More than 600 students stopped by the Campus Store on February 12 for three hours of giveaways, activities and raffle prizes as part of the store’s second annual Student Appreciation Day.
Every student who came into the store got a raffle ticket – with chances to win tickets to see the Raptors, the Leafs, a monster truck rally, or Stars on Ice – and a spin of a prize wheel. More than 1,000 prizes were donated by sponsors, who included textbook companies and other vendors.
Students gather around the spinning prize wheel
The event, now in its second year, is a chance to “let McMaster students know how much we appreciate them and say thank you for supporting the Campus Store,” says Fiona O’Connor, the Campus Store’s course materials manager.
It’s also an opportunity to spread the word about textbook affordability and what the store is doing to try and keep costs low, she says. Those things include:
- offering as many used books as possible
- guaranteed buybacks for specific texts at the end of each term
- a sellback program for textbooks that don’t have a guaranteed buyback
- encouraging instructors to use older textbook editions so more used books are available
- supporting open education resources (OERs) on campus.
Between 10 and 20 per cent of a textbook sale goes to the Campus Store, and about 5 per cent of the store’s revenue goes back into the university to fund student services and scholarships.
“Our role is to support student success on campus and to support instructors in the learning outcomes they have established for their courses,” says O’Connor. “This event helps us add to this support by having fun, spinning a wheel for prizes and taking a day to let students know how much we appreciate them, to thank them for supporting their Campus Store and to express how proud we are to be a part of this amazing community.”