Our partnerships
reflect a conscious
decision to develop
and build individual
relationships with
the leadership of the
other vice presidential areas, including
research, business,
and technology.
creates additional opportunities for travel
and venues for students from other colleges
to experience outdoor adventure travel. In
addition, staff members are working with
faculty to offer their services to coordinate
field trips and other curricular activities
involving travel and outdoor activity.
Our Campus Bookstore is a hub of
active and dynamic partnerships within
and outside of our campus boundaries. In
2009, the bookstore staff helped to initiate the Tucson Festival of Books, now the
fourth largest book festival in the country.
Partnerships with community volunteers,
literacy programs, our local newspaper, and
countless faculty and staff provide the network to energize and implement this event,
which draws more than 100,000 visitors to
campus over two days.
The Campus Bookstore regularly opens
its doors for receptions for campus authors and faculty. It also
initiated a Pillars of Excellence annual event to honor our best
faculty. A benefit to these relationships is that each time there
is a discussion of privatizing our bookstore, numerous faculty
step forward to extol the benefits of our current management
structure. In today’s highly competitive textbook market, the
Campus Bookstore established partnerships with Chegg and
Amazon to provide students textbook options and to generate
additional revenue. In addition, Campus Food Service and
Campus Bookstore partnerships allowed the development of
an organic restaurant and a pro shop—both of which generate
revenue to support these enterprises.
In another example of successful partnerships, Campus
Testing now partners internationally to deliver standardized
tests that potential employees must pass to work in this country. While neither a student nor faculty service, this revenue
allows Campus Testing to subsidize its operations and fund
services to faculty and students at reasonable prices.
Few programs epitomize the spirit of partnering more
than our fast-growing, yet fledgling Veterans Initiative. The
university support team that oversees our veterans’ area
includes staff from the provost’s office, student affairs, disability services, student union, admissions, registrar, and
the College of Agriculture. Externally, we partner with the
Veterans Administration to bring a psychologist to campus
four days a week to work with veterans. This fall, we are hosting a national conference targeting military bases to provide
the resources and information veterans need to facilitate the
transition from active duty to college attendance.
The university is finalizing an agreement with private
developers to offer university-affiliated housing in downtown
Tucson for upper-division students, local community college
students seeking to transfer to the university, and veteran students. This innovative offering would not be possible without
the assistance of private developers. In addition, city leaders
are thrilled that more students are living downtown, which
will promote greater economic growth in the area.
The human resources office and Dean of Students are
both dealing with increasing incidents of troubling behavior
from students, faculty, and staff. Rather
than maintain two separate behavioral
assessment teams, the two areas are now
working together, enabling improved train-
ing, broader expertise, consistent campus
community messages, and better use of staff
time and resources.
Melissa Vito is vice president for student affairs at the University
of Arizona.
