A third-party company, called Ellucian, will take over the department, providing management services and determining which current Hampshire IT employees might be rehired.
The exact date of termination hasn’t been determined, according to the layoff notices sent by the college.
All of the IT staff, made up of 10 people, will receive severance packages, according to Rae Anne Wentworth-Cadieux, Hampshire College’s associate IT director.
Since 2019, when the college almost closed, Hampshire College has faced financial struggles. The decision to work with Ellucian, a company which currently provides software services at the college, is in large part due to it being the most cost-effective solution given the institution’s current budget and capacity needs, according to a Hampshire College spokesperson.
“Our decision to partner with Ellucian was driven by the increasing complexity of the IT environment, especially security, and is in no way a reflection of the commitment of our current team,” said Carl Ries, vice president of Hampshire’s division of finance and administration.
The college declined to give any specifics about the contract or its cost.
While some staff may be looking for new jobs, others, who have been at the institution for decades, won’t have as easy a time finding a job, employees say.
Kate MacGregor, 64, a senior technology support specialist at Hampshire College, has worked for the institution for 15 years. She worries her job options are limited because of her age. If she isn’t able to be rehired at the college, she said she will have to go into early retirement.
“If it were up to me, I’d be working for Hampshire for years to come,” MacGregor said.
Ellucian will be working with the college starting in mid-July but the full transition won’t happen until the fall semester, according to an email sent by Hampshire’s president, Ed Wingenbach.
Once Ellucian is able to determine which positions might be needed at the college, internal job descriptions will be posted for current IT staff to apply to. However, the job postings will become public if Ellucian doesn’t find qualified applicants, according to a Hampshire College spokesperson.
Employees who stay until the end of the transition period will receive a stay bonus, the spokesperson said.
“There’s a lot of unknowns right now that make it very hard right now to be here at Hampshire and to be an IT employee,” Wentworth-Cadieux said.
Wingenbach announced at an IT meeting at the end of May that he was negotiating a multi-year contract with Ellucian to manage the campus IT services and on campus staff, according to Wentworth-Cadieux.
“IT staff was kind of not communicated with in a way that they should have been. And the community itself was definitely not communicated with,” Wentworth-Cadieux said.
Wentworth-Cadieux said staff weren’t given the chance to solve any of the problems the college was identifying or given an opportunity to provide input in the decision-making process. She said she would have preferred it if only some key IT staff positions were outsourced as the college continued to grow and eventually could hire the positions internally.
“We are committed to regular and open communication, particularly with the IT staff, as this process moves forward,” Ries said.
The decision was later announced by email to the entire college in the beginning of June.
“Partnering with Ellucian will enhance our IT function for the benefit of our faculty, staff and especially students, provide access to extensive higher education IT expertise, and enable us to address ongoing security threats to our systems,” Wingenbach wrote in the email.
Since the announcements about Ellucian, MacGregor said the college has had meetings with the IT staff, which have proved unproductive.
“We walk away from them just feeling beaten down, disrespected, unheard,” MacGregor said.
MacGregor said many of the staff have decided not to go to any other meetings held by the college, asking for information to be put in writing due to the “harmful” and “patronizing” nature of the meetings.
As the head of the IT department, Wentworth-Cadieux said she understands the advantage of bringing in a third party to help with the short-staffed department.
“The benefit of a third-party managed IT service company coming in, is they have a lot of those employees already on staff. They have services that they can provide to us, they have strategic planning and governance experience,” Wentworth-Cadieux said.
At the same time, when she first heard the college was thinking of outsourcing positions back in November of 2022 — during an internal meeting with the college’s finance and administration — Wentworth-Cadieux said she was concerned by the prospect, especially as an employee of 25 years.
“It’s devastating to find out that your 25 years, it doesn’t feel like it’s being acknowledged, it doesn’t feel like it matters,” Wentworth-Cadieux said. “Hampshire isn’t one of the colleges that pays a lot comparative to the other four colleges in the area. People come to Hampshire because they believe in it. So it is really hard to hear that maybe the college doesn’t necessarily believe in you.”
The entire department wasn’t told about the potential for outsourcing until February, according to Wentworth-Cadieux.
Since November of 2022, Wentworth-Cadieux has been the sole head of the IT department, as the other two associate directors left the college.
Wentworth-Cadieux said she believes the two left because of how understaffed and stressful the department has been.
Although the institution has become more financially stable over the years, the number of IT staff has remained the same, and has recently reduced even more with two IT employees quitting in March and June due to concerns around Ellucian’s takeover.
While MacGregor said she plans on staying at the college as long as she can, Wentworth-Cadieux said she believes other IT staff at the college will be looking for new jobs.
“I’m really worried about the future of Hampshire if it’s just a series of clinical financial decisions that don’t reflect faculty and staff’s vision and values,” MacGregor said.
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