My nephew went to Princeton (class of 2014), certainly a desirable school to put it mildly, and his first year there he was in a dorm in which his bathroom was on a different floor from his room. But what were his parents going to do? Withdraw him? LOL.
That’s a bit of a leap of logic considering several overlapping undergrad classmates and recent alums within the last 5 years include quite a few extreme neatniks who were initially mistaken by mutual friends as having OCD.
Also, the Oberlin dorms I stayed in were in such fine condition they were actually better than most of the post-college apartments my college classmates and I were able to get with the exception of the ones with large trust funds/wealthy generous parents who fully defrayed their high rent/living expenses or bought them a unit in a luxury condo.
Incidentally, one of my post-college roommates is an extreme neatnik* who lived with me for ~5 years.
- Several Boston area friends including a few older millennials thought i was living with a fashion conscious female roommate because of the degree of exhibited neatnikness and high degree of color coordination. A few adamantly refused to believe the room** belonged to a male roommate until he happened to come into the apartment and go into that room.
** Our habits were to keep our bedroom doors open when we were out and no one minded guests seeing each of our rooms so long as we never stepped inside without asking for and receiving permission to do so beforehand.
No@zobroward , they were complaining that it was bad. Not well done. Rice undercooked, fish not fresh, etc. Some students used language about cultural appropriation but all agree if the sushi was GOOD it would have been fine. Or if the “Indian” food served on a Hindu holiday didn’t feature beef (?!?) that would have been fine.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/12/the-food-fight-at-oberlin-college/421401/
But fundamentally, they were complaining about the food, as students have done forever.
It’s interesting that you say all of that @kelsmom, because when it comes to administrative salaries, many of which, let’s be honest are either quite exorbitant or the position is not necessary in the first place, universities seem to have enough money for that. For hiring professors who aren’t part-time, who aren’t adjuncts to teach students ? Not so much:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/09/charts-college-presidents-overpaid-pay
http://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/septoct-2011/administrators-ate-my-tuition/
@kelsmom and @Roentgen And to add on to that - look at all the unnecessary $$$ spent on conferences and travel for “professional development” for non-academic staff.
Why shouldn’t professional development happen? It happens everywhere else in the real world.
I am a firm believer in substantive professional development. I think it is unnecessary, for example, to have Housing staff go on to an offsite trip to a camping ground just to “learn” about how to best create and maintain an inclusive community. That can easily be done on-campus for a lot less money, albeit a little less exciting.
Aren’t you a high school student? What familiarity do you have with professional training and development needs compared to those of us who have been in the work force 25 or more years?
@Roentgen, the amount of staff has exploded. However, someone with a inside view like @kelsmom will probably note that government-mandated administrative demands as well as support demanded by the students/marketplace has exploded as well. Compare the stuff that was available 30 years ago at a private vs. now. The level of career counseling, internship trips, entrepreneurship centers, etc.
Right. In “my day,” there was no ADA. Medical services were little beyond dealing with colds or sprains and I doubt there were mental health services of note. You didn’t have study abroad offices since few people studied abroad. You didn’t have coordinators to oversee the cafeteria offering peanut-free, gluten-free, etc. Whoever oversaw the RAs just trained them to make sure everyone stayed alive - not the extensive programming of today. They didn’t have welcome weeks taking the kids to Six Flags or the zoo or volunteering or camping. These things require staff. They’re not just silly things.
C’mon… Is it possible to get any cheaper training facilities than CAMPING?
I am faculty at an AAU, Research 1 Public University. In my experience, staff is relatively expensive, especially when compared with faculty. Now the two populations are not interchangeable, but my point is the explosion of staff is very expensive. For example, most faculty are working year round, paid or not, on research, service, and teaching, and conversely the staff work a standard 35-40 hour week during the academic calendar and a light 35-40 hour week during the summer… This makes even basic staff fairly expensive because they are employed year round (not all faculty are on 12 month contracts), but not fully needed year round.
Yes, the staff get significant professional development off campus, in part because some of them would not follow through without making it engaging. Camping in the summer seems like a good example of giving them something productive to do in the summer. Many academic department, however, do not pay for even one conference/year for faculty, or they may pay for an occasional assistant professor. Most faculty, after all, will pay for their own professional development.
