Thursday, February 04, 2016
It's been a while; I shouldn't have left you...
Without a dope(y) blog post to sift through.
(Ed. note: your humble blogger will be jumping from topic to topic like a rabbit on meth. He begs your indulgence.)
When I last posted, I spoke of a change in the way I saw the changes occurring here at the college, and alluded to the subsequent change in myself, all stemming from a conversation with my director, and the fact that fellow Gen-X'er, Paul Ryan (R-WI), born in 1970, is now the Speaker of the House, made me realize that for the first time that not only could I be in charge, I should be in charge. By this I mean Director of Financial Aid or of VA Benefits, or anything that requires more authority that what I'm presently doing. Moreover, the structure of the school is changing, and there's opportunity in that shift. While it's a profound change in my own self-image, and very positive, it hasn't amounted to much, as the counter-revolution led by the teaching faculty has slowed the changes to some extent. More will be revealed, but I'm of the impression that the opportunities were oversold anyway, as is the custom here. Even if they are real, it's little more than a rear-guard action for me and my associates. You see, the page has finally turned, and the systems built over the past 5 years are finally doing what they were intended to do: automate the process as much as possible.
I've spoken on this topic before, but I've never seen Fall and Spring registration periods as quiet as the ones we've had this school year. We were supposed to be working late this week, but there's no need to spend the overtime budget when we simply don't have students to service. Being available outside of regular office hours is important, certainly, but it isn't worth spending extra money to keep us here. Thankfully, I have dibs on Ossining campus visits, so I lost one day, not two. Nevertheless, the gobs of overtime I've come to expect in 4 months out of the year simply won't be there. I even made slightly less in 2015 than I did in 2014, something that has happened once since 1999, and that was because of a huge retro check 5 years in the making. Still, all of this dances around a much larger issue to everyone who works in my office. Thanks to technology, financial aid is no longer a full-time job.
Truthfully, financial aid has never been a full-time job if your definition of full time is 40 hours a week for 50 weeks a year. Even Mercy College, as horrible a place to work as it was, gave us 15 days vacation, the week between Christmas and New Year's off, and was closed on Fridays during the summer. Due to the limitations placed on aid and the culturally entrenched Sept. to May school year, all schools have significant down time. This could be July, August, and September for NYU, which packages its students in February and March, or my school, which is all but dead from late February through all of March and April. Other times are busy or slow depending on the college's withdrawal policies, whether it had dorms, which lends itself to students having emotional problems prior to Thanksgiving, etc. Other times of the year were occupied with cleaning up mistakes, students dropping classes, and helping transfer students. It could be busy, but nothing like the peak periods. With these ebbs and flows, we were free to take vacations, perform other services for the college like being a faculty Senator or serving on committees, go to training, what have you. I certainly participate in these activities, and the college benefits from my financial aid expertise, if only to keep other parts of the college in compliance. Still, these are ancillary facets of the position, elevating me from a mere advisor to a member of faculty, which is great, but secondary to working in the financial aid office.
The best way I can frame the situation is as follows. First, I can state we're overstaffed. With the total lack of students, how could I say otherwise? Actually, I could, but let's carry this thought experiment further. As people (and by that I mean counselors) retire, they won't be replaced. This will concentrate the work, keeping the rest of us busier. On the other hand, and far more worrisome, is that we aren't irrelevant, but I am.
(Ed. note: your humble blogger will be jumping from topic to topic like a rabbit on meth. He begs your indulgence.)
When I last posted, I spoke of a change in the way I saw the changes occurring here at the college, and alluded to the subsequent change in myself, all stemming from a conversation with my director, and the fact that fellow Gen-X'er, Paul Ryan (R-WI), born in 1970, is now the Speaker of the House, made me realize that for the first time that not only could I be in charge, I should be in charge. By this I mean Director of Financial Aid or of VA Benefits, or anything that requires more authority that what I'm presently doing. Moreover, the structure of the school is changing, and there's opportunity in that shift. While it's a profound change in my own self-image, and very positive, it hasn't amounted to much, as the counter-revolution led by the teaching faculty has slowed the changes to some extent. More will be revealed, but I'm of the impression that the opportunities were oversold anyway, as is the custom here. Even if they are real, it's little more than a rear-guard action for me and my associates. You see, the page has finally turned, and the systems built over the past 5 years are finally doing what they were intended to do: automate the process as much as possible.
I've spoken on this topic before, but I've never seen Fall and Spring registration periods as quiet as the ones we've had this school year. We were supposed to be working late this week, but there's no need to spend the overtime budget when we simply don't have students to service. Being available outside of regular office hours is important, certainly, but it isn't worth spending extra money to keep us here. Thankfully, I have dibs on Ossining campus visits, so I lost one day, not two. Nevertheless, the gobs of overtime I've come to expect in 4 months out of the year simply won't be there. I even made slightly less in 2015 than I did in 2014, something that has happened once since 1999, and that was because of a huge retro check 5 years in the making. Still, all of this dances around a much larger issue to everyone who works in my office. Thanks to technology, financial aid is no longer a full-time job.
Truthfully, financial aid has never been a full-time job if your definition of full time is 40 hours a week for 50 weeks a year. Even Mercy College, as horrible a place to work as it was, gave us 15 days vacation, the week between Christmas and New Year's off, and was closed on Fridays during the summer. Due to the limitations placed on aid and the culturally entrenched Sept. to May school year, all schools have significant down time. This could be July, August, and September for NYU, which packages its students in February and March, or my school, which is all but dead from late February through all of March and April. Other times are busy or slow depending on the college's withdrawal policies, whether it had dorms, which lends itself to students having emotional problems prior to Thanksgiving, etc. Other times of the year were occupied with cleaning up mistakes, students dropping classes, and helping transfer students. It could be busy, but nothing like the peak periods. With these ebbs and flows, we were free to take vacations, perform other services for the college like being a faculty Senator or serving on committees, go to training, what have you. I certainly participate in these activities, and the college benefits from my financial aid expertise, if only to keep other parts of the college in compliance. Still, these are ancillary facets of the position, elevating me from a mere advisor to a member of faculty, which is great, but secondary to working in the financial aid office.
The best way I can frame the situation is as follows. First, I can state we're overstaffed. With the total lack of students, how could I say otherwise? Actually, I could, but let's carry this thought experiment further. As people (and by that I mean counselors) retire, they won't be replaced. This will concentrate the work, keeping the rest of us busier. On the other hand, and far more worrisome, is that we aren't irrelevant, but I am.
