BETHANY PILLOW | staff writer
The recent hail storm was not the only frost to penetrate APU’s normally sunny SoCal climate this winter. Recent economic concern has affected a less than welcome freeze – a freeze in faculty and staff hiring.
Gary Lemaster, Vice President of People and Organizational Development, defined the situation as a hiring pause, “a temporary suspension of the hiring of all open faculty and staff positions.”
According to Chief of Staff Deana Porterfield, the Office of the President meets this week to discuss when and if the pause will be lifted in the near future as planned.
A spring thaw may be in sight for full-time hopefuls, though an extension of the pause remains a possibility. If this were to happen, the question of filling faculty positions would then become more of a concern.
The pause, imposed at the end of October 2008, is the administration’s response to the uncertain economic situation.
According to Lemaster, the action was meant as a precaution; a means of safeguarding APU’s resources until local and nationwide economic factors could be more fully assessed.
Lemaster clarified the exact nature of the pause as extending only to full-time faculty and staff positions, with no direct effect on adjunct faculty and seasonal workers.
Both current and prospective workers should find working and hiring conditions unaltered.
There is one exception—for those attempting to move up into full-time positions. These professors can expect to encounter the same delays as other applicants.
Likewise, according to Student Employment Manager Louisa Vasquez, students employed or looking to be employed by the school need not be concerned by the pause, as it does not apply to student hiring or retention rates.
Admittedly, the economy has had some effect on the budgets of individual departments, but student positions are still far from being in short supply.
“We may not have been able to hire as many as in the past because of budgets, but we are still hiring students as positions come open and workers are needed,” Vasquez said. “There is no hiring freeze as far as student positions are concerned.”
Lemaster asserted that student workers fill a critical role in university staffing needs, and assures students the pause does not put their positions in jeopardy.
Lemaster said great care was taken to minimize any negative effects the decision might have had on the school as a whole, and obligations to students and current faculty were taken into consideration when defining the terms of the pause.
“There is a monthly process in place that allows for the review of current staffing needs and decision points for the release of specific critical positions,” Lemaster said.
Administration evaluates and releases any positions determined to be of critical importance.
Several such situations have come into play since October, and the full-time hiring process for the released positions resumed promptly.
The main criteria used to evaluate positions for release was established at the start of the pause, and extends to positions that, if left unfilled, would have a direct effect on students or revenue.
Campus safety, for instance, received the green light to fill open positions as their presence and performance is vital to security and student safety.
Additionally, any offers that were extended prior to the freeze were allowed to be filled. Beyond these exceptions, open full-time positions are to remain unfilled for the time being.
The main impact has been on staff hiring thus far, Porterfield said, as these positions are on a continual hiring basis.
“When they paused the positions,” Porterfield said, “it was really just luck of the draw—the impact on your department depends on what happens to come open.”
Some departments had several critical positions come open at once, while others had very few. Those impacted the hardest were quick to petition for at least one of their positions to be released.
Overall, compensating for the halt in hiring has not been easy on administration and individual departments.
“The pause has challenged us to work that much more thoughtfully and strategically in the midst of significant projects and deadlines,” Lemaster said.
Concerning faculty positions, these have suffered relatively few ill effects as a result of the pause.
Porterfield cites contract terms as the main reason for the distance—faculty contracts are generally for a specified term, and it is easier to predict when positions are likely to come open.
As contracts for next year’s faculty do not take effect until July, the current pause has made little interference to date.
“The difficult thing is with the economy is we just don’t know what’s ahead,” Porterfield said. “The school is doing well with student enrollment, but looking ahead to the fall there is still a big unknown. It will be a hard decision to make.”
