Even with revised responsibilities, employees will not fall through the cracks

Student employees across campus are struggling to define their employment statuses after the COVID-19 closure affected campus jobs.

Students employed specifically by Xavier University are continuing to receive paychecks for their regular working hours, regardless of whether they are able to complete their work remotely.

Academic tutor and jazz band manager Cassie Booth still receives paychecks for both campus jobs, even though she is only able to complete her tutoring work remotely. She noted that some of her regular students no longer feel motivated or able to complete tutoring sessions, but she is still being paid as if she were teaching all of them.

This was a change in plans for the Office of Academic Support, who originally notified tutors that they would not receive payment for lessons they did not teach.

Booth noted that she is able to tutor more students with new quarantine-based free time, but is not receiving new assignments from her supervisors.
Booth also recently began an internship at which she works for credit hours, and noted that the remote process has created difficulties already.

“We’re running into problems,” Booth said of her new Xavier-affiliated internship. “I need to get a drug test done, but going into an Urgent Care is not smart right now and my apartment building doesn’t accept packages.”

Gallagher Student Center (GSC) building manager Madison Colbert noted that her job duties have largely changed with the campus closure. Because GSC is no longer open, Colbert no longer has to plan events, coordinate with offices or work at the front desk. Her only duty now is to run the social media account for GSC, which is made more difficult without being present in the building.

Colbert is also being paid less than she would regularly earn because the GSC is only paying students for the average number of hours they worked at the desk. “Normally, we get paid for on-call hours. We don’t get paid for that anymore,” Colbert noted.

Students employed by Xavier-affiliated companies, however, are not being paid their regular wages and many have been officially laid off.

This includes workers for Chartwells, the company which runs food services at Xavier. Student workers at Hoff Dining Hall (HDH), Blue Blob Diner and All For Subs are technically employees of this company. Currito employees, a separate corporate entity, have also been formally laid off.

Former Hoff Dining Hall employee Mikayla Pitcher noted the struggles she’s experiencing as a former student employee and current part-time student. She noted that both full-time employees and part-time student employees at HDH who are full-time students received different severance after campus closed.

“I still go to school… but because I’m a part-time student, I didn’t get anything.” Pitcher said. “That was frustrating. That would have literally been the rest of my rent.”

“Xavier is trying to do a lot to help but I think people are falling through the cracks,” Pitcher continued. “It’s just really frustrating being a college student. I’m not getting a stimulus check; I was three dollars short of unemployment; I was part-time at Xavier so I’m not going to get anything from them.”

Students with questions about their campus employment can remotely contact the Office of Career Development from 8:30 to 5 every weekday by phone or email.