<p>But I still see no evidence that anyone was fired to set an example. They were each fired for cause, they had the right to appeal. And some did. It’s not like some Roman general decimating his troops. </p>
<p>My d. is prone to unexpected asthma attacks. Supposing one of them happened in the hallway, or by the laundry room where she was by herself, and an RA was supposed to pass by every hour, and didn’t appear all night from 9-6. My kid, despite doing everything she knows, could have ended up dead. And you can bet I would sue the heck out of the university, and every individual RA. And it would never get to court. The university would pay me big bucks, I’d bankrupt each of the RAs, there would be a nondisclosure agreement that no RA nor the university (nor I) could talk about it, and part of the agreement would be that the university adopt an absolute zero-tolerance policy towards its RAs. There would be no “example” from that, because no one would ever know. </p>
<p>I think when it finally comes out - which could be five years from now - we will find out that the university acted fairly and in a measured way, given the circumstances; the RAs will have suffered little; and the university will be safer as a result.</p>
<p>“So if a large portion of the 174 are non-compliant – will they be fired? or were the first 7 just meant to be used to set an example?”</p>
<p>It doesn’t follow that whatever they do with some of the remaining 174, the first seven were used to set an example. They were fired for cause.</p>
<p>OK, UC, let’s say it DID happen on the watch of ALL of the 14. Let’s say they missed a round, and something awful happened. So lets say all month long, the RAs neglected the area where someone OD’s etc. All of that is hard for me to believe, because the school paper can’t figure out why that group was picked (and one would think they would know if something so awful happened, they do track crimes reported), but OK. Still, should they be punished MORE for missing rounds than any of the other 174?</p>
<p>So next week, should we expect another 80 or so terminations? Or is missing rounds OK, and not grounds for termination if nothing awful happened (which btw, I don’t think it did, or the school paper would know).</p>
<p>ETA – on the website for the school paper, people are commenting (and yes, could be with made up names) – no one is saying oh yeah, that’s where a girl was attacked, that’s were someone OD’d. I just don’t buy that something so awful happened that no one is telling.</p>
<p>It doesn’t follow that whatever they do with some of the remaining 174, the first seven were used to set an example. They were fired for cause. </p>
<hr>
<p>If an employer fires some people for cause and ignore others who do the same thing, the issue can be raised that the “cause” was a pretext. It wasn’t the real reason.</p>
<p>No. It could be that their enforcement capacity was limited (as is the case of the police all the time), or because the first seven were fired because they (unlike the others) were specifically tied to an incident that put the university at increased risk. </p>
<p>But at least we agree that missing rounds was not lilkely the “real reason”. Something must have happened to set the chain off. </p>
<p>By the way, while drug use is a crime, overdosing isn’t. It would not necessarily show up anywhere but in a confidential hospital admission. NEU (like most universities) likely has had dozens.</p>
<p>I am speculating that seven RAs didn’t make the rounds at a time that an “incident” of some kind occurred, an incident that shook up the university’s risk management team. As to what happened, one thing that would be clear to me is that no other student was likely present, and no other student would necessarily have any way of knowing what it was. There may even be a pending lawsuit by the family of a current student, who doesn’t want his or her name, or the incident, known. It could even have happened months earlier, and risk management had just gotten around to demanding the audit, and then acting immediately on the results.</p>
<p>And do students know? Hey, at my Massachusetts alma mater, a fraction of the size of NEU, 44 women (and three men) were raped last year. Do you think most students know who they are, or who did it, or even that the rapes took place?</p>
<p>I have a friend who runs a small business. She knows that her employees have Internet access and may periodically access Facebook, etc. Technically against the rules, but not a crime against humanity.</p>
<p>While reviewing some activity logs, her IT guy noticed extremely heavy Internet activity from one person. They investigated further, and found that this guy was streaming porn (!) onto a personal computer using company Wifi during work hours. He was immediately terminated.</p>
<p>Now, should they have waited for an investigation of all their employees’ Internet usage before firing this guy? That seems to be the logic you’re using here.</p>
