Portland State Lays Off Student Workers

Portland Mercury:

Last week the Mercury received a tip that about half of the student employees were being laid off at Portland State University’s Office of Information Technology (OIT). Under the cuts, student hours would be significantly sliced, from 2,200 hours clocked last quarter to 1,100 hours this quarter. In turn, say the student workers, the cuts would affect vital IT services like computer lab hours for students. The lay offs follow the decision last June by the Oregon legislature to cut state support for the Oregon universities by 11 percent. It would be nice to know exactly how the cuts are affecting students, but we may never know because Portland State administrators have ordered students to stop talking to media. Following up on the layoffs lead, I contacted the OIT human resources department. The next morning, OIT manager Mark Walker emailed a curt note to OIT student workers: Just making sure the obvious is stated. No one employed by OIT, including student workers, should be talking to anyone at from any media (e.g. Vanguard, Mercury, Willamette Week). mw Telling students not talk to the media violates PSU's community relations policies. On its community relations page, PSU clearly states its policy about students talking to the media: "Faculty and staff may be contacted by members of the media directly to comment on a topic, situation, or policy at the University." The stated policy does add the suggestion: "It's a good idea to contact the Office of University Communications prior to responding to reporters." Walker apparently interpreted this rather liberally. Walker declined to comment for this post. But Scott Gallagher from PSU Communications says Walker was out of line in telling his students not to talk to the media. "He [Walker] works in OIT and he is not a communications expert. And he probably shouldn't have sent out a email like that without checking with us first." [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

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