If You Want to Go Home, Pay Up! Community Assistants Deserve Better
This article includes opinions from 5 Community Assistants. However, all their identities remained anonymous. They will be addressed in this article as respectively Mr. Incredible, Elastic Girl, Violet, Dash, & Jack-Jack.
Community Assistant has long been a desired job on SLU campus because it is a chance for students to become “para-professionals” and to help build and nurture a community bond on campus. It is, of course, also accompanied with good payment and status on campus. Being a Community Assistant during a pandemic, however, is not that glamourous. Not only do CAs receive the same payment for their extra work as a “front liner” in reinforcing of the Pact, they are now asked to pay the University if they wish to leave for Thanksgiving Break. This announcement draws the last straw for CAs as it blurred a line between appreciation and exploitation.
At the beginning of the semester, CAs were required to sign a form to say that they will be present on campus for Thanksgiving. However, in October, Residence Life Office gave out an “opportunity” for the staff, saying that they can choose to leave campus, only if they agree to pay the University for their remaining portion of room and board, reported to be over $500, if they were to stay on campus. Only 5 out of 60 CAs were able to accept this “offer.” The Community Assistants who choose to remain on campus will receive additional stipend calculated from those who left. Community Assistant Mr. Incredible suggested that this is the University’s consistent lack of effort in supporting CAs. “The University constantly talks about how we should take time for ourselves and our mental health,” Mr. Incredible said. “but not only we are not receiving back the right compensation for the work that we are doing, we cannot leave for break even if we wish to because the University decided to put on us a burden of financial strain.”
Community Assistant Elastigirl suggested that they understand the University’s reasoning, “I think that some people might find it unfair if the people leaving still get paid the same amount as the people who stay.” Violet agrees, but they also believe that Residence Life, instead of putting the CAs in this conundrum, could have come up with a better solution if they were to put more effort in. “They could instead offer those who wish to leave for Thanksgiving Break to take up more shifts from those who stay,” Violet said. “This way, everyone can take a break when they need to and those who want to go home can do so without having to pay.” Community Assistant Dash also believes that there are better ways, but Residence Life is refusing to look at those options because they want to utilize the workforce. “They are doing this so that we can have us do Thanksgiving Break closing and monitor the campus after everyone leaves.”
All the CAs stated that reinforcing the Laurentian Pact is not part of their job description. It is an added responsibility that is rapidly working to taint what it is truly meant to be a CA. Dash suggested that they are separated from their community and are now viewed as “police.” They said, “We are supposed to help build a community, but it is extremely hard to do so when we are no longer our peers’ friends but instead a person who might rat them out if they did not put on a mask.” Jack-Jack agrees. It seems like taking CAs into consideration last is the approach that Residence Life is taking.
Furthermore, the CAs went on record and said that the communication between CAs, Residence Life is not well established. “We learn news about Phase 1, Phase 2, and Phase 3 at the same time as our residents,” Dash said. “The information is as new to them as to us, so we cannot be a resource and cannot provide answers to questions our residents might have.”
Plus, with SLU being nationally recognized for a wonderfully executed opening plan, the driving force behind this, the CAs, received only a thank you letter from President Fox, Dean of Student Life, and the Residence Coordinators. “I just wish we received something more than just a pat in the back,” Dash said.
Five CAs came to me with the same frustration with the University’s lack of effort and transparency, one can only wonder what the other 55 has to say. Community Assistants, in the end, are students and students during a pandemic. They are already worried about their own safety, but now they are put into potential risk so that they can exercise their additional role in keeping others safe, all without extra pay. They are dubbed as the bad guy on campus when they were supposed to be the “role model for the community.” The responsibilities are added immensely, but appreciation and communication fell short.
Residence Life, please take care of the CAs. The pandemic has wreaked havoc, it is unfortunate to see Residence Life being an additional toll onto the lives of the students you called exceptional. All the CAs I interviewed said they do not need the praises; in other words, they wish for actions rather than words.
Being a CA, like I said, is a wonderful job that SLU has to offer. Whether it continues to be such a pursued job does not lie in the CAs hand, unfortunately. It is up to the Residence Life and the University Administration to decide. Maybe they should try this first step: don’t make the CAs pay!