<p>Pizza, but apparently the school is saying the kids are being terminated specifically for missing rounds. Not inappropriate internet usage. It seems to me that people are fabricating stuff to justify what the school said. Instead of accepting what they told students.</p>
<p>Risk management - what do you want the school to say, “The RAs were fired for missing rounds, during which one person was raped (or died) (or was hospitalized)”; or “The RAs were fired for missing rounds, but we can’t say anything else because we are being sued”; or “The RAs were fired for missing rounds, but we can’t say more because we are afraid an RA will sue us”; “The RAs were fired for missing rounds, and we’ve agreed not to say anything more about it or identify them by name so as not to damage their future job oppportunities”, or “The RAs were fired for missing rounds; you really don’t want to know anything else”; or…</p>
<p>As part of the war on terrorism, colleges that enroll international students are required to take attendance for them. Post- secondary schools with students who have student visas must ensure that students are enrolled in at least 12 hours of instruction per week and record how many classes they miss. If they stop coming to classes, the colleges must inform the government–I don’t recall which agency. </p>
<p>I know some profs in NYC who are philosophically opposed to this. To get around some of the objections, most colleges now require that attendance be taken in every class for everyone, not just international students. That way, profs don’t need to know which students are on student visas. More and more schools are instituting policies which say that a student cannot miss more than a small # of classes and that as soon as that limit is reached, the prof must notify the registrar. That’s designed to be a back up system, in case the registrar fails to properly record the fact that Mr. Student Visaholder has missed class 4 weeks in a row from the attendance sheets.</p>
<p>Now I sincerely doubt that the necessity of taking attendance constitutes more than 5% of the description of any faculty position. But I assure you that faculty who fail to report attendance can be and are being disciplined. Why? because refusing to obey the regulations makes a college subject to some pretty daunting reprisals–like not being able to obtain student visas for any more international students. And, heaven help any college at which large number of faculty members fail to take attendance and an international student who has simply “disappeared” is caught engaging in terrorism. </p>
<p>My point is that what percentage of time an activity take doesn’t dictate h.ow important it is. I doubt it takes most profs more than 3 minutes–tops–to take attendance. I doubt new adjuncts are even told of the requirement to take attendance when they are interviewed. But if they don’t do it, they get fired. It’s a job requirement; that’s all that matters.</p>
This makes little sense to me. Multiple RAs wouldn’t make rounds through the same dorms. Even if seven didn’t make the rounds at the same time, only one would have been (or was supposed to have been) where whatever the alleged incident happened.</p>
<p>And I seriously doubt 7 of the 14 in the group were scheduled for rounds on any given night. 50% seems like way too high a percentage to have to do on a regular basis. That’s three or four nights a week.</p>
<p>
So if a professor forgets for one class, the Fist of God comes down and they are summarily fired? Or do you think they get talked to first? Maybe with progressively more severe levels of discipline if they don’t get with the program?</p>
<p>Do you think whoever is following this waits a couple of years before checking to see that the attendance is actually being taken?</p>
<p>I’ve worked all my career in fields where being physically present is part of the job. For example, I currently work in a school where we have very clear rules about keeping young children within earshot, and generally eyeshot of teachers at all times.</p>
<p>Now, if you look at the rubric we use to evaluate a teacher, there are pages and pages delineating things from the content knowledge that teachers should have, to the way they plan their lessons, to maintaining a grade book, to using discipline strategies, to promoting equity. There’s probably 100 lines overall. </p>
<p>On that rubric, there is one line in one section about maintaining supervision. Does that mean that watching the children is 1% of a teacher’s job? Not exactly. In fact supervising the children, and being there in case of an emergency, is a hugely important part of their job. Afterall, no one would send their 4 year old to a school with smart, loving educated teachers who teach wonderful information, and sometimes leave the kids alone while they pop out for a Starbucks. Supervising the kids is the foundation upon which everything else is built.</p>
<p>An R.A. has many responsibilities, watching out for infractions, counseling students, handling minor emergencies, etc . . . All of these skills are built on a foundation of being present.</p>
