<p>For those interested, The Huntington News, Northeastern's school paper, has written an article on the recent firing of several RAs that occurred after an audit of the cards used to access dorms on campus showed that they were not making all of the rounds required under their agreements. None of the students have been "tossed out on the street" and they are being provided pro-rated housing for the remainder of the semester.</p>
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[quote]
Each time an RA performs nightly rounds through a complex of buildings, they must swipe their Husky Card at the proctor station before entering. So ResLife printed a log of each RAs Husky Card use and checked to see if they had been performing rounds as required while they were on duty. Under Northeasterns Resident Assistant Agreement, which each RA must sign in order to hold the position, rounds must be performed by the RA on duty three times every night Sunday through Wednesday, and four times each other night of the week. The agreement clearly states that RAs who fail to meet its requirements may be fired.
<p>I think that the kids were initially told they would have to move out – per the article - “When Rice was fired, she was told she had three business days to either send a letter of appeal to ResLife – which would allow her to remain in her room at least until the appeal is decided – or move out of her room” I have to wonder if publicity is making Northeastern realize how poor their judgement is. If as the article says, the audit is ongoing, and most of RAs will be found delinquent, what does this say about NEU?</p>
<p>yes the students need to vacate their rooms, they are singles reserved for RA staff…but they are being offered other housing accommodations - at a pro-rated price, for the rest of the semester, which they can either accept or find their own housing accommodations.</p>
<p>Well, I’m glad they’re not being tossed out on the street. That’s great. The article says “several” - so I wonder how many that is.</p>
<p>At any rate, whether it was an over-reaction on the part of the college or not, maybe this will be a lesson to those young people. If you sign a contract to perform a service, and you are receiving something in return (money, housing, etc.), and you don’t perform the service, the contract is broken! Life can be TOUGH. It’s a fairly soft way to learn that lesson if the last 6 weeks are pro-rated. Low cost consequences.</p>
<p>Crom, I am certain it will be a lesson to them. It’s also a lesson to others about the judgement that NEU has used during this. My guess – most employees at NEU get a warning if they aren’t doing their job. It was Residence Life’s job to supervise the RAs and they didn’t – is the Head of Residence Life getting fired? Or does NEU provide the least job protections to students?</p>
<p>I agree that bosses should be held accountable too. No doubt. Sounds like they have a system that needs revamping altogether. If audits of swipes are the way they are going to verify moving forward, someone needs to walk the routes and make sure swipe stations are where they need to be, and give some training on logging and swiping so the RAs understand what they have to do to be logged properly. I see that as the biggest failure on the college’s part. An RA could be doing their rounds, but not swiping and logging properly and be fired as a result. They were not, by precedence, expecting an audit. THAT I think is flawed. Sorry this happened, and yes, I believe there should have been an opportunity for improvement. The kids that were fired should go collectively and make their case. If for nothing else, to help future RAs.</p>
<p>Crom, the article also says the “audit” of RA non-compliance is continuing, and that compliance with this rule on rounds is generally lax. Does NEU propose the same treatment for all non-compliant RAs? Are the going to terminate most of their RAs close to the end of the term? Will the few remaning ones have to work every night? Or will they just have no coverage (which was purportedly the entire point of the terminations)? Or will they say, or we will just fire the first traunch to set an example, and bad luck for the kids who were audited first? </p>
<p>It seems to me that college administrators are paid more and more every year, and have more “middle management”, yet I can not fathom how NEU thought they were being fair, or what their plan was.</p>
<p>These are student jobs that only last a year and will end in just a few weeks. So here we have a few students and potentially several more who are being let go a little early because they failed to do their job. This is not the horrific thing some are making it out to be, and any other consequence, such as allowing them to complete their job through the end of the term will, in effect, be no consequence at all.</p>
<p>As I just posted on the NEU forum:</p>
<p>Let’s try not to blow this out of proportion or be so quick to “judge”… This is certainly not the first time any RAs have been fired on this or ANY college campus, for failing to do their job - a job for which they are getting a huge benefit (free housing). Yes, this incident points out that NEU’s system has its faults but also that they are working on correcting them, for the good of the entire student population.</p>
