The following viewpoint discusses an e-mail sent out to the student body on Sunday night by Jeff Tarullo regarding DormBooks.com:
First of all, someone definitely screwed up in allowing the e-mail to get through to the entire student body and it caused some laughter to emanate throughout my quad.
However, more importantly, it's good that DormBooks is yet again finding some way to promote themselves even as Notre Dame continues to attempt to compete with and stop the group. It strikes me as somewhat disgusting that Notre Dame has failed to facilitate such a smart and scalable business plan. Notre Dame holds business plan competitions and is constantly encouraging entrepreneurial efforts with a top ranked business program in the field, but the school fails to see the benefits of a business like DormBooks.
Immediately, it provides cheaper books to a student body that struggles to meet tuition needs, and the ancillary benefits are also numerous. If the creator of DormBooks could scale this business to campuses across the United States with the help of Notre Dame, I have no doubt that some of the money from this business will come back to Notre Dame in the form of ROI (return on investment) and/or donations back to the school from a grateful student and entrepreneur. Instead, this business has been met on campus with adversity.
If I were Notre Dame, I'd change my mentality quick because in the long run, DormBooks is going to end up taking all the textbook business from the bookstore anyway.
Mike Matheson
junior
Alumni Hall
Dec. 14
