The last man standing:
College staff workers: Where are they now?
They cook the food, fix what’s broken, keep things humming. How are the college support staff faring? And what about the campus cop still on the beat?
When Mitchell College in New London closed last month in the face of a booming COVID- 19 pandemic, Lisa Cushing was serving dinner to students. By the weekend, the campus was empty, and Cushing, a night supervisor, is now temporarily furloughed.
“They call it ‘ lack of work,’” she said. “It sucks. It’s terrible. It’s nonproductive. I understand why, but I’m not being productive at all.”
Stuck at home, Cushing has applied for other jobs within Chartwells Higher Ed, the food service Mitchell outsources its dining to. Chartwells officials said in a statement that they’re providing all the support they can, including helping employees retain health care and unemployment benefits.
Cushing doesn’t receive health care benefits through Chartwells and hasn’t yet gotten anything from unemployment, she said. With no other income in the house, she’s “careful” with food and money, even switching car insurance companies when her previous one demanded she pay her premium despite her situation, she said.
She hopes to return to work next month or, at the very least, for the fall semester.
“I was everybody’s mom,” Cushing said. “This was going to be the year that all the kids that started when I started were going to graduate.”
“I don’t think anyone is any different. Everybody’s suffering in some way, one way or the other. Everybody has to do their part. Stay at home and see what happens,” she said.
For others, staying at home isn’t an option. While Southern Connecticut State University’s students, faculty and staff are working online, Robert Sheeley and his custodial team are still on campus in New Haven. For Sheeley, SCSU’s associate vice president for capital budgeting and facilities operations, the world never came to a standstill, nor
did it stop for other essential workers across the state’s colleges.
“We have to work,” Sheeley said. “That’s just what we have to do. We’re putting our people in harm’s way, as the saying goes, but we’re giving them every possible protective gear that we can.”
“My staff has the same fears as everybody else,” he said. “They’re worried about getting it, they’re worried about transmitting it to their families, but they still are there, and they’re still doing their jobs.”
The masks Sheeley ordered for his staff months ago were diverted to hospitals – rightfully so, he noted. Supplies were running low just last week, but Environmental Health and Safety Coordinator Lisa Kortfelt made and brought in 65 masks.
SCSU facilities staff are now armed with masks, gloves and disinfectant wipes. Sheeley has also created a schedule with rotating shifts to lessen the risk of exposure.
“I think people have developed a greater understanding and appreciation of what our staff faces and what our staff does. We’re in the trenches, and we always are,” he said.
The same goes for other essential support staff at institutions like the University of Connecticut in Storrs, Quinnipiac University in Hamden and Central
Connecticut State University in New Britain, where no faculty and staff have been laid off or furloughed, according to university spokespeople.
The University of Hartford in West Hartford, on the other hand, gave employees the option to voluntarily take temporary furloughs while maintaining their benefits.
Mitchell also has campus safety, maintenance and custodial staff still on site, while universities that employ third- party contractors, like Sacred Heart in Fairfield, have seen these workers put on furlough.
Dining workers at all of these campuses have been furloughed, according to statements from food services Chartwells and Sodexo, as well as university spokespeople.
“Overall now, it’s quiet out and about,” CCSU Building Supervisor Richard Karas said. “Now it’s just a professor needs a book because they didn’t know they were going to be gone this long. So I’ll run in their office [ and get it].”
Karas is one of approximately 20 employees working day- to- day at CCSU, spokeswoman Janice Palmer said. The campus has converted its dorms to aid in the pandemic.
“You don’t feel insecure at all coming here because there’s so few people on campus,” Karas explained, saying he only goes into dorms if a student calls asking for an important item they left behind, like an inhaler or a passport.
Still, Karas is strongly pushing social distancing among his staff, keeping himself “electronically attached” to them.
“I don’t wanna be the one to pass it ( COVID- 19) to everybody, if God forbid I get it,” he said.
Sheeley is advocating social distancing as well for as long as working in a pandemic continues as the new normal.
“We’re going on as if this is going to go on a while,” Sheeley said.
When asked if there is a timeline for when all of their support staff would return to campus, all the aforementioned universities and colleges said there is no definitive timeline, but that they hope one will come soon. Most are looking to Gov. Ned Lamont’s executive orders and instructions as guidance.
“I have heard probably seven different timelines,” Sheeley said, laughing.
He added that he doesn’t want the campus to reopen too soon and cause a resurgence in cases.
“I have no idea what’s going to happen in the fall, and I don't think anybody does right now,” he said. “We're going to proceed cautiously so that we can, to the best of our ability, guarantee safety for everyone.”
Cushing said she is really hoping she will be able to go back to work soon.
“I'm hoping that this stuff kind of blows over,” she said.