Follett Corp. has appointed Thomas Christopher president of its higher education group. Christopher, who at one time headed Bookstop and was president of real estate at Barnes & Noble, had most recently been president and COO at Restoration Hardware. Christopher will report directly to Chris Traut, president and CEO of Follett, who had been acting as president of the higher education group since the resignation of Jim Baumann last August.

The higher ed group operates 675 campus bookstores, as well as the online campus store efollett.com .