p. 6 THE HAWK THE HAWK September 24, 2014 Oct. 28, 2015
breaking norms, not breaking up The Student Newspaper of Saint Joseph’s University | Volume XCIV | Est. 1929 | www.hawkhillnews.com
A safer web
Faculty work on university technological security ANA FAGUY ’19 Assistant News Editor
Freshman crew 8 warm up for the Head of the Schuykill race, Saturday, Oct. 24. Photo by Joey Toczylowski ’19
Layoffs hit Saint Joseph’s University experiences first sweep of employee reductions KATRYNA PERERA ’16 News Editor Last week, 14 employees of Saint Joseph’s University were let go. During the Fall Convocation on Thursday, Oct. 22, university president, Mark C. Reed, Ed.D. confirmed that the university had eliminated 43 staff and administrative positions, but that only 14 of those positions had been occupied at the time. According to Reed, individuals whose employment had been terminated were informed through meetings held on Monday and Tuesday of last week. Each meeting consisted of the affected individual, their direct supervisor and a member of the Office of Human Resources. All affected individuals were offered severance packages equal to two weeks of salary for every year of service the individual contributed, Reed said. Additionally, if an affected individual has a child attending the university and they are receiving a tuition benefit, those benefits will be extended until the child graduates, Reed said. All affected individuals are also receiving transition assistance from the university. Financial and operational reasons expressed that some form of action needed to be taken, Reed said. He stated that although the state of the university was not dire, it was necessary to take some action now rather than later. Reed continued to explain that the positions that were eliminated were determined through analysis and meetings with members of Human Resources and the deans and vice presidents of each administrative department. “I asked each of the members of the senior administration…to identify opportunities in their areas where they thought we could make reductions,” Reed said. Although the campus was abuzz with news of the layoffs early in the week, there was no official communication
from the university or members of the administration until the Convocation. Claire Simmers, Ph.D., chair and professor of management, said that the manner in which the layoffs were executed is what she feels is bothering some members of the university community. “I support Dr. Reed in that we definitely have to do something, and we need to be more operationally efficient, and we need to match our resources with our revenues,” Simmers said, “so I’m 100 percent in favor of that. I think the biggest issue is the how.” Robert Daniel, Ph.D., assistant professor of modern and classical languages, echoed Simmers. “Saint Joseph’s is a human community, and one of the problems with the way that this happened is that members of the community who had been here for a long time, and in some cases, who had been very productive members of the community…for them to be summarily sent away without a whole lot of explanation…is that the best corporate practice for us adopt? I’m not so sure,” he said. But Reed said he felt the way the situation was handled was the right way, and when asked why he waited until Thursday to address the issue he said, “There’s nothing that I would have put in a communication on Wednesday that I didn’t talk about in person on Thursday [at the convocation]…we’re going to treat folks with as much compassion and dignity as we can…and that means we’re going to be quiet about certain things as well.” Future layoffs are a possibility, Reed said, but that if such an action must be taken, where jobs are affected, the university will be notified of the coming cuts in advance to any permanent decisions being made.
Everyone knows to lock the front door before they leave the house, but when it comes to technology security, unsafe practices are all too common. On Oct. 22 representatives of the Security and Compliance Committee of Saint Joseph’s University, and members of the Faculty Senate, met with the Office of Information Technology to discuss updates to Saint Joseph’s technology security. Faculty members raised concerns over IT security and asked to meet with the chief information officer in IT, Francis DiSanti. According to DiSanti, the faculty had three suggestions to improve security: increase the maximum password length, require less frequent password changes, and consider a two-factor authentication system. The current maximum password length is eight letters and the minimum is six, but the new minimum would be closer to 12 and could expand to 20 or 30. “Every time you add a digit you increase [the strength] exponentially,” said David Parry, Ph.D, associate professor and chair of the department of communication studies. “It makes it so massive you can’t even display it, which is what you want. Eight [digits] is no longer considered very secure by cryptographers.” Another change the faculty felt was important was decreasing the regularity of the password changes. “A lengthier, more complex password would require less frequent password changes. Those changes would lend us to a more secure authentication system,” Disanti said. Many of the ideas brought up by faculty, were concerns that were evident to IT previously and issues that they had been planning to address, he added. “I think people are really cognizant of best practices in physical spaces; you leave the building you lock the door, you don’t leave your key around, don’t make copies of key and hand them out to people,” said Parry, “but digital space is new.” Parry also added that although St. Joe’s security features are better than most academic institutions, a combination of longer password requirements and a decrease in the frequency of mandatory password changes would help increase security. DiSanti is hopeful that faculty can look to the next academic year to see the implementation of the technology security solutions. “I felt that there was a level of confidence that we had that we could address the things brought forward, DiSanti said, “and I do think that faculty felt they were being listened to and that they felt confident that we could carry this out.”