Disclosure: I'm a mildly disgruntled employee. Not because I was fired (I left SMU of my own choosing), but because of what I saw as mismanagement and incompetence from leadership that cost many people their jobs.
I left this school after more than a decade with the feeling that there was a lack of respect for staff among faculty and leadership. There is always going to be a divide between the academics and staff at any university. But at SMU that divide is the grand canyon.
The situation has only gotten worse since the budget crunch and hiring of Bain Consulting to make streamlining recommendations. Everyone on staff knows that the budget crunch comes from an overcommitment to building new facilities (including the Bush Library) coupled with the unexpected financial downturn several years ago. Now the staff and services are paying the bill and it's hard not to resent it.
Ironically, when leadership is made up entirely of the academics, the brunt of the budget cuts come at the expense of the staff and services. Funny how that works. In the end, the students are the ones to suffer.
It also impacted the benefits. Insurance contributions have tripled since the budget cutting began. Raises are few and far between. They give a 1-2% COLA if you are lucky but then call it a "merit raise." So, there aren't actually ANY merit raises. Good luck trying to cross bid into a different job because every school runs itself like an independent subsidiary. HR has almost no process for employees to cross bid into jobs in other parts of the university. So the job you hire into will most likely be the only job you ever have at SMU.
The staff work very hard to make everything run smoothly but are treated as second class citizens by the academic staff and leadership and very little voice in strategy and business decision. Since Bain Consulting came around, layoffs are plentiful and often. Many, many good professionals who have contributed a ton to the success of the school have been riffed for either budgetary or political reasons. They are followed out the door by people like myself that are disgusted by what has been happening and don't trust that they will be next on the list. So there has been a serious talent drain from the staff as of late. Unfortunately, the people go away but the work does not. Everyone is expected to do more with less.
Additionally, there was always a lack of budget and resources to do your job at the level one would expect from such a prestigious school. I had many times when I was lucky to get paper clips and printer toner when I needed it. Pay is much lower than market. Health insurance is now extremely expensive and covers less than before. My advice? Like the job you take, because there will be very little chance for advancement and promotion.
