Please please please… don’t hire anyone else.
By Ella Tracy
Last year, I wrote in the newspaper begging the institution to hire more staff without relying on student hiring committees. This year, students are begging for the opposite.
Every month at St. Kate’s has seen a different person in the same role in Campus & Residence Life. All 12 staff members seemed to vanish overnight, leaving no trace of their employment at the University except for elaborate decorations on their office doors.
Remaining Campus & Residence Life staff disclosed to select student leaders that the circumstances of staff departure were "mysterious" and declined to comment further.
Naturally, students have begun to speculate. Were staff members fired? Did they quit? Are metaphysical forces at work? One student, Kate Foster ‘27 (Biochemistry), reportedly walked in on one former staffer tinkering with what she described as a “metal contraption resembling a science fiction time travel machine.” She suspects a successful experiment that also resulted in the staffer transporting themself into an alternative timeline where they did not accept the position at St. Kate’s.
Alexis Price ‘29 (Photography) claimed she spotted a strange UFO over St. Kate’s campus during a severe atmospheric storm last fall. A Campus Life staff member was gone the next morning.
“Every person we hired affirmed their commitment to student success and wellbeing,” said Foster, who is also a student lead in SEEK. “I don’t know about them, but if I were actually committed to student wellbeing, I would have fought back against the aliens a little harder.”
After extensive social media investigations that would put an FBI agent to shame, students uncovered the whereabouts of several former St. Kate’s staff members. The most recent staff member to vanish experienced a midlife crisis and opened a coffee shop in coastal Italy. Another was spotted in a nature documentary on macaroni penguins in Antarctica, a week after their departure from St. Kate’s.
One professor in the forthcoming School of Liberal Arts, Business, and Leadership overheard students discussing the strange disappearances, noting that she had no idea there were even new hires in Campus & Residence Life. She later told me that she “doesn’t bother learning the names of new staff members until they’ve been with the University for at least 2 years” because of the astronomical turnover rate.
Foster also told me that she would rather not have the University continue hiring for new Campus & Residence Life positions. “You spend a month getting to know someone really well and building channels of communication, then they get abducted by aliens or something,” she said. “In the interim, students end up handling all their responsibilities.”
Foster is one of several students advocating for increased student leadership by making the empty Campus & Residence Life position a student-occupied one. Foster believes that 2-3 students could handle the workload, especially given that they are doing so right now. “This would centralize all functionality of clubs and student organizations, stabilize campus life functions, and encourage student leadership,” Foster said. “It would be great to focus on my fellow students instead of navigating a new boss relationship every month.”
Exhausted student hiring committees are already gearing up for yet another round of interviews. Perhaps the 12th time is the charm, and our high-achieving Katies will hire themselves instead of looking for more external candidates.
Cover photo credit: Chris Hughes on Pexels
