Understaffng

ITHACA COLLEGE EXPERIENCING UNDERSTAFFING PROBLEMS DURING NATIONAL LABOR SHORTAGE

BY SYD PIERRE

Businesses across the U.S. have been impacted by a labor shortage, which has been heavily infuenced by the COVID-19 pandemic. As of Sept. 3, 8.4 million people were unemployed in the U.S., and on the last business day of July, there were 10.9 million job openings, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). While labor demand is increasing across the country, the quit rate — number of jobs quit out of the total employment — has also increased. According to the BLS, the quit rate during July was 2.7%. Hayley Harris, vice president of human resources, said the number of staff members at Ithaca College needed to align with the number of students enrolled. As part of the Ithaca Forever strategic plan, the college cut 116 full-time equivalent faculty positions and 26 departments, programs and majors, a process that was accelerated because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Non-Academic Program Prioritization — which focused on administrative, operational and staff functions at the college — has resulted in a number of administrative and staff eliminations. According to a statement released by the college’s Staff Council on March 15, 2021, staff members have been primarily impacted by the cuts. In Spring 2020, the college offered retirement incentives to employees, according to The Ithaca Voice. At the time, the college said it anticipated a total reduction in the workforce of 15%. Karen Armstrong, assistant to the dean in the Roy. H Park School of Communications, said the school has lost several staff positions over the last few years, and she now has to take on certain tasks for the entire school. “That left me supporting 50 faculty,” Armstrong said. “So I’ve managed over the last few years, but now … [it is] getting worse with all the cutbacks. And people just keep getting work piled on them that they can barely keep up with.” Armstrong said there is an adjustment to coming back from the pandemic but also an adjustment to having fewer staff members. “There’s nothing wrong with trying to, you know, be more effcient in the way we do things,” Armstrong said. “I get that. But there’s only so much that one person can do. You know, there’s a point at a time when we do need more staff. … I’ve been here for over 39 years, and it is defnitely not the way it used to be.”

Some other administrative assistants at the college declined to comment on the nature of their workloads. Katie Stone, assistant director for upper campus operations for Dining Services, said via email that Dining Services currently has 85 staff members. She said that, as of September, there were 30 positions available to fll, not including student employee positions. “There are approximately 675 hours of unfulflled student labor each week across Dining Services units,” Stone said via email. “There are over 1,300 hours of labor per week left unstaffed.”

Stone said those numbers did not include the required student labor for the openings of the Campus Center Dining Hall Late Night, the satellite cafes or for Towers Marketplace to be open seven days a week. She said the long wait times and lines students have been experiencing at the dining halls are unrelated to the staffng issues but rather a byproduct of eating food in a restaurant-type setting. Dave Prunty, executive director of Auxiliary Services, said the college has never seen this high level of understaffng in the dining halls. He said that in the past, if the dining hall had 10 full-time employee positions or 20 or 30 student positions open, that was a lot. He said the college is not the only business lacking staffng. “If you’ve been downtown, you can’t walk 10 steps without fnding a ‘for help’ sign,” Prunty said. “So I think it’s a thing happening across the entire area, if not the entire country.” Harris said that fnding qualifed candidates to fll vacancies has been a challenge. “This can be attributed to a number of factors, including reluctance by some to be active in the workforce during the pandemic, extended state and federal unemployment benefts, childcare concerns due to K–12 school opening plans being in fux and a high number of available positions in our area,” Harris said via email. Jeff Golden, senior director of Auxiliary Services, said that, as of September, mail services had four full-time staff and 23 student employees. Golden said mail services has less staff than past years, but unlike other areas on campus, is not understaffed. He said the changes in staffng are because of new systems mail services uses, like the smart lockers that students use to get their mail. “Once a package goes in [to the locker], it’s in there for 48 hours,” Golden said. “If someone picks it up an hour later, we can put another package in. … Whether or not there’s a staff person available to do that has no bearing on how long that interval will be.” Tom Dunn, associate director and deputy chief for the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Management, said that staffng levels have not decreased or increased, but the department is seeing some turnover of positions. Dunn said that the positions that need to be flled include security and patrol offcers and administrative assistants. “We’re still able to provide the same services and support to our students,” Dunn said, “Being down a few positions would necessitate some overtime for some of the offcers.” Senior Simeon Alvarez said he works at the Ithaca College Library. He said the library has had to change its hours because it does not have the budget to stay open as long as it used to. According to its website, the library is open 7:30 a.m to 11:59 p.m on weekdays, 7:30 a.m to 8 p.m. Fridays, noon to 5 p.m. Saturdays and noon to 11:59 p.m. Sundays. In the spring semester, the library was open from 7 a.m. to 2 a.m. Mondays through Thursdays, 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Fridays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturdays and 10 to 2 a.m. Sundays. “In the past semesters, the library’s advertised it’s always open for students,” Alvarez said. “I feel bad for those students because I wish I could do something to be open longer.”

Alex Rader, Ithaca College Campus Center Dining Hall employee, swipes students into the dining hall Sept. 13. Thomas Kerrigan/The Ithacan