Student employees are being treated like students. And students are being treated like they don’t matter at TCC.
Chancellor Elva LeBlanc sent an email Oct. 30 to notify NE faculty, staff and administrators that Kenya Ayers-Palmore would no longer be president of NE Campus.
TCC employs students under several departments from counseling to The Collegian. These departments often depend on the work of student employees to function.
Yet, NE student employees were not sent Chancellor LeBlanc’s Oct. 30 email. Do student employees not deserve the same information as faculty and staff? According to the administration, they don’t.
When The Collegian reached out to Vice Chancellor Reginald Gates about who receives information regarding campus affairs, he responded that they “target the communication to the employees who need to receive the information.”
The Collegian reports on news happening at TCC. If we are not the employees who “need to receive” breaking news on our campus, who is?
In response to student employees not being included on the Oct. 30 email, Gates said that “we’ll make certain that Northeast Campus supervisors share the information with their student employees.”
But that is the problem. This administrative game of telephone is already how news is relayed to student employees. And shocker, it isn’t efficient.
While we reap the benefits of fair wages and the free food from Career Services, we aren’t being communicated properly to about integral information on our campus – on the student or employee level.
Most students can attest that the Transfer Center goes above and beyond to reaching out to students. Even if you have never stepped foot into a Transfer Center, your inbox is probably full of alerts of university visits or college tours. Yet the only time students are notified about newsworthy events by TCC itself is when there is a closure or a lockdown.
The communication between TCC and the student body operates at the bare minimum. While we can be grateful that we all receive a call when inevitably another building malfunctions at NW, this should not be the only type of information we receive.
At community college, student involvement is stressed heavily. Being at a commuter school makes it more difficult for students to get involved. At TCC, administration has made several efforts to encourage students to join clubs or work for the school, and faculty and staff are encouraged to engage with students and attend campus events.
Despite all their efforts, their mantra crumbles from their hypocrisy. Administration asks students to get involved, but they don’t involve us.
Though we have six campuses, TCC always stresses the “one college” mindset. But to function as “one college,” it requires communication. Not informing the student body when their president leaves does not foster an environment for a united college. For a mission statement that encourages faculty and staff to form positive relationships with students, TCC has not fostered an environment in which students can do so.
Students pay hundreds or thousands of dollars every semester to attend TCC. We don’t need an alert anytime something happens. But with an event as big as a president leaving, we need to hear it directly from administration.
