Speaking and Writer Center consultants operate under COVID-era pay policy

FROM CENTER PAGE 1 account, so everyone is on the Drive and making notes. Sometimes it’s hard to know whose notes are whose and what’s exactly been done, and that’s something we’re still fleshing out.”

Others have pointed out that they wished that the Google Doc’s task list was more specific. It is currently in an informal format. Some of the tasks on the list, such as vacuuming around the center, are difficult to accomplish when appointments are going on.

The Google Doc lists work such as creating handouts, making graphics for advertisements, working on social media and maintaining the center. While students say that this process has improved since Schweitzer created a list of handouts that need to be made, they wish there had been more options at the start of the semester.

Not everyone agreed that the Google Doc system is unwieldy, however.

“I quite frankly think that is a load of B.S.,” said Layla Barnes, weeklyringer.photos@gmail.com

Faculty Advisor

Sushma Subramanian ssubrama@umw.edu

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Bell tower logo designed by Bernadette D’Auria ‘22 another lead consultant and junior English: creative writing major in the secondary education program. “There are a million things to do, and there are a million people to ask.”

While it’s unclear how old the work policy at the center is, most students agree it was more strictly enforced when the COVID-19 pandemic began. Back then, student consultants were not working in the center, so they were expected only to work when they had appointments.

“From what I’ve heard, it started with COVID when people were literally working from their houses,” Barnes said. “It was something that, for a long time, we’ve kept around to offer people extra flexibility. Our boss always framed it as if you have a really deadline-heavy week, you need to do some of your own stuff, you have the flexibility if there is nothing you are doing for the center to clock out and work on some of your homework to get whatever you need done, done.”

A few student consultants have expressed concerns about the legality of being asked to remain on-site for possible walkin appointments while they are clocked out and unpaid.

Concerns about this section of the Fair Labor Standards Act are often considered on a caseby-case basis, so the legality is hard to determine. However, according to J.H. Verkerke, professor of law and director of the program for employment and labor law studies at the University of Virginia School of Law, “an arrangement that requires workers to stay in an office area while on call almost certainly involves compensable time.”

Some students have left their positions at the center, student consultants acknowledged, but none said it was specifically because of this policy but rather an accumulation of factors. A few of the students in the center have started protesting by remaining clocked in even when, according to the policy, they should clock out.

In the meantime, Schweitzer is trying to get a pay raise for the consultants.

“Because the way the hike went and the way budgets were, unfortunately, when it went $12 an hour, it was a pay increase for most of them, but it’s leaving them at minimum wage along with everyone else,” she said. “So, I’m trying to figure out how to work the budget for next year so that it starts a little higher than the minimum wage in recognition that it’s this more skilled, trained position, and they are asked to do more than some other positions on campus.”