Where Are the Career Paths for Staff on Campus?
Where Are the Career Paths for Staff on Campus?
Where Are the Career Paths for Staff on Campus?
By Lee Skallerup Bessette
December 04 2020
Summary
Whenever I talk to doctoral students or contingent instructors about leaving the faculty career path and shifting into a staff position, I speak glowingly of the work. It’s intellectually challenging, collaborative, and generally conducive to a healthy work-life balance.
At least for faculty members hired on the tenure track, the career path is clear: Once tenured you move from assistant to associate professor, and later, if all goes well, to full professor. Administration, too, has an obvious trajectory: You become a chair or an associate dean and then move up the hierarchy into other administrative roles.
For the vast army of us working in “service” departments — student life, IT, HR, faculty development, buildings and grounds, and such — there often is no well-defined career trajectory. Each unit has a director and, depending on its size, maybe an associate director or two. Everyone else within the unit is basically at the same level, regardless of their experience and expertise.
So for most staff members, the only way to move up, and boost your salary, is to leave for another institution or quit academe altogether.
So what can institutions do?
Salary transparency. Job ads for staff positions usually include some opaque pay scale. Instead, post the specific salary range of a position — in dollar amounts — on the job ad. Let everyone see what people are being paid to start. This will probably cause bitterness and dissatisfaction with current staff members, but it is much-needed information for job negotiations. Also, make those salary scales easy to find, easy to understand, and easy to navigate. Clearly define and delineate the differences in each pay “step” as well.
Reference
Bessette, L. S. (2020, December 04). Advice: Where Are the Career Paths for Staff on Campus? Retrieved December 05, 2020, from https://www.chronicle.com/article/where-are-the-career-paths-for-staff-on-campus