A freshmen rushes to the campus store to search for presentation folders for a project due in one period. Sprinting to the campus store, the student finds the door locked, viewing a sign that says that the store is not open until 11:00 a.m. Defeated, the student stands outside the locked door and then walks away from the store.  The issue of students visiting the campus store when it is closed has negatively affected numerous members of the student body.

“If I need to buy a product in the store, I usually end up going three times during a day before the store is actually open,” senior Christina Aldeanueva said.

The campus store, utilized to “expand the Masters brand by selling and creating Masters apparel,” according to Campus Store Manager Lisa Nussbaum, can be difficult for students to access. The store, seen by some students as an place to grab emergency school supplies, is locked during times of high morning foot traffic, such as break. Additionally, students have struggled to find common times in which they are free and the campus store is open.

“The campus store never seems to be open during convenient times of the day,” junior Ben Miller said.

Yet, the campus store is actually open each day from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m and officially closed from 12:45 p.m. to 1:45 p.m.  If the store’s door is locked, it does not mean the store is closed, but that students must walk a few steps down the hall to the Business Office and ask one of its members to unlock it. Chief Financial Officer Ed Biddle said, “Anyone on Masters’ campus can walk into the campus store. And so, the cross training of business office members allows the campus store to serve its customers at any time that a member of the business office is available.”

However, most students do not know this information. On the door of the campus store, only the specific hours when the store’s door is unlocked are listed. As a result, students are misled into thinking that these hours are the only time that the campus store is open and that the store cannot be accessed until 11:00 a.m. Although, if students visit the office, they will be granted entrance into the store during its hours of operation.

“If a message was posted on the campus store’s door that the business office could open it at any time, it would be very convenient,” senior Yunus Solakoglu said.