Job cuts handled badly

Recently, three positions from the Wilder Student Union staff and two positions from Residential Life have been eliminated. These five people are at the tail end of the budget-related job cuts. If roller coasters make you queasy, the tail end is the worst place to be. Certainly, more than a few people have turned green with this final drop in the budget trimming roller coaster.

Residential Life was surprised by job losses it had thought were long over. The Student Union staff was just disappointed that administration did not seek student input. The way the recent job cuts have been handled is upsetting. The people who were going to be most affected did not have much of a say in the process. And no one had any say about who would be cut.

This whole thing has been a harrowing experience for those whose jobs were on the line. People are not going to let this go easily because they had expectations that were not met by administration.

Wilder and Res. Life have been left unstable by the cuts, both figuratively and concretely. Student Residential Coordinators will have more responsibility and a smaller support base to fall back on. Wilder's student services may suffer for lack of people. Emotions about the cuts and administration's handling of it are running high.

Because of the loss of five people, two departments are in chaos. Either those five took us just below the minimum number of people needed to run a college, or they were the final straw in a tense semester. It's the people telling the administration, "Okay, that's it. You've gone too far. You want to keep cutting? Well, then, just watch everything keep falling apart."

These last five should not have been cut so unceremoniously and bluntly and without much regard to all the people who would be affected. Firing people is a hard thing to do, but in its hurry to be done with the unpleasant task, administration has created a new problem and we all have to deal with it.