Since I worked as an Academic employee instead of an Admissions Officer or someone in on the business side, my job was practically a mystery to everyone on the profits end of things. I felt like my presentation each quarter to new students was also a chance for me to remind staff that I actually had a job there, and it wasn't to enroll students as fast as possible! I suppose this made me lucky; I never envied the stress AO's surely felt. However, I felt I constantly had to justify my existence to my co-workers, even when my Dean was highly supportive of me and praised my performance.
In addition, it felt like Corporate/HQ was always looking for ways to wiggle the LRCMs into somehow enrolling students or bringing in more profits, when our main goal was to act as information literacy teachers and promote academic success once these poor students who could barely pass an Accuplacer were told to do research -- though often some professors were completely unaware that we had access to academic databases even though I tried to remind them all constantly. "You can just Google it!" I had a professor say *during my presentation to his class on why Googling wasn't going to get the academic results they needed*. Students were sometimes really motivated, but also more often they were *profoundly unprepared* for college and faculty were pushed to get them to pass no matter what. I routinely had students in Master's-level classes show up in the library not being able to write a complete, coherent sentence. It was appalling.
By the end, I finished a Master's degree (from a state university, not Strayer; they refused to offer any tuition assistance to me even though the degree I was pursuing was one they wanted me to have for the position and also was one they did not, thankfully, offer; at least this meant I was not beholden to them after graduation!) and did not have any room for advancement, or even a raise. It was frustrating as an information professional to answer to someone not in my field (my Dean), who didn't always understand the cores of library ethics and general practices that I tried to do my job by (in addition to Corporate's rules). My regional librarian supervisor was great. No complaints there whatsoever. Probably because they were actually qualified for the position!
By the end, I was burned out and unmotivated and had no advancement opportunities (a shameful consequence for completing a higher degree than most campus staff had!). All the news coming from the top was, in my little gossip circles, Bad News for people in my position. From what I hear now, it's just going downhill, and Academic staff are just cogs in the profit wheel. I'm glad I jumped ship when I did, though it was a good learning experience overall.
