As students move in and prepare themselves for classes, a common stop is at Text Express by The Falcon to pick up textbooks. That will not be the case at least at the beginning of this year.
Follett made the decision to keep the Text Express store closed for the first two weeks of the fall semester to make the text ordering and pickup process more socially distanced and with less physical contact. Messiah University’s Vice President of Finances, David Walker, hopes to see the store open shortly after that time period.
“The university and Follett team members are working together to provide students with an opportunity to enter the store and browse options after the first two weeks,” Walker said. “Follett is having staffing issues right now, so we are trying to see if we can provide the workers for the store instead.”
Students are currently able to order their books online from Shopmessiah.com and have them delivered to their home or the Campus Store.
“This might be short term,” Walker said. “Our goal is to have in person browsing options with online ordering and in person pickup to follow the proper guidelines.”
Part of the administration’s plans were to let the dust settle on students moving in and allow them to get used to the flow of things before an attempted reopening of Text Express because of its difficult location.
“Most decisions, like this, are subject to change because of the fluidity of the COVID situation,” Walker said. “We want to make the store as accessible to students as possible.”
Walker hopes to have a resolution within the next week for the future of Text Express.
“We’re going to work our backsides off to provide whatever students need,” he said.
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