The staff editorial is the majority opinion of the editorial board of The Murray State News.
Chances are if you work on campus, you got an email in your inbox over the summer that informed you the on-campus job policy had changed.
The initial policy announced was if a student had more than one job on campus, you would have to choose which one you wanted.
If you have had a job on campus before, you probably have not only had one. Even if you are living in the dorms, one job on campus probably is not enough for both spending money and helping out on student loans or tuition. The policy announced by University officials forced a lot of students into choosing between one or more campus jobs and trying to make up the slack from the loss of income.
Many students were forced to make a decision that meant leaving a job they may have loved for another one they did not like as much.
We felt the effects of this policy firsthand. Many of our employees found themselves having to choose between employment here and a job elsewhere on campus. As a result, we lost many good
employees.
We are grateful that it was announced last week that a change in the policy would be made to allow student workers to hold more than one job so long as the student in question does not work more than 20 hours a week.
This policy change is a welcome about-face on the part of University officials. We applaud the new policy as it will not only allow us to continue to deliver quality coverage of events on and around campus, but also because it will allow students more flexibility and options when looking for work on campus.
We support this policy change with a critical edge. Why was it that this policy, which was explained to students as beyond their control (a mandate from the Kentucky Employees Retirement System, or KERS) before it was rescinded less than a week into the new semester? If University officials had the power to contest this change all along, why did they not use it when the mandate was given to them?
The policy implementation and turn-around has caused a great deal of confusion among students. There are many now caught between a rock and a hard place because their former employers want to hire them yet again.
We are thankful that the policy has been changed, and that University officials have committed themselves to working with students to make the new policy work.
Now that this initial bout of confusion has been cleared up, its time for all of us to roll up our sleeves and get to work.