Faculty Aren't The Only Ones With Careers at Universities

Universities and colleges may have had to streamline their employment rolls in recent years, but they still employ more than two-and-a-half million people -- and by far most of them are not faculty members.

After all, just about every job that exists outside of academia is replicated on a campus, from chief cooks and bottlewashers to attorneys, accountants, computer operators, personnel managers, and police officers.

And because the demand for some of those professions is growing outside the academy, salaries on campus are going up, according to Kirk Beyer, chair of the Administrative Compensation Survey Committee for the College and University Personnel Association (CUPA).

"The speculation is that administrative positions cross outside education and there is more of a market for those positions.... Over the past four cars, they have averaged salary increases of 4.2 percent as opposed to 3.2 percent for [people employed in] student services," Beyer said.

Computer Technology

One of the highest areas of demand currently at colleges and universities is in computers, according to Linda Jack, manager of staff employment at Stanford University. She said that in the last two years there has been an explosion of computer-related positions being created in higher education -- and she predicts that the trend will continue.

"Because moving information is part of what they do, universities are automating their work environments. Information and computer technicians are in high demand.... It's an excellent market and there are more jobs out there than people to fill them," Jack said.

In Columbia, South Carolina, Julian Gayden has worked in the computer industry for twenty-five years and owns a computer consulting company. Gayden, who has a bachelor's degree in computer science, has spent the last six years as the Director of Information Services at Benedict College. Last year, the college spent a million and a half dollars computerizing its entire campus, including wiring the dormitories to give students access to the Internet.