Underpaid and Unheard: Stories from the SLU Staff

St. Lawrence University has a problem. When people look at a college campus they tend to think strictly of the students. They rarely give any attention to the people who keep the campus afloat behind the scenes. These workers are severely underpaid at SLU and always the last to get attention when changes are supposedly being made. There are countless members of custodial crew, dining staff, student workers, professional staff, and even some professors who barely make enough to live paycheck to paycheck. On top of that, SLU often underfunds their departments and areas of work, which makes it difficult for them to excel. The following quotes were taken anonymously to protect these individuals’ livelihoods. These are their untold stories. 

“Being a TA (teaching assistant), we’re not given enough time to make effective lab materials, and we’re forced to go over our allotted time every week. Technically, we’re only paid for two hours—one for preparation and one for the actual lab. We’re forced to go well over our time and work without pay if we want to be affective.” – Anonymous Teaching Assistant 

“For the building and campus, the money we need to spend is well over the budget they allot for us. The bosses have to pull money from other places. For this building, we were allotted $14,000. It seems like we should have more money, considering we are less than halfway through the semester, and we already have used almost all of it. I feel financially responsible for the spending choices, but the school still doesn’t give us enough to do what we want. This is not enough to fix these problems that can affect the students’ quality of life.” – Anonymous Custodial Staff Member 

“I’ve often struggled to make ends meet, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s been hard. I really think they forget about us. The last thing they look at is us. The administration forgets that someone has to clean up the grounds and make this place look nice for the students. Someone has to mow the grass in the summer, and someone has to plow and shovel the walkways in the winter. I can get paid more to work at Walmart or CVS across the street, but there’s no purpose in that work. It wouldn’t be the same; we care about the students and the staff and want to make SLU look good for them. We often feel like we aren’t appreciated by those at the top (SLU administration), especially when we’re stretching our paychecks to feed our families.” -Anonymous Grounds Staff Member 

“The only reason that the Graduate Assistant (GA) program works the way it does here is so that they can get away without paying us. We have almost no time off and get such a small stipend that it’s almost impossible to afford housing in the North Country without living in a constant negative. On top of that, we work so many hours without getting paid. They’re lucky we care about the kids, otherwise this would be so different. If the graduate school here was more expansive, it may be different, but no one who is making good financial choices like me should ever be in a deficit like this.” -Anonymous Graduate Assistant Coach 

“In the fall, they cut our overtime hours and people still remember the article and the backlash it got (referring to “Staff Overtime Hours Cut” in Volume CXII issue 2). So often they add onto our lives without really thinking about what it’s like to not get compensated for it. I’m fine working, trust me I want to, but the school can’t expect me to work and not get compensated for the overtime that I’ve put in.” -Anonymous Athletics Custodial Staff Member 

“I understood when I started working here as an adjunct professor that the pay wasn’t going to be great, and that’s all right. But sometimes I still struggle to understand just why it’s so low when the salaries at the top of the institution are so astronomically high. On top of the low salary, the funding for our department is always being cut, which makes it incredibly difficult to be a great instructor—especially when we can’t afford all the resources we need. It would be easier if my salary was higher. Then, I could afford to just buy resources, but with both my salary and the department budget so low, I feel like we are selling ourselves so short at this institution that should instill so much pride.” -Anonymous Adjunct Professor