Please please please… someone work for us
By Ella Tracy
Last week, St. Kate’s hiring committees conducted interviews with 1329 candidates for various crucial positions across campus. Not a single candidate was hired.
Olive Lane ‘27 (Nursing, Women & International Development, Biochemistry) was on the committee looking for the new Dean of Everything But Nursing. For the duration of our interview, she stared numbly at the wall across from her, occasionally pausing to dab away tears with a worn handkerchief.
“I volunteered for this,” she said remorsefully. Lane explained that she missed two weeks of classes to personally interview 42 dean candidates, as the pro-staff member in charge of the committee never accepted any of her Google Calendar invitations.
Another student, Hatty Sanders ‘29 (PSEO), is an unpaid high school intern who said she was excited to work for “professional experience.” Sanders said that the most surprising part of the interview process was that “we never actually interviewed candidates, but rather spent the entire interview timeslot convincing them that it was worth it to work at St. Kate’s.”
Sanders all but chaired the committee to find the next Director of SEEK Movie Rights. Other candidates were interviewed to become the only professor in the Womens’ Studies department and the new Vice President for Rights for K(C)aties, The Name Not The St. Kate’s Student.
The committees are shockingly efficient at completing candidate interviews. Several individuals explained that this is because the committees largely consist of students.
“Students are so much better at convincing prospective faculty to work here,” said Crystal North, PhD, a professor in the Liberal Arts department. “They are the most involved student population I’ve ever worked with.” North reflected that the students involved in the hiring committee likely have “people pleasing tendencies they should work through, which they can’t do with the licensed professionals we have right here on campus.”
The Google Calendar of a student working on the hiring committees.
Karen Johnson, dictator of St. Kate’s Department of Campus Efficiency, said that “having students conduct interviews really helps connect potential staff to the student body. As a bonus, it frees up so much time from my calendar so that I can focus on reading faculty performance emails instead.”
Assuming it was unlikely that 0 out of 1329 candidates were extended an offer, I connected with the St. Kate’s Director of Human Resources, Caty Parry. Parry said that 67 offers were extended, an astounding number given that the school was only hiring for 4 positions.
“Given the… uniqueness of our institution, we wanted to make sure all our bases were covered,” Parry insisted.
St. Kate’s is indeed a unique institution, but not good enough to capture the career of working professionals. “I was offered a salary of $17 annually,” one candidate I spoke with revealed. This candidate requested to remain anonymous. None of the other 66 candidates accepted the position they were offered.
In this time of turmoil, it is recommended that students focus on deep breathing exercises and their classwork so pro-staff committee chairs will actually do their jobs. Best of luck to the next round of candidates.
