Hard feelings still remain after an incident that occurred three Saturdays ago at the Information Technology Services Center.
Several student employees said that they arrived a few seconds late to a scheduling meeting only to find that they had been locked out of the meeting.
When the meeting ended about an hour and a half later, the students said that supervisor Talmadge Krajowsky told them that she had been ordered to fire them because of their tardiness, but instead, she would let them stay and sign up for a few hours. However, students said the hours offered were scattered and few fit their schedules.
“If we had been fired, the managers would have fired their assets,” freshman Nicholas Theberge said.
Former Student Employee of the Month and freshman Elisha Church said that he felt “disrespected and overall, very disappointed.”
Fellow worker and freshman Joe Galante said that the abruptness of the incident made him even more upset. According to Galante, previous scheduling meetings had been “very open and informal.”
The students’ manager, Berthenia Coltrane, agreed with Joe Galante’s statement. She said that this incident was definitely “not the norm.” In fact, she mentioned that there had never been any unfavorable incidents since she joined the ITS staff in 1991.
Galante believes that some tension still exists. “I still think there are some hard feelings. A lot of people lost respect for the supervisor,” he said.
Galante emphasized that the employees appreciated the support of the student supervisors. Coltrane also complimented the student aides who help with affairs at ITS on their support.
Many of the students were offered hours at other departments within ITS, such as the Educational Technology Services Department.
Galante said he believes that most students took the less favored hours offered at CLARC as a matter of convenience. “It’s too much of a hassle to find another job at this point,” he said.
Academic Technologies Services Director Phil Ponella stressed that “none of the students were actually fired” and most were still with ITS, either at the same position or at the Educational Technologies Department.
“Everyone feels badly about this occurrence,” he said. He agreed with Coltrane, saying that student employees were very important to them and to ITS. “This occurrence is something that we’ll all learn from,” Coltrane said.
Tenzek can be reached at ktenzek@campustimes.org.
