Two Masons
From December 2008 newsletter
Two masons were cutting stone for a church when a traveler asked each what he was doing. One mason said "I am killing myself cutting this stone day after day". The other said "I am building a place for people to find peace". Each one of us in our respective communities has the choice of being one or the other of these masons.
The Planning and Assessment of SUNY Oneonta Analysis and Action Plan- September, 2008 says:
“The State University of New York College at Oneonta (SUNY Oneonta) has clearly positioned itself in the last five years as a highly selective institution of choice within the SUNY system. Through careful planning, assessment, and resource allocation, the College has had extraordinary success achieving its goals as determined through major performance indicators in areas such as enrollment, admissions, student retention and graduation, student satisfaction and engagement, faculty hiring, facilities management, and fundraising.”
These goals in part have been achieved through the efforts of hard working professionals. Professionals understood that the success of the college would start with their hard work, and they are up for the challenge. They understood to make this happen, their jobs would change. They would be required to learn new versions of Banner, staff up bigger and better open houses, change the way they were doing things, develop better ways of servicing students, and go the extra mile. In their plan to become a highly selective college, the former administration left out the part about rewarding all professionals for a job well done.
The Colleges’ plan included restructuring and adding management positions for this change, as well as compensating management for the colleges’ meteoric rise in position among SUNY and private colleges. A quick look at the ’96-’97 directory shows that there was one Provost, two Vice Presidents, and two Deans and still a host of Directors. Today we have one Provost, 4 Vice Presidents, 2 Deans, 2 Associate Provosts, 7 Associate Vice Presidents, and a host of Directors. Since 1997, success could be measured if the value of your work were reflected by an increase in your salary, a promotion, or both. After all, you would not get a raise unless you met the goals of the college. Quality of life could be closely tied to the amount of money you make, and therefore how much your work is valued. Management seems to have a plan for management.
It is easy to get caught up in this cycle of evaluation, identifying areas where we excel, and areas that need improvement and doing more to improve. We still keep doing the many things we are now doing well, but we will also change. In all this, some attention should be given to the “masons” that built the foundation on which our success is standing. Behind each of the major performance indicators are professionals performing valuable work in areas such as admissions, academic advisement, residence life, financial aid and more to accomplish the Presidents’ vision, the Vice Presidents’ directives, and the many Associate Vice Presidents’ goals.
What is becoming more clear is that the goals of the college depend on the professional work force, and professionals should see some of the fruits of the colleges’ extraordinary success.
The Planning and Assessment of SUNY Oneonta Analysis and Action Plan also says:
“Specifically with respect to planning and assessment, since 1997 the College has been guided by
its Comprehensive College Plan (CCP), a dynamic document that addresses seven institution-wide
themes (Academic Quality, Enrollment Management, Student Engagement, Diversity and
Inclusion, Quality of Campus Life, Community, External Support and Image) and is revised
periodically (i.e., five times since 1997) to reflect changes in local context as well as in the
higher education landscape more generally. The CCP derives directly from the College’s
Mission Statement, and the processes of developing and revising the CCP have been widely
participatory, with many campus groups and constituents providing input and feedback.”
Of these seven institution wide themes, Goal V., Quality of Campus Life, paragraph D. reads: “Provide development opportunities for all employees that promote professional growth, strengthen client-centered services, and enhance the quality of campus life.”
There are examples of management improving the quality of life of hard working professionals. When we kept losing programmers, management looked at why this was happening and addressed that specific problem - they paid them more. Was their work valuable? Yes. Did it contribute to the College’s goals? Yes. Did that improve the employees’ quality of life? You would have to ask them. When the coaches got together and wrote a compelling argument of why their salaries should be increased using data from other colleges, and sent it to their VP, their request was brushed aside. When the same document was presented to the president, they all received across the board increases. Why did it take such a battle for management to do the right thing? We all saw the paper where the salaries of those at the top were reported, we know that there was not a shortage of money when management was restructuring. What strategy is management using to enhance their employees’ quality of life? Most of us believe your quality of life is based, in part, on the amount of compensation you receive. If you helped the college meet its goals, you might get an increase in salary or a promotion, or both. Your contribution has been validated by the employer.
Just about every professional on campus has seen their work change, and increase, and are now doing more than they were before the push in 1997 to become a highly selective college. They took on more duties and responsibilities each year and enjoyed the fact that they were a part of a team working to turn the college around and make us better. Professionals have done more with less, worked harder, smarter, longer, on order to get better students here, in larger numbers, orient them in the summer, house them, package their aid, bill them, pre-set them, advise them, and deal with their parents. The employees grew with the job and the challenge. Some of their ideas and methods of doing their job are why we are enjoying such success. When is it going to become clear that the goals of the college depend on the professional work force, and when will professionals see some of the fruits of the colleges’ extraordinary success?
When a professional asks for a pay raise based on what they now do, compared to what the same position at a similar college does, they were met with the statement: “If they make more at that college, then go work there.” or “Money is not a motivating factor, when it comes to working at Oneonta.” We have lost several good people to other colleges because of that attitude. I would like to think that as we start a new chapter in the history of Oneonta, that some attention could be paid to the quality of life of professionals on this campus. It is time to make Oneonta a place that values the work we do. Oneont should strive to improve the quality of life for it’s employees with the same vigor we used to make Oneonta a highly selective college.
Raises and promotions do happen on this campus, since the inception of the CCP, there have been promotions for professionals. Most raises happen because of the hard work of a supervisor. They had to work the system, by begging, pleading or getting creative, they were able to get more money for a person they supervise. I worked hard on a new application for promotion. This application took 2 years and a hard battle to get approved. Why would there be such resistance to a fair, honest and informative application? One can only guess. This form empowers the employee. It defines, and outlines the steps they need to take. The former “application” had no mention of promotion. It was not clear who approved it, or denied it, and did not mention that a denial could be appealed to a committee. There is now an application that Professionals can use to apply for salary increases and promotions. The application is clear, and easy to understand. There were several workshops on promotions and how this form can be used increase your salary and quality of life. This application is available at the office of Human Resources. Professionals may contact me about the use of this application and the procedures for applying for a salary increase and/or promotion. I hope everyone will feel empowered by the new form and start a movement to increase their awareness of what they do, how much more they are doing, and how they can change their quality of life.
Five years ago Cortland used a similar application to raise the quality of life for it’s professionals, and it is still using it today. We are where Cortland was five years ago when it comes to compensation. We now have the tools needed to raise the quality of life for professionals on our campus, the one we built up, the one we keep up, because we want our community to be a place where all can come to learn, grow and prosper.
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