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Every student, faculty member and staff member in the New Media Department at the University of Maine relies on one person: administrative assistant Velma Figgins.
She keeps track of enrollment, budgeting, advising and deadlines within the department. When one of the 185 enrolled students — graduate or undergraduate — has a question or complaint, they go to her, and she makes sure the right person gets the message.
On any given day, she may work with undergraduate or graduate students, with those in the intermedia master’s graduate program or someone involved with ASAP Media Services, the university’s student-operated research and development group. On another day, she may work with all of those students.
“I am the staff,” Figgins said, laughing. “I don’t have anybody else but me.”
Bill Kuykendall, a faculty member in the New Media Department who teaches photographic reporting and documentary photography, understands the vital role Figgins plays in keeping the department afloat.
“I have made recruitment of first-rate administrative assistants one of my highest priorities,” Kuykendall wrote in an email. “The great ones make you look good and keep you out of trouble; the poor ones leave you always vulnerable and chasing around tying up loose ends.”
He went on to describe administrative assistants (AAs) as “the backbone to the university.”
“Most of the AAs with whom I have served have been extremely dedicated and committed to providing the best learning environment for UMaine students often going far beyond what is required by their job descriptions,” he wrote.
He described Figgins, who has worked as an AA for nine out of her 12 years at the university, as “an extraordinarily capable and dedicated servant who works hard to understand the complexities of the system.”
Figgins helps Kuykendall and other faculty “avoid the inevitable pitfalls that result from the perennial crises that complicate the workings of our tightly interwoven lives,” he added.
For all this, Figgins was paid approximately $25,000 before benefits in 2010, far below Kuykendall’s $75,000, according to maineopengov.org.
No summer vacation
“I work all summer long,” said Patricia Stoddard, AA for the Department of Animal and Veterinary Sciences. “People think that we have the summer off. I don’t, definitely not.”
Stoddard needs the entire summer to register incoming first-year students for classes and go over transfer credit evaluations.
Robert Causey, an associate professor in the department who teaches courses in the equine track, said Stoddard is, as all AAs are, essential.
“Without the administrative assistant, the faculty members get bogged down in the minutia of day-to-day running programs,” he said. “[Faculty members] have been trained to do research, research grants and develop courses, not do the administrative work.”
“I also do a lot of financial budgeting for the department,” Stoddard said, “and ordering and supplying for all of the faculty members. … For students I have to reassign some advisees to advisors. Any issues that come up in the department, I’m the first person people see.”
Despite the amount of effort Stoddard’s role requires and the necessity of each small, detail-oriented action, like Kuykendall, Causey expects administrative assistants across campus feel undervalued.
“They are doing this trivial, boring, detail-oriented work, which they probably are underpaid [for],” he said. “Nobody gives them a lot of praise for doing their job because they just expect it to get done… just like anybody else that has an essential role that we rely on but probably don’t give enough credit to.”
Stoddard was paid just over $25,000 a year before benefits in 2010, compared to Causey’s $67,000.
Putting students first
Cindy D’Angelo’s first concern is her students.
The AA for the Department of Public Administration, she stands in a strange spot in relation to other AAs.
“It’s a unique situation with the department being under suspension,” D’Angelo said. “I’m really trying to make it a point to make the students first to make sure they get the classes they need to graduate.”
The department was put under suspension as part of the Academic Program Prioritization Working Group’s proposal last spring which set to eliminate or suspend several programs. They have not accepted any new students into the program for over a year, since the department was suspended.
“Our goal is to teach out,” D’Angelo said.
“Cindy is excellent, and we wish we could have her full-time,” said Thomas Taylor, chair the department.
Taylor said D’Angelo is a “hybrid,” working for the Maine Business School along with public administration.
Despite her multitasking, like Stoddard, D’Angelo received just over $27,000, not including benefits, in 2010. Taylor’s salary before benefits in 2010 was over $91,000, over three times what D’Angelo is paid.
“She is very good,” Taylor said, “I think for a number of different reasons, which is why business wanted to jump on her.”
D’Angelo discounted fears expressed in other departments that she may feel undervalued in her position.
“They know I have institutional knowledge as to how something is processed,” she said.
“They’ll come to me with any type of question because they know I’m the person who knows the answer.”
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