<p>it is very unfair for people who probably know very little about this school to judge the entire school based soley on this incident and to try to influence potential students because of their own personal biases that this is somehow a bad school to attend, and hopefully most people who hear about this incident can look at it in a more balanced manner.</p>
<p>UCBA, the article also says only one small group has been audited, and audits are still under process for most, and that most RAs are beleived to be non-compliant.</p>
<p>Yea, I caught the seven after I posted that. The link wouldn’t work for me initially (internet problems) - and somehow my eye skipped over it initially in the link. </p>
<p>I finally read the whole thing. As I said, looks like their system needs revamping, bigtime.</p>
<p>thanks for posting the update – as i said on the Northeastern updated thread, i do feel badly for getting two of the things wrong…well, partially wrong - it was half of one staff rather than half the RAs, which I acknowledged in the original thread was maybe inaccurate and I was trying to track down the correct numbers before that thread closed; and as for the “thrown out on the street” thing, yes, that was maybe sensationalistic but you have to understand that this was really, truly what this kid thought was happening. (He also thought it really WAS half the whole staff). And that’s the way the termination was presented to them. They are young adults and for many it may be a first time job; they were (are) really scared (and for the record, they do have to pay for the remaining time in housing if they are kicked out, and this kid, for one, does NOT have the money, so really was looking for somewhere to live). </p>
<p>All that being said, I appreciate the focus being on the remainder of the story, which is accurate, and i can’t help but wonder what the heck NEU is thinking on how this was handled. I do think they picked that particular staff to start with because they could legally leave 50% of the RAs in place in the affected buildings and still be in compliance with their own regulations, but it makes you wonder if those terminated to date are scapegoats. I just can’t believe they are treating their own students this way; I hope they are at least given probation and can keep their jobs.</p>
<p>In the larger scheme of things, it just sounds to me as if NEU would like to have their RAs do their jobs. We don’t know the impetus for this, or if it is insurance related, or if some parents called and complained, or what happened. What we do know is that as far as any of us can see, the RAs were not doing their jobs.</p>
<p>We cannot be a group concerned with student safety on campus and then also be a group sending up an outcry when a University takes tighter measures in this area. It makes no logical sense.</p>
<p>Now, I’m sure for the RAs, they feel this is all “unfair.” I’m sure that when my daughter got points taken off for not handing in an assignment on time, which “this never happened before!” I said, “Yeah, well, the rules are the rules. They are there in black and white. Now you know.”</p>
<p>So, it’s a good lesson for kids who think their job description is: “what everyone else is doing around here,” and not the actual contract they signed. Painful, but not the worst way to learn this, imho.</p>
<p>Ok, Poetgirl, that still leaves a lot of questions unanswered, starting with why is head of Resident Life not being terminated, with massive non-compliance.</p>
<p>Hmm. I wonder where the line is going to be drawn as to whether a RA is going to be fired or not. One missed check? Two, three, ten? I agree that there should have been some warning given that the swipes and log ins were going to be important and if a door is being held open for you, you still have to swipe to be on record of having made the rounds. This isn’t a firing as result of finding the RAs at a pot party or some other flagrently unacceptable behavior and there can be some question as to how how severe this transgress ion was. Yes, the RAs should have all stuck to the letter of the rules of their agreement but if things were being done a certain way and not considered any big deal, I could see how some things went by the wayside.</p>
<p>I think that before I terminated any employee for a non-criminal offense, I would see that the employee received a written warning. I wonder what NEU policy is. I would also think very poorly of a manager who terminated someone for this offense, without first finding how many employees were non-compliant. What is the Head of Residence Life’s plan if, as the article indicates many if not most RAs are non-compliant? When the audit is done, are most RAs going to be fired? </p>
<p>It seems to me that the head of Residence Life exercised minimal judgement.</p>
<p>Poet, I am just going on the article. Excerpts - "They thought it was an isolated incident somehow,” said one RA who still hasn’t heard the results of the audit, noting that most of Northeastern’s 188 RAs were well aware that performance of rounds was often lackluster. . . Director Robert Jose sent an email to all RAs on campus. The email, obtained by The News, informed RAs that a department-wide review was underway.</p>