All That Jazz
January 28, 2001

What's up with Java Jazz? We're giving it one more chance.

Earlham College operates Java Jazz ‹ a coffee house. It is located on the far side of National Road across from the northeast corner of the campus. I expect many Word readers know that, but it may come as a surprise to some who have joined the Earlham community in the past two years. Java Jazz opened to considerable excitement in 1996, but recently it has had some problems.

What problems? For one thing, it has been losing money. We expect Java Jazz to break even, but we have had to subsidize it to keep it open. For another, the majority of its customers are not connected to Earlham. It's great that others in Richmond patronize Java Jazz, but it doesn't make any sense to subsidize the coffee house if it isn't significantly patronized by Earlham students.

This past September, I asked the Committee on Campus Life (CCL) to give fresh attention to Java Jazz. They made some recommendations at the end of the fall semester. My response to those recommendations is contained in a memo that is on the President's website (click on memos). You can also get a paper copy of the memo in the President's Office.

Briefly, I'm transferring oversight of Java Jazz to Student Development. Dick Smith (our VP for Finance) has had oversight responsibility, but he hasn't been able to give the coffeehouse the active attention it needs if it is to succeed. Deb McNish, Dean of Student Development, has assigned oversight responsibility to Linda Tyler, an Associate Dean. In consultation with CCL, Deb will appoint a Java Jazz Advisory Board. The Advisory Board, Linda Tyler and the Manager of Java Jazz will work together to develop a strategy for making Java Jazz a success again. In implementing that strategy, we will put a decreasing cap on the subsidy Java Jazz requires. You can find other details of the plan by reading the memo. I hope these new arrangements succeed. And I believe they will if students again find Java Jazz a place worth frequenting.

I've placed something else on the President's website you may find interesting: a description of "Administration at Earlham College." It provides an overview of how the college's administration is organized into five broad divisions: Academic Affairs, Admissions and Financial Aid, Business and Operations, Institutional Advancement, and Student Development. The statement also describes some of what administrative faculty do: delegation and supervision, evaluation of performance, budget administration, participation in policy making, and coordination of efforts across the five divisions and with students and teaching faculty.

I hope you find the description useful. If you have any comments or questions, please e-mail them to me at dougb@earlham.edu. And if you have questions you'd like me to answer in this column, send them to me via e-mail.