Work Program Hours: Is 8 Not Enough?
Carlyle Grundon | April 21, 2022
Quinn Bonney
Students participating in work day put on by the Work Program Office.
In the past couple of years, there have been changes within the Work Program. In 2015, every student worked a minimum of 15 hours a week. In the years following, it shifted to 10 hours a week, and in the fall of 2020, it shifted again to eight hours a week.
When Molly Howard was a student at Warren Wilson College (WWC) she enjoyed the opportunities and community the Work Program brought to her. She graduated in 2017 and during her time here she was on three different crews.
She started on Heavy Duty her first-year year, then switched to an English Research Assistant. She spent her last two years working 20 hours a week in the Writing Studio as well as working in dining on payroll. Howard also spent her breaks working on Heavy Duty.
Howard worked in the Writing Studio as an assistant director after graduation and is now an admissions counselor.
She believes there is so much to learn even on crews like Heavy Duty. The work crews gave a sense of accomplishment to students.
“Everyone taking part and taking pride in working together toward a common goal is something that’s hard — if not impossible — to find elsewhere,” Howard said.
Warren Wilson started as a work college in the 1800s. It was the Asheville Farm School, where men would exchange work on the farm for tuition.
Over the years the Work Program has changed. At the Work Program's height, there were a wide variety of crews including Hair Cutting, Plumbing and Electrical Crews, which are now defunct.
Current students work almost half the amount of hours that students worked in 2015. Though there are still positions available for students at 16 hours a week, those are reserved for leadership roles and Farm Crew.
Shannon McNair, associate director of work, shed some light on why the decision was made to reduce the hours from 15 to 10.
“(This was) a decision that was made to allow a little more flexibility in students' schedules,” McNair said.
Howard commented that the culture has moved away from the Work Program as the school tried to fill several different niches at once.
“For some students, it's this other thing they have to do because we sold them some other version of WWC,” Howard said.
In the change from 10 to eight hours, Paul Bobbit, associate dean of work, had once again seen in a lot of evaluations, a call for more flexibility and time in students' schedules. This also became an opportunity for the Work Program to increase pay and reduce hours.
“A different generation of students came in and once again, looking at evaluations, there was a big call for adjustment of hours to allow more flexibility,” McNair said. “At the same time, Paul had been lobbying for the increase of pay for a long time.”
Sophia Rowe, a current WWC student, said that she values the work done on the Tech Lab Crew.
“Eight-hour contacts are manageable, so was 10 hours for me,” Rowe said. “At Warren Wilson, we're not really working for a wage, we don't get a paycheck. We're working so we'll have fewer college costs and for work experience.”
Rowe said she believes there is more to the work than the pay.
“Usually I'd criticize a job that pays in experience, but here we have opportunities to gain skills on fields that may otherwise have a high barrier of entry, ” Rowe said.
Blair Thompson, the farm supervisor, agrees with the pay increase that happened this year but ultimately this is the students, staff and faculty members’ community. Thompson believes that everybody across campus needs to understand that the work is a value aside from the money.
“Nobody is making what you would get out there in the open market,” Thompson said. “We sort of have to decide is the community real enough, vibrant enough and does it matters enough to say ‘I am behind it even if I am not getting every dollar out of it that I could?”
Thompson cares deeply about the mission that the Work Program brings to the college, not only on the farm but across campus. WWC is incredibly unique because of the Work Program — it is one of seven other colleges in the United States that offers this experiential learning program.
Thompson was drawn to WWC because of the unique learning offered here through the Work Program. He believes it is like no other place because the Work Program gives community a meaning to students. Thompson made that through the Work Program students made friends and relationships, and find a greater purpose in what they do than just the work itself.
“We want there to be a vibrant work culture at the college,” Thompson said.
Thompson believes eight hours only scratches the surface of the learning opportunities available to students on the Farm Crew.
“Farm is extensive, there are so many things to understand and if you really want to get a sense of what is going on and be invested in the community,” Thompson said. “You just can't get it done in eight hours.”
Howard agrees with this sentiment.
“When I worked for the Writing Center as the assistant director, it was impossible to schedule anything,” Howard said. “We cannot fill a whole schedule.’’
Howard could not staff the Writing Studio crew the way it needed to be with students working 10 hours a week. Even with crew sizes expanding, many students on campus only work hour and a half shifts at a time. By the time students settle into work, Howard feels like their shift is already over.
“We don’t have enough students to continue to run this school the way it needs to be run on eight hours a week,” Howard said.
Sophie Allen, 2020 alumni, was on Farm Crew for a period of time as well as a student-athlete. She remembers first coming to WWC when first years were the only ones working 10 hours a week, and feeling like it was a lot.
“I was pretty physically tired a lot of the time and it was hard to keep up with training for cycling,” Allen said.
Bobbit has offered a solution to some of the problems that the supervisors are facing. He has allowed supervisors to offer a model to their students where they work 10 hours a week with three weeks off during the semester. The hope is that this would allow students to dig into their work more during the weeks they work, and allow supervisors to make more one-on-one connections. Though for some crews this may not solve their staffing problems.
Brian O’Loughlin, the dining supervisor, believes that this change has had a huge impact on staffing availability as dining is not many students’ first choice for crews.
“With the reduction of hours we now have to manage almost twice as many student workers to do the same job as before,” O’Loughlin said.
This has a direct impact on the hours the dining hall can be open. Previously the dining hall was open until 9 p.m., though O’Loughlin cannot staff enough students to keep the dining hall open as late.
Thompson believes that it is the supervisors’ job to help students understand the value of the skills, friendships and the understanding of how to develop and maintain a community that comes with participating in the Work Program.
Bobbit figures there is a very strong correlation between students who are not succeeding in the Work Program and supervisors who the Work Program Office has to chase down to submit time cards.
Howard believes the reduced work hours hurts students' learning.
“I do think it is a disservice to the students because at this point with national trends, having a bachelor's degree does not give you the same leg up as having work experience or transferable skills,” Howard said.
