Prep Helps Grease Standards Process

by Dan Angelo

It can be a huge undertaking to apply the CAS Campus Store Standards to your entire store, but it’s doable with the right amount of planning and prep. The VolShop, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, just wrapped up its own assessment. At CAMEX25 in Fort Worth, TX, the VolShop’s Brian Wright and Randy Davis shared their insights and experiences in setting up the process.

“The goals that I first came up with was for us to provide self-assurance for the university and the administration, and to enhance transparency within the university,” said Davis, lead technology manager of the VolShop during the education session, Elevate Your Game: Navigating the New CAS Standards for College Stores with Confidence! “I also wanted the standards to show that we at the VolShop are the best option for retail and are always trying to improve.”

Davis found out about the CAS program during a CAMEX24 session in Savannah, GA. He built a presentation with help from his co-participants in the 2023-24 NACS Leadership Institute, then he pitched the idea to Wright, VolShop director.

“I was excited when Randy came to me and said he’d been to the conference and that we should do these standards,” Wright said. “Once we got through all of the material, we felt that this would go all the way up to the chancellor to give a better idea of what we do and that we are meeting best practices. The big light bulb went off, but that was after about six months of us wondering, ‘What is this CAS?’”

Released in February 2024, the CAS program for campus stores identifies 12 areas of operation that help a store create positive affiliation with the school, promotes campus spirit, and enhances student engagement and success.

“It was a long time in the works, but the standards are referred to as ‘musts’ and ‘shalls,’” Davis explained. “A ‘must’ is something a college store should be doing. A ‘shall’ is something that would enhance your visibility and resources that connect to the administration.”

The 12 categories and more than 500 individual standards allows the store to do a deep dive into every aspect of its operation. It’s up to each store to set its own rules as to what compliant means and what it doesn’t.

“It’s kind of confusing because you have the freedom to do what you want,” Wright said. “You get to develop the rules in your structure and how to use these standards, whether to do parts of it, or do the full assessment.”

The VolShop chose a full assessment and set up committees to complete the work. Davis also utilized project management software to keep the project on track. The store compiled all of its data into reports for both internal and external reviews.

“It took us six to eight weeks just for the team to read through the standards and to discuss what those were,” Davis said. “We wanted everyone to provide an assessment or an opinion on their own because it was important to have discussions and differences of opinions that are critical to fully assess your operation. Every area that you do adds credibility and transparency for your administration.”

The internal review process was completed by individuals from different areas on campus, which included a question-and-answer session with them and its CAS committee for feedback, while providing the review committee with full access to the entire VolShop operation to consolidate their findings.

The same process was planned for the external review, although the people selected to do that review are industry experts.

“The university really values an external review, someone outside the organization to go through the evidence,” Wright said. “I’ve seen a lot of benefits from doing this because it gives people a 360-degree view of our organization.”

The standards project is also another way to tell the store’s story with data.

“The CAS standards and assessments allows you to tell your story from a third-party perspective without having to create a story,” Davis said. “You can evaluate the standards and then produce a report, or continuously improve on that report. This is part of your story because it’s the things you are doing to follow the best practices in the industry.”