Kohlman: Maintenance Staff Will Keep GLCA Tuition Benefits Under Sodexo, Contract Hasn’t Been Completed Yet (UPDATED)
Chief Business Officer Mark Kohlman (via kenyon.edu)
Update: A commenter has said that the benefits Kohlman is referring to extend only to non-union employees such as managers and office staff. Last night, Kohlman told us that the issue hadn’t been discussed with the union yet. We regret any confusion our original post may have caused.
Original post: Mark Kohlman, the College’s chief business officer, has confirmed to us that, while working on the Kenyon campus for Sodexo, managerial and support staff within the maintenance department will continue to receive the tuition exchange benefit they received as Kenyon employees. Following the College’s announcement that they would be entering into an agreement with Sodexo, an email was circulated that called into question whether this benefit would continue to exist for maintenance employees working for Sodexo.
A release put out earlier today by the College said that three members of the maintenance department have chosen to retire, while eight will stay on with Sodexo.
The College chose Sodexo, which is based in Paris and operates in 80 countries, over two other companies whose services were reviewed, Kohlman said. Sodexo’s contract with the College as yet to be completed, though he said that they hope it will be finished by the end of the month.
Kohlman is the first member of senior staff from whom The Thrill has received any comment. President S. Georgia Nugent is currently on the Kenyon Alumni Association-affiliated trip to Cuba, as is Barry Schwartz, the Chair of the College’s Board of Trustees.
The College has said it will resume talks with the maintenance workers’ union on June 19. An open forum for employees is scheduled for June 22 at 11:00 a.m. in Peirce Pub.
will the three who “chose” to retire keep their earned benefits?
When he says “managerial and support staff within the maintenance department will continue to receive the tuition exchange benefit they received as Kenyon employees” this still does not include what the actual trades people who are a part of the Union will receive, so I do believe this can still be called into question.
I’m sorry, I’m a little confused. If you’re willing to explain further (particularly if you’re a staff member with more intimate knowledge of the situation than, say, a student) you can contact me through my non-Kenyon email “david.c.mccabe@me.com” or call my cell: 917-405-5284.
DAVID MCCABE’S CELL PHONE NUMBER OMG <3
To be clear: Tuition benefits (as well as salary and other benefits) are being promised to non-union members of the maintenance department. This includes supervisory and office positions. This does not include workers in the trades, grounds, custodial, etc.
Ah. Thanks for the clarification.
The managerial and support staff within the maintenance department (i.e. the Supervisors and Admin staff that are a part of the Maintenance dept) are non-union and from what I understand are going to be Sodexo employees vs Kenyon employees as of August first…these are the employees to which Mark refers. As to the Unionized employees, aka the bulk of the maintenance dept, Mark told the MTV newspaper that “The workers are in a union and we are in the middle of negotiations with them, that started on Tuesday so I cannot really comment on their status.” and to my knowledge this hasn’t changed. So when I read above post I still feel the need to question whether everyone who is being affected by this will really continue to receive this major benefit.
If the administration has been in totally good faith about this, why did the story come first from the aggrieved employees reaching out to the Kenyon community and not the administration being open and clear about a significant decision? Why does it only emerge as a surprise, a nearly done deal, at the moment the President and the head of the board of trustees are incommunicado? I am not suggesting this was deliberate, but I am observing that this is clumsy and inattentive at best. At worst, it’s condescending to everyone in the Kenyon community. Everyone. We are all affected. Somehow it seems the administration hadn’t considered the level of concern the staff and faculty would feel, not to mention the moral example being set for students who have all conveniently gone away or the summer. How arrogant and highhanded. Turns out, the business of Kenyon is business!
I don’t even understand how the college can include non-Kenyon employees in the GLCA tuition benefit, when the GLCA is an association of 13 or so colleges and Kenyon does not really have the freedom to govern the benefit to non-Kenyon employees. Can someone explain this? I hope it works out for the union employees. Thanks, “The Thrill” staff, for keeping us up to date.
This is an excellent question — isn’t this a decision to be made by GLCA not Mark Kohlman?
Sign the anti-Sodexo petition here:
http://www.change.org/petitions/kenyon-college-stop-kenyon-from-partnering-with-sodexo
I truly hope that every past or present Kenyon student takes one minute to sign this petition. I would like to believe that if our community shows how much we care, a change could be made. Please join me in not backing down until this is resolved, even if it means a legitimate protest. In my American Studies class this year we discussed whether or not the current student body would take action as students did during Vietnam, etc. Most people said that today, men and women our age are too indifferent to take any sort of radical stand, and there are too many different opinions for something big to happen. I believe that everyone in the Kenyon community would agree that this is appalling, so let us allow it to bring us together. Let’s be radicals for this cause!
The demise of the best college bookstore, odd ideas about middle path, an email to alert staff and faculty about unequal raises, an unsuspecting art and art history dept having the rug pulled out from under them about the Gund Gallery, weak value propositions, and now this. I’d say it’s time for Kenyon to look for a new president who is savvy and kind and understands Kenyon.
and lets go back a little further in years to the food service switcheroo done at the midnight hour, as an accomplished fact.
I had forgotten about that. And weren’t some faculty unceremoniously let go.
Could you please elaborate for those of us who are younger?
