The University Bookstore added $250,000 to its unrestricted Endowment for Excellence this week, tapping funds from its operating surplus. The endowment now totals over $1 million.
The non-profit Bookstore transfers its surplus funds directly to the University. Leonard W. Sandridge, executive vice president and chief operating officer, and University President John T. Casteen III then distribute the endowment funds. The money primarily is used for need-based scholarships.
The Bookstore was moved from Newcomb Hall to above the parking garage in the fall of 1994. The endowment was established after Sandridge challenged the newly-relocated Bookstore to operate as efficiently as possible, Bookstore Director Jonathan A. Kates said.
"I had confidence that the management and staff of the Bookstore would be successful from a financial perspective," Sandridge said. "We all agreed that we wanted to share the benefits of the Bookstore's good performance with the University community."
Sandridge initiated this effort hoping that "once [the Bookstore] completed a couple years of adjustment and covered its operating expenses [and debt], it would show an operating surplus and that [it] would be donated to the University," Kates said.
By spring 1996 the store already had accumulated $50,000 in surplus to set up the endowment. The Bookstore has earned a surplus and added to the endowment every year since.
The size of the donation each year depends on the financial success of the store.
"The amount we are able to [donate] depends on the support we get from our customers," Kates said. "Without students, staff, faculty and visitors, the endowment would not be possible."
Sandridge agreed that the store's surpluses should return to the University.
"The community helps make the Bookstore successful -- it is appropriate that the results of the operation be shared with those who helped make it possible," Sandridge said.
The endowment serves as a material way for the Bookstore to contribute to University life, Kates said.
"We're very lucky that we've gained the support that we have" from the University community, he added. "As a University enterprise, we are in a unique position to give back to the University."
Besides the endowment, the Bookstore also makes non-material contributions to the University by sponsoring poetry readings, author visits and autograph signings.
"The Bookstore is a part of academic life at the University, and many things are in direct support of this academic life," Kates said.
The latest donation is now in the process of being transferred from the Bookstore's account to the University.
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