<p>Kayf, you missed the point entirely. It’s an analogy. </p>
<p>Should my friend have waited to investigate all other employees to ensure they weren’t also downloading porn before firing the guy who was? Well, of course not. So why are you so upset that NEU didn’t hold their firings until the investigation was complete?</p>
<p>“This makes little sense to me. Multiple RAs wouldn’t make rounds through the same dorms. Even if seven didn’t make the rounds at the same time, only one would have been (or was supposed to have been) where whatever the alleged incident happened.”</p>
<p>Exactly right. Which goes to KayF’s point. They knew that one of the 14 (or maybe more) of the RAs missed the round(s) where the incident occurred. But to hold the one accountable for missing the incident when seven had missed their rounds would indeed have been cherrypicking. So they decided to be “fair”, and, having found those who didn’t perform as required, treated them all the same, gave them each the opportunity to appeal, and let them go. (Of course, I don’t know how rounds are assigned - does one RA do the same set of rounds five times a night, or is each assigned a specific time?)</p>
<p>It also may be, as a I noted, that the incident had occurred months earlier, but risk management was late to the scene. So they decided to check, they did, and decided that the seven RAs needed to go for the sake of the university, and the safety of its students. </p>
<p>A bunch of pages back, Jonri posted, with a link, the fact that NEU just hired a new head of risk management.</p>
<p>If I were moving into that position, the first thing I would evaluate is my institutions exposure. There would be audits done on all positions in play. </p>
<p>This could be as simple as that or as complicated as what Mini is positing, either way, the RAs were out of compliance with their contract and have been let go “for cause” with evidence.</p>
<p>Poet, if that were the case then I think the new head of risk management and the head of Reslife (who has been there for several years) would both be lacking in judgment, because to fire 7 out of 14 people for something which it is highly likely a large portion of the 188 RAs are also guilty of could leave the RA situation in worse shape than ever (at least according to the newspaper). If rounds are not that important, a warning would be appropriate. If they are important, how is Reslife going to arrange coverage if they let go 1/2 the RAs? Or is it OK to just fire the 7 to send a message to the other delinquent RAs?</p>
<p>Kayf - this has been brought up before, but school is over very soon. I don’t think immediate firing of 7 people, with a slower school-wide audit with an appeals process, would necessarily put the school at larger risk from massive RA firing. A school-wide audit might take another month or longer and by the time the whole thing is done, it might be summertime. </p>
<p>I don’t think you are giving NEU and their administration enough credit.</p>
<p>OK, Novimom, then is it OK to fire 7 people for what they did and let potentially others who did the same thing NOT get fired? Is that fair? Do you think NEU is showing good management skills?</p>
<p>Too late for me to edit above, so lets try this.</p>
<p>OK, Novimom, then is it OK to fire 7 people for what they did and let potentially others who did the same thing NOT get fired? Is that fair? Do you think NEU is showing good management skills? I see only two possibilites -</p>
<ol>
<li><p>NEU is fair, and fires a bunch more RAs this week.</p></li>
<li><p>NEU is not fair and doesnt fire all people who committed the same offense.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Either way, I think Northeastern is showing really poor administrative skills. Students should not be the only ones held accountable. This investigation was poorly implemented. IMHO</p>
<p>Do I think that NEU had the “grounds” to fire the 7 they did based on performance? Yes. </p>
<p>Do I think that it was fair those 7 were targeted or made examples of? No</p>
<p>Do I think NEU managed this process well from both an audit stand point and people management stand point? No. </p>
<p>I have the impression that audits were instituted “suddenly”. Likely by the new risk management director. The audits probably should have been done at regular intervals all along, with follow up evaluations with the RA’s. </p>
<p>The truth is that most employers will not suddenly fire 50% of employees in a department. It is expensive to hire and retrain employees. There is likely to be consequences for not meeting job requirements, but not commonly blanket firing. </p>
<p>I would also counter that leaving 1/2 of the RA positions empty is more of a safety risk than working with current RA staff to improve performance. It probably would have taken very little “direction” ( read that as “if you don’t comply, XY and Z will happen”) to improve performance. These students have a lot to lose when removed from these positions.</p>