What happened:
Employers across Bloomsburg Campus have had their student employment budgets slashed, leaving First Year Experience (FYE) with $10,000 dollars less than what they are projected to spend.
Why it matters:
Student employment opportunities dwindle with department chairs forced to cut hours or positions all together.
The background:
The FYE Learning Community budget is $10,000 less than what is projected to be spent. Jennifer Hunsinger, Director of Student Success, Learning Communities and Second Year Experiences, and her staff were forced to cut Student Service Center office employees. All other budgets of FYE were given $0 dollars in funding for student employment.
“I know that honestly, we can only afford one student to work twenty hours a week [in the office], but I didn’t want to tell our student staff that they couldn’t work,” explains Hunsinger, “I also had to try and make it equitable, so we just had to redistribute hours as best we could.”
“Typically, the office staff averaged about fifteen hours a week for each employee,” Hunsinger stated. Approximately seven student employees would work at the FYE front desk, now they are functioning with five students working no more than ten hours per week, some working only four to five hours. By the Spring 2025 semester, only two students will be employed by the FYE front desk. FYE looks to cut peer mentor monthly training and student mentors attending open houses to save money.
Hunsinger and Assistant Director Michelle Swartz draft an email informing their employees about the realities of the situation in mid-August, “It was important to us that the student knew what was going on before they came back so they had as much time as possible to try to find an alternative plan.”
Working at the front desk for FYE teaches students personal and professional skills such as making phone calls and doing administrative work. “I’m so disappointed that we can’t provide more of that opportunity and provide a place for students who really need the money.”
Other Bloomsburg campus work-study jobs are still waiting for approval from their new budgets, Hunsinger stresses that many others were left in more difficult positions than hers.
Nikki Keller, Executive Director of Strategic Communications & Marketing at Bloomsburg, responded to The Voice’s request for comment with an invitation to a Faculty & Staff Town Hall on Wednesday, October 2nd from 3 p.m. – 4 p.m. “to provide various CU-wide updates for the fall semester, including changes to Student Employment.”