I agree with that
Kenyon’s Bookstore was basically a place to buy your textbooks when I started at Kenyon. The next year, Jack Finefrock took over and created a bookstore with long hours (before it was 9-5), built a treehouse in the store, had a children’s section, magazines, coffee, fun things to buy and a selection of book equivalent to the best independent bookstore. He ran it for 20 years. It garnered “The Best College Bookstore” moniker, from various sources and lists: better than Dartmouth or Harvard for example. Then Pres Nugent came to town and fired him, making the claim that it was losing too much money. The bookstore is a shadow of it’s heyday, although they do keep longer hours. It is no longer a great independent bookstore, though. I don’t know what the financials were, but I don’t think it was bleeding money for 20 years. Even if it lost a little money, having the best college bookstore on campus was a huge marketing tool.
I remember hearing rumors about the foodservice, but I don’t know the details. Switching abruptly sounds like the new style of management. ARA was the provider for 20+ years as well. Someone else may be able to give details. I do know that cafeteria staff has said that shutting down Gund has made it difficult for them to serve the students as quickly as they would like. The food is good, but lines are long. Also, it was mentioned that no one talked to them when they were designing the kitchen during the remodel. Therefore some tasks are more difficult than they should be, because the designer have their input.
And younger students, is it true that the President really spends so little time on campus? Do you see her walking around much?
Stop whining about the bookstore (it’s fine) and Middle Path (which needs to be paved). I’m tired of alumni bringing those up every time Kenyon does another thing they don’t like. The Sodexo issue is a completely different thing.
The bookstore really isn’t that different from the Sodexo, because Jack Finefrock, the bookstore manager, was kicked to the curb after working at Kenyon for 25 years. It’s the same graceless treatment of longtime employees we see with Sodexo fiasco. Things are just escalating now/
First of all, I’d like to echo all those who’ve expressed their disappointment and frustration with the way the administration has handled this situation. One of the things that frustrates me the most about Kenyon’s student body is that, while many of us are engaged in a wide variety social justice issues–one of the things I’ve missed most during my semester abroad–the focus seems to be almost always directed at more geographically distant problems. I know that these issues deserve attention, and I deeply admire the students whose passion is serving others, no matter how far away. But often there seems to be very little attention paid to more local issues like this one, or the struggles of Knox County farmers and business owners. I hope that this open discussion will lead members of the Kenyon community, especially students, to look around and see what we can do to help our neighbors. Town-gown relations are far from cordial, and are even hostile in some cases. I feel it is the College’s responsibility to do what it can to act as a part of the Knox County community.
Regarding the dining service switch from Aramark to AVI, there are many factors in play. Last summer I worked as an intern with John Marsh, the local food coordinator for the dining hall, and consequently I also worked closely with many of the AVI employees–managers, chefs, administration, and staff. AVI is an Ohio-based company that operates regionally, while Aramark has operations in 22 different countries. Under Aramark’s management, most of the food prep involved transferring frozen products from the package to a warming tray. Now, AVI employs four restaurant-trained chefs, two of whom are also managers, which means that they can make decisions to balance the financial and culinary aspects of AVI’s service. While job turnover under Aramark was obscenely high (a new manager at least every year), Executive Chef Meagan is beginning her fourth year at Kenyon. When AVI took over operations in Peirce, they retained nearly all of the unionized kitchen staff. One of the more widely publicized aspects of AVI’s operations in Peirce is the prominence of local food in the menus. Depending on the season, we up to 40% of food expenditures go to local farmers, processors or distributors, ranging from the Pickle Lady, an Amish woman who produces our pickles from local cucumbers and beets, as well our applesauce from local apples, to Glen Hill Orchard, located only three miles from campus, to family-owned meat processing facilities that slaughter and process local beef, pork, and poultry for use in the dining hall. Many of these local operations would not be able to survive without the support of Kenyon’s local food initiative. The success of Kenyon’s local food program rests heavily on John Marsh’s incredible dedication and expertise, but it also relies on the enthusiasm of the chefs and staff, and corporate support from AVI. John Marsh and Howard Sacks got the program off the ground when Aramark was still our provider, but it never really moved beyond local beef because Aramark wasn’t able or willing to expand it. Now, Marsh collaborates with more than individual producers AVI is a smaller company that can work more closely with each of its accounts and is flexible enough to support the unprecedented local food system that Marsh has constructed almost single-handedly. Now, students are served local food, prepared from scratch with fresh ingredients by staff members who care deeply about their welfare.
I know that I wasn’t around when Aramark was our dining sevice provider, but from what I learned and observed last summer, this was a change for the better. The food has improved dramatically, the kitchen staff is learning valuable, transferable prep skills, and in this field at least the College is taking up its responsibility to help sustain the land and the people it relies upon.
It is true that Nugent is rarely around. Also she doesn’t teach a class on campus as was tradition for presidents in the older days. One can go months without seeing her, sometimes close to a whole semester.
Thank you, Jake.
having taken a class from her last year and having seen her around campus a good number of times this year, I’d like to refute that claim. I see her out and about at least once a month. you just have to know where to look…
She hasn’t taught a solo class since Spring 2008. She did have a team taught course in the 2010-2011 school year, my apologies. But teaching has definitely decreased in recent years.
the people behind the table at the 6/15/12 forum should have stared on “dancing with the stars ” the way the tangoed around the questions