NIU should move carefully before deciding whether to lease or to sell the Holmes Student Center Bookstore to an outside vendor.

The operation of the Pow Wow restaurant by an outside vendor has left a bitter taste for much of the university community. The Pow Wow was sold to Marriott Corporation who turned it into a Roy Rogers restaurant.

The Board of Regents approved the five-year contract with Marriott in April of 1986. Marriott was to pay NIU $88,000 or 11 percent of its earnings, whichever was higher during the five years.

However, about a year after the contract was approved, Marriott pulled out of the contract, and the Pow Wow is back in NIU’s control.

NIU President John LaTourette said the preliminary work toward a bookstore vendor will be “open and deliberate.” Such openness is important because it was not there in the Pow Wow takeover.

Students and civil service workers opposed the Pow Wow takeover, yet the Regents approved it anyway. Food prices went up and the variety of foods declined with Roy Rogers. As a result, Marriott could not fulfill its contractual obligations.

If the student center bookstore is to be leased or sold to an outside vendor, it should be the burden of those in favor of the sale to prove that an outside vendor would do a better job. The mistake of the Pow Wow decision should not be repeated in the bookstore.

Before opting to sell or to lease the bookstore, the committee studying the option should consider how to make the NIU-owned store more profitable. For example, what happened to the proposal to allow students to buy books on credit? This and similar proposals might bring more students to the bookstore and give them more buying power.

Another consideration is the jobs that could be lost if the bookstore is sold or leased. Out of 23 positions, only six civil service employees could be shifted to another NIU department.