How will you spend your Thanksgiving break?
If you were written up last week, you were probably asked to appear before who you assumed was your Community Development Educator.
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But you were likely meeting with a residence hall director, not a CDE. This newly created position is one of the quiet manifestations of NYU's cost-cutting effort: the merger of the housing and residential education departments.
The two departments were consolidated in May into the Office of Residential Life and Housing Services, under the purview of the Division of Student Affairs. The move, expected to save the university $2 million, came amid a restructuring effort NYU began in March 2008.
According to NYU spokesman John Beckman, the old system was inefficient because residence halls were essentially being managed by two different groups — a student affairs group and an operations-logistics group.
"At some level, having those two parallel systems in the halls really didn't make that much sense," Beckman said.
A desire to cut costs amid a worsening economy and financial situation for NYU also played a role.
"It was becoming clearer that a consolidation made sense, although a close look at that did not take place until this summer," Beckman said.
Tom Ellett, associate vice president for student affairs, was more blunt.
"The university is in deficit, and this is one of the areas we want to cut costs," he said.
Part of that cost-cutting was borne by the 30 staff positions eliminated in the consolidation. Posts were lost in both the administrative and facilities sides of the operation.
In each residence hall, the positions of CDE, assistant CDE, residence hall operations manager and residence hall receptionist were eliminated.
Under the new system, each residence hall — all of which are being renamed houses — will have three senior positions: a residence hall director, an assistant director and a residence hall resource manager.
Additional layoffs occurred through the consolidation of the two departments' offices.
Ellett noted that the merger did not affect any of the programs run by the housing department or residential education.
"Nothing has been cut as it relates to programs," Ellett said. "All the Explorations [communities], faculty in residence and Inter-Residence Hall Council have been held harmless."
Ellett said the merger has already resulted in one improvement for students living in housing: Front desk hours have been re-extended after being cut just last year.
