Students and faculty who have ever ventured down to Campus Copy, located in the basement of the Faculty Office Building, must have met Nancy Cunningham.

Cunningham is the driving force behind the full-service on-campus copy center. In fact, there would be no Campus Copy at Quinnipiac if she had not established it here in the fall of 1991.

Cunningham came here 12 years ago, met with campus administrators and made a proposal. She started Campus Copy the same year.

“I like the students here, and Quinnipiac is a beautiful campus,” Cunningham said. “The kids are great.”

Campus Copy is mainly aimed to serve Quinnipiac students, so that they can stay on campus for their print, copy or fax needs. It offers services like color copying, laser printing, resume writing, word processing and invitation printing.

Cunningham is also a notary public. The most popular service, however, is sending and receiving faxes.

“I think I sent 20, maybe 30 faxes just today,” she said.

Students can also pick up faxes at Campus Copy for $1 per page.

Cunningham said she tries to keep her prices low.

“I’ve had to remain as low as Staples,” she said. “If it’s not, I’ll match it. I’ve had to do that because otherwise students go off campus.”

Campus Copy is available to students and faculty at Quinnipiac, but is frequently used by alumni and parents as well.

“I’ve had many students come back to me and ask me to do wedding invitations, for example,” said Cunningham.

She said her business is usually marketed by word of mouth, and that if someone used her services when studying at Quinnipiac, he or she is likely to continue doing so even after graduation.

The walls of Campus Copy are covered in thank you notes from people who have done business with Cunningham, something she finds heartwarming.

“People who become customers for that long have me do all their printing needs, and they know all the stuff that I do,” she said.

Cunningham said she would like to do more work for faculty at Quinnipiac.

“Some members of the faculty come to me for anything that they do, and others have never been here,” she said.

She said, however, that it is hard to market herself to the entire community to let them know that she is available.

“Because I work with a skeleton crew, I don’t have time to do the marketing needed,” she said.

Cunningham manages the store and has about ten students working for her each semester.

“This is actually the first semester with lots of new people,” she said.

She said it takes a long time to train the students working for her, and most students stay for all four years if they like the work.

“If they stay for their first semester, they’ll stay,” she said.

Cunningham wishes she could stay open 24 hours a day to serve students better, but said she does not have the resources to do so.

She said that while she is not connected to the university except for doing business on campus, the school set up a requirement for her: she needs to keep the business open during regular hours when students are on campus.

“In fact, we are open all year round,” she said.

On top of keeping Campus Copy open at Quinnipiac, Cunningham also manages the copy center at the University of New Haven, where she has students running the store.

Before that, she managed a printing shop with locations in New Haven and Fairfield for 13 years.

As new technologies have developed over the years, Nancy has taken extra courses in design work. She has added graphic design and screen printed T-shirts to her services at Campus Copy.

“Because of today’s technology, I have noticed a decline in what I am providing,” she said.

What Cunningham cannot do herself, however, she sends out to her service providers, so that students never have to go off campus.

“I don’t like to say ‘no’ to anyone,” she said.