BJU employs an average of 1,000 students each year, which is around 40 percent of the student body. Many of those students use the money they earn from campus jobs to help pay the cost of their tuition.
Laura Cross, a manager in human resources, said student jobs are available to benefit the students as well as help maintain different departments.
“[These jobs] provide students with the opportunity to make a little extra money,” Cross said. “But also it really helps the departments because a lot of the departments couldn’t do what they do without their students’ employment.
“And it also gives students experience—there are a lot of jobs on campus that are really great resume builders.”
BJU jobs range from specific-skilled related jobs, such as make-up artists, lesson accompanists and teachers to more general jobs, such as custodial, hostess positions and workers in the Child Development Center.
Although some students prefer to work off campus, being an on-campus student employee has its benefits.
Pam Tipmore, a student staffer in HR, said schedule flexibility is a key benefit to those working on campus.
“I would say that most [students] prefer to work on campus because of the convenience,” Tipmore said.
“Managers are willing to work their class schedule and their activity schedule.”
Cross said BJU has made changes in the past five years, with the most recent change of raising student employees’ base hourly pay to the federal minimum wage of $7.25.
HR has also changed its student employee hiring process. Five years ago, BJU didn’t have a hiring process that included professionally posting jobs with specific requirements, making an official offer to students and sending an official hiring letter.
“[During that time] a lot of students were assigned jobs and they were tied to scholarships, so it was kind of a first-come, first-served basis and if you needed a job, they just gave you one and you didn’t really have a choice,” Cross said.
“Now, we are intentional about saying ‘student employees’ rather than ‘student workers’ [because] they’re employed by us just like everyone else.”
Cross confirmed there are currently open positions available for student employment on campus.
“There’s not a shortage of jobs on campus,” Cross said. “There is always something. Now it may not be the something that someone wanted to do, but the last several years we have never gotten to the point when there were no more jobs to fill and we had people looking for jobs,” Cross said.
According to Cross, working just a few hours of work a week can be extremely beneficial financially to students in their future. She said many jobs provide students with leadership experience.
“Something I try to encourage students with as I’m talking to them is that [$7.25 an hour] is going to add up and over the course of a year you can actually make a couple thousand dollars,” Cross said.
“And if that’s $2,000 that you don’t have to take a loan out for, that’s going to draw interest for the next how many years, that $7.25 an hour ends up becoming a lot more valuable than it seems up front.”
Cross said any student wishing to pursue employment with BJU should visit bju.careers for more information.
