Twitter
Facebook
Reddit
Digg
Tell us what you think!Send a letter to the editor about this or any other article in The Maine Campus.
The University of Maine’s work merit program has been suspended for the 2009-2010 school year. The decision was finalized and announced last spring after a monthlong process, which included a review by Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost Susan Hunter.
Work merit is a 20-year-old program coordinated by the offices of Financial Aid and Student Employment.
“It was created to recognize academic excellence with jobs that enhanced a student’s academic career,” said Peggy Crawford, director of financial aid.
Work merit was paid for by the Office of Financial Aid using $95,000 it received from the education and general fund budget each year. Juniors and seniors with a GPA of 3.5 or higher could apply for the 100 $1,000 awards. Students who applied for the program were responsible for finding their own academically challenging project, usually with a professor in their department of study. Once a project was approved, it was up to the student and his or her advisor or employer to agree on a schedule and wages while staying within the $1,000 range.
The decision to find an academically challenging project by the student presents one of the several challenges of work merit, and is one of the reasons it is not available this year. Crawford cites a lack of criteria for assessing work merit applications as another reason.
“We need a committee, or someone outside of the department with a more academic orientation, to decide what qualifies as an academically challenging project,” Crawford said. With many students facing financial hardship in the current economy, there is also a question of whether need should come before merit. “For us in this office, it’s a balancing act,” she said.
The program is still a priority for both financial aid and student employment.
“We fully believe in recognizing students who are excelling. There is not enough of that on campus, and this was a small way we could do that,” Crawford said. The two departments hope to come together in late fall or early winter to begin restructuring the work merit program.
“Our hope would be that we would have a work merit program again next year,” said Connie Smith, associate director of Student Employment.
According to Smith, there have been few student complaints about the elimination of work merit.
“My guess is that most students have been able to keep their jobs and the departments they work for have found other resources for them,” Smith said.
UMaine’s Writing Center is one university program that has kept its student workers. The center paid about 25 percent of its employees through work merit last year. The center has rehired all returning employees out of the Writing Center’s budget, but at reduced hours.
“We are only able to do about three-quarters of what we were able to do before,” said Writing Center Coordinator Harvey Kail.
Kail would like to see the work merit program return. “The kind of work students do in the Writing Center is very much in the spirit of the work-merit program,” he said. “It is great preparation for a career or for graduate studies.”
Brendon Beote, a fourth-year chemical engineering student, agrees. He received work merit in the past and was counting on it this year to continue a summer undergraduate research project. When he looked into the program during August, he found that it was no longer available. Beote’s advisor was able to keep him on the project by paying him out of his research grant.
“It was fortunate that we were able to work something out,” Beote said.
Beote believes the program needs improvement. He received work merit to tutor during his second year.
“At the time, being a tutor didn’t really help me at all. I was a physics major tutoring chemistry, but I was strongly encouraged to apply for work merit,” he said. He doesn’t feel tutoring helped him grow academically. “I think the program should definitely come back, but the projects should be evaluated better than in the past. … I don’t think it would be too hard to add certain criteria.”
Beote would like to see the program help students who want to further their academics or their career.
“By continuing this project, I hope to get published in literature,” he said. “If everything goes as planned, I’ll go to graduate school and be doing what I’m doing now.” For some meritorious students, it can be difficult to find other resources to complete their projects without the work merit program. “Work study doesn’t apply to me because I get enough scholarships, but at the same time it’s hard to get hired for a job on campus without work merit or work study.”
The suspension of work merit has created financial gaps for employers and students alike, but there is a strong chance the program will return next year.
“It’s not that we want to do away with it, but we need to find a way to do it that hits the target,” Crawford said. “We’d start over and build it from the ground up.”
