Pros
The interactions with students are what made me stay so long at Baker and the students have made me consider my time at Baker worthwhile. Baker works with a lot of nontraditional students, so you will work with students from a diverse variety of backgrounds and experiences. I went to work every day feeling like I was truly able to make a difference in the lives of our students. My coworkers were wonderful and truly committed to student learning. They were not at Baker for the pay, but because they cared so much about helping students. I have made a lot of great friends through my time at Baker. This applies to non-upper management employees only, unfortunately.
Cons
The compensation is very poor compared to peer institutions. The excellent benefits used to somewhat make up for the lack of pay, but now those benefits have now been reduced and are not any better (and may even possibly be worse?) than most peer institutions. If you plan on working at Baker, do so for the interaction with students and not for the pay. The work/life balance is also poor. If you are a full time employee, do not expect a 40 hour work week. A 60 hour work week is not unusual, and you are not given any flex time to compensate for the extra hours you do work. My supervisor once made me reschedule surgery which was a medical necessity because I wouldn't have been able to work at a student orientation. Yes, working at orientation will be more important than your family or your health if you do end up working at Baker College. I have had coworkers that couldn't even schedule a honeymoon or attend other important family events because they conflicted with orientation. I do not know what the atmosphere is like at any of the other Baker campuses, but Allen Park is a depressing campus to work at. Most of the faculty and staff are demoralized by the poor treatment by the campus president. The campus president is not open to listening to his employees, and is more concerned about the physical appearance of the buildings than student learning. You will hear a lot about the campus not having enough money to invest in support staff or student learning, but the campus president will spend thousands and thousands of dollars on cosmetic changes like changing the lighting, painting designs on the walls, or building a more appealing parking lot. There's no place on campus for employees to have lunch or even take a break on campus unless you want to be in the student center and get bombarded with questions from students -- take your lunches off-campus. Also, I hope you like Fox News because our campus president loves it and has it broadcast from most of the televisions in the student center.
