This semester, on campus student workers have been forced to find second jobs, additional roommates, or whatever means necessary to adjust to fewer work hours per week or even a lack of job because of budget changes across several programs. It is unclear how many student workers are affected by these changes.
So far, budget cuts have been confirmed through emails sent from administrators to students in the English Language Studies and Photography programs, but students are also claiming that other Art, Media & Technology programs and the administrative offices at the School of Fashion are also cutting back on hiring students because of slashed budgets.
In Nick Kellman’s case, a senior Photography student who works as a technician at The New School’s Laser Lab, there were fewer hours available to be worked and therefore less pay this semester. Previously, Nick worked a total of 18 hours each week, but this semester, he currently only has six work hours each week. Although his wages remained the same, his hours have been cut. Nick was forced to find a roommate to share living expenses with and has been looking to take on side freelance work in order to compensate for the decrease in income.
Cassie Basford, a senior Photography student, works at the dark room equipment cage on the fifth floor in the 66 Fifth Ave. building. Cassie previously worked the maximum 20 hours per week, but this semester, she found herself with only 13 hours per week. She said that the changes in the Photography program affects her more as a student than as an employee as the cages and other resources around the Art, Media & Technology school are now in operation for fewer hours. This makes it difficult for students to access the equipment when they appropriately need it.
“Ultimately it’s affecting students… Even with me, I wanted to shoot with a specific camera over the weekend, but I didn’t want to wait until 2 in the afternoon to start shooting and doing my homework,” Cassie said. “Winter is coming too and it’s going to get darker sooner. So if you want to an outdoor shoot, you really have to plan ahead even more so now. By 2 p.m., you only have a couple hours left of daylight.”
Another student, Anushka Qizilbach, who previously worked at the administrative offices at the School of Fashion, was disappointed that she was unable to work this semester. “I felt there had been so much time and effort put into training me there and I had become accustomed to the “steady” income I was receiving from working there weekly,” she said. “I’m having a hard time finding work at school now and it’s just a very disappointing situation in general.”
When asked about the cut in student work positions and hours, New School representatives deflected and instead promoted the new on-campus Making Center, an expensive spacious studio space dedicated to centralizing many of Parsons’ creative programs open to students and faculty. Administrators wouldn’t say whether the student jobs were cut to fund the Making Center.
Joel Towers, the Executive Dean of Parsons, said that Parsons “has increased allocated funding to support on campus student employment.”
However, despite his claim, several students across the AMT programs have found themselves either without jobs or with less work hours each week.
When prompted about the confirmed budget cuts, Towers could not give a complete explanation and instead responded to state that money spending in regards to the Making Center is increasing.
“Because we’ve completed the Making Center this year… the total amount of money being spent in support of these Making Facilities, as it relates to student works as well as other things, is increasing. How that is experienced by individual students working with somebody in a particular area and what they’re communicating, you’re at a level of fine grain experience that unless I would actually copied in on that and tried to help resolve it one on one. It’s very hard to me to give you a satisfactory answer.”
From what Towers said, it sounds as if those allocated funds were taken away from use with student jobs, and used toward the building and operation of the new Parsons Making Center.
Towers reassured students that Parsons is prioritizing student employment in Making Center spaces. Despite Parsons’ vision for a new creative space to be filled with “unprecedented opportunities,” it is difficult to say the same for student employment across the university.
Photos by Julia Himmel
Seung Won is the Video Editor for the New School Free Press and currently a senior at Lang majoring in Journalism+Design and minoring in Visual Studies. Born and raised in North Jersey, Seung Won has embraced and mastered the commute into the city, seamlessly weaving through crowds and covering miles of distance without breaking a sweat. When not in transit, Seung Won likes playing music on his guitar, sipping through several cups of coffee, and chillin’ with his cat on the weekends.
