News > April 24, 2008

By Molly Nevola | Staff writer

Just about one month ago, the external relations staff of the Babcock School of Management was hard at work on the MBA alumni magazine. Today, eight of these staff members no longer work for the school.

In fact, these positions were eliminated on April 18.

According to The Business Journal of the Greater Triad Area, the school eliminated eight jobs in the marketing department, which handled all advertising and compiling of GPA and test scores for national rankings, and plans to outsource the work.

Ajay Patel, dean of the Babcock school, said that the university has decided to take things in a new and different direction as it examines every unit at the university under its strategic plan. “There are a lot of changes going on,” Patel said.

In an interview on WFDD radio, Babcock webmaster Jack Clayton said that the actions taken were uncharacteristic of the university.

He stated that the staff members were involved in work that had since increased the number of visitors to the Web site and created more press releases and news items. Thus, their work was beneficial to the university community as a whole, and it did not make sense to get rid of them, according to Clayton.

Clayton said that many of his coworkers are shocked by the matter. “People that are still here know about it and know that it was handled very poorly,” he said.

Anne Ward, a junior undergraduate whose entrepreneurship minor facilitated her own involvement with the MBA school, expressed her worry for the staff members due to this sudden action.

“My main concern is for the families,” she said, “I am worried that with such a poor economy, there may not be job openings, and then how will these people support their families?”

As an undergraduate board member, Ward serves as a liaison between the MBA school and the Department of Entrepreneurship and Social Enterprise on the undergraduate campus.

Ward said that the process of firing an entire staff of people seemingly on whim does not make sense.

“While I understand that firing is a necessary evil if a job is not being done correctly, it seems a bit abrupt to fire a whole department especially when one of the temporary hires was discussing getting a full-time position a month ago,” Ward said.

That temporary hire was former staff member Lisa Snedeker who referenced a few stories that ran in the local media last week and said that the facts were not understated.

“I can tell you that they are accurate … Our last day was Friday,” Snedeker said. As for how and where the school will outsource the marketing work, the school has hired an independent consultant to make the decisions.

Patel said that of the department’s six full-time employees and the two part-time employees that have been eliminated, the full-time staff members will be offered severance packages.

These packages have been developed by the university’s human resources policy.

“Any organization going through changes has to make decisions on how best to invest its resources,” Patel said.

“In some cases you grow internally, and in some cases you outsource.”

Yet, the growing sentiment seems to be one of disbelief, as reflected by Ward’s opinion

“It all just seems so strange to me. Why on earth would you fire an entire staff of people?” Ward said. “Why wouldn’t you fire the director or the head of the department and see what changes come about?

“Drastic is the only word I can think of to describe the university’s actions.”