby Administrative Budget Office. I can only assume this new administration is necessary to administrate the influx of ever bigger first-year classes who live in shiny new dorms with motion sensing lights and ergonomic chairs — paid for, no doubt, with the proceeds of my bookstore shakedown.
However, this is not some diatribe against a faceless and bloated administration. The overwhelming majority of support staff members at the University serve important functions and are good at their jobs. That being said, I cannot be the only one who feels like the University views us not quite as adults, but as very well-adjusted children who have crucial access to mommy and daddy’s checkbooks.
Still, perhaps there is a master plan the Board that Visits has declined to share with me. I’m so close to nirvana, though! In my mind, President Sullivan would invite me to this inner sanctum, lean in and whisper, “Don’t you see? More bookstore highway robbery begets more administration begets more students begets a better and bigger University until we are the Death Star of the ACC. And then, after the rest of the country is done bowing down to their Jeffersonian overlords, we can look back and laugh about this whole ‘non-profit’ label we gave ourselves to keep the wool over their eyes.”
Frightening? Possibly. But hey, at least I’m in on the joke now.
Drew’s column runs biweekly Wednesdays. He can be reached at d.ricciardone@cavalierdaily.com
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