Some years ago at a different research university, I attended a conference on teaching on a MTWT or Friday. One of the faculty asked staff members in the audience to raise their hands. They were the majority of the audience. We then had a lively discussion about how they could take off the 8 hour day to attend a conference on teaching, while faculty who taught could only drop in between classes and student conferences: The point being that Saturday worked better for faculty who were, in fact, the teachers.
Now this might sound a bit like sour grapes or animosity. It isn’t. There are wonderful staff on all campuses performing tasks that faculty can’t or won’t. I just want to note that a few more ways in which consumer culture at the university distracts from its core missions of teaching and research as it raises costs.
Finally, on dorm quality, a few years ago, when touring Barnard with D1, the daughter behind us protested the dorm room was horrible. The mother responded, “Don’t worry, dear. I wouldn’t let you stay in such a cramped place.” From my point of view, it was a decent dorm room in one of the most expensive cities in the world. I would have been happy to live in it for a few years.
This reflected what even younger alums from Oberlin felt when they’ve seen a few touring prospective students and their parents complaining about the “deplorable conditions” of the campus dorms. Similarly, I’ve heard a few Columbia/Barnard students/touring prospective students complain about conditions in the suite style dorms for advanced undergrads and found like those younger alums the complainants were almost always upper/upper-middle class students with exceedingly high expectations set from home environments built on decades of parental hard work and/or in a few cases ginormous inheritances/trust funds.
One concern I have with such complainants is how they’d handle living post-college.
Most fresh/recent college grads’ first apartments are likely to be much more spartan than what Oberlin and many private college dorms offered. And even most of them aren’t likely to be receiving full parental financial support/possessing ginormous trust funds to buy/rent in luxury apartment buildings/condos…especially not in popular urban locales like NYC/Boston.
Ye$, I can really feel thi$ $hift in power.
I feel $o much more in control than previou$ year$’ college $tudent$ mu$t have felt, it’$ unbelievable.
the staff work a standard 35-40 hour week during the academic calendar and a light 35-40 hour week during the summer… This makes even basic staff fairly expensive because they are employed year round (not all faculty are on 12 month contracts), but not fully needed year round.
Maybe this is the case at some schools, but not at all schools. I cringe every time I hear people say, “Oh, it’s summer - do you even have to be at work?” Uh, yeah … there is SO MUCH work to be done, and so few staff members to do it! Every time we turn around, there is more to be done. In the four years I have been at the college, the work load has grown tremendously; the staff has not grown at all. We are overworked and underpaid. Oh, and we aren’t trained, on or off site. It’s not a glamour job, let me tell you (but I love our students).
Many of my friends work at a nearby LAC. Those who are “staff” in year-round departments (FA, admissions, bursar, etc) work all summer and work hard. Those in academic departments (administrative assistants, dining hall staff etc) do not get paid for the non-class months and they do not go to work until shortly before students return in August. They have 9 month jobs but they only get paid for 9 months as well.
So true:
" Maybe this is the case at some schools, but not at all schools. I cringe every time I hear people say, “Oh, it’s summer - do you even have to be at work?” Uh, yeah … there is SO MUCH work to be done, and so few staff members to do it! Every time we turn around, there is more to be done. In the four years I have been at the college, the work load has grown tremendously; the staff has not grown at all. We are overworked and underpaid. Oh, and we aren’t trained, on or off site. It’s not a glamour job, let me tell you (but I love our students)."
Really, I doubt a lot of parents would want their kids taking a STAFF job at a college after graduation.
My son, a lit major, got a “staff” job upon graduating from college. It was good first experience. Plus he ended up working for the Provost, which turned into an excellent rec for grad school.
“Really, I doubt a lot of parents would want their kids taking a STAFF job at a college after graduation.”
Really? Why not? Surely you’re distinguishing between being the kitchen staff and being in a department that manages, for example, diversity programming or religious life or campus operations and building.
P.S. dyiiu, I hope you realize that many Adcoms start fresh out of college…