We draw on our student population to participate in work-study programs from around the campus. Most student staffers complain they are doing much of the work of their “professional administrator(s)”, without benefits and without representation. The opportunities for employment here range from secretarial duties, to center coordinators, to assistant management positions, to librarian’s assistant and so on. But where does one go from there?
Our average student is around twenty-seven years old. This translates to the fact that our average student has been (theoretically speaking) working for anywhere from ten to twelve years. Across numerous trades, from different sectors of the economy and from multiple perspectives does our campus stands tall.
If we had no work experience we would value the above positions as an opportunity to learn and better ourselves. These opportunities would be a great chance for most students to get a leg up into a semi-professional position. It may not be one you could feed a family on when you left college, but it would support you as a single, working person who is paying off some student loans while looking for that career position. Here’s the problem: we aren’t undergraduates with no work experience and looking for that leg in. We already have a leg in and we’re looking to the university for that leg up.
The ways in which the university draws upon our experiences are so limited it is almost discouraging to articulate. Let’s think about it: The positions listed above are all that there is to look forward to – basic, entry-level positions. There isn’t even one paid internship/co-op available through our university on-line employment system. There are opportunities that are presented through the school, but not from the school. While the university gets its cheap labor source, administrators lighten their workloads and all at the excuse that the students are “in a training ground”. In reality, the students receive nothing in return that they couldn’t get outside the university walls.
There are so many positions on this campus that remain stagnant in their development and progress and are filled by “professional administrators”. Why?
Why is it that we train students for career-oriented positions and then let them wander off into the world and take every valuable lesson about this university with them? What about the university? Those students hold the key to our success. To quote a good friend of mine, Joe Wright, “The students are why we are all here. If it weren’t for them we wouldn’t have jobs. If enrollment falls and people don’t keep coming to school here, there is no reason for us to be here.”
Exactly. The fact is that students are the ones who need to enjoy themselves, learn, explore and experiment. People who get paid, generally a lot of money, are the ones that should be sorting out incompetence, dealing with lost documents, frustrated by people who are excessively out of their office and unresponsive. These are not the students’ jobs.
We let the same person sit in an office, year after year, instead of selecting the top graduating or senior students involved in that area to be of service for change, efficiency and productivity. We watch every iota of talent, training and ambition walk out the door, formally qualified to perform the same duties that brought them to the university for advancement. What do we gain, as students, as administrators or as a community?
Instead I propose that the university begin to make itself as unique as its mission and its student population really is. We should select the top students from each area (i.e. accounting, multiculturalism, communications, management, earth sciences, law enforcement etc.) and provide them the opportunity to be paid a fair and reasonable wage for a fulltime position that would be less costly to the university, highly beneficial to the student. Moreover, this system would be more effective because portions of the administration would be well-known, well-respected students whom would be better in touch with the university.
It is clear to me that the reason this system is so stagnant is because these positions within the administration that are designed to be cutting edge and progressive are actually all filled by people whose careers amount to that office.
Clearly, after ten years of watching tens of thousands of students walk in and out of our doors it must be difficult to retain the level of excitement, enthusiasm and idealism that is necessary to really excel at the jobs that are being filled. That is why these rotating positions would be such powerful means for a greater good. Everyone would be excited and fresh.
I think the case is clear to the student body. When we walk into offices and are treated like a social security number with a checkbook we are frustrated and feel abandoned. But more importantly than that, the ways in which we’re frustrated and the ideas needed to BETTER THE UNIVERSITY are perceived as threatening and dubious to the people who are, so bitterly, performing their duties.
Mr. Garner can be contacted at [email protected]