Pros
Renowned University, you are part of the prestige of the University once you worked here.
Cons
Where can I start. Toxic culture of abuse, especially faculty with staff. Staff is seen as incapable people that were not able to go beyond College or a Masters, instead of experts on their work.
HR is a disaster and the University is completely understaffed.
Low salaries and mediocre benefits.
Salary raises depend of your performance, but doing extremely well takes you from 0 to 1 in a scale of 1 to 4. 4 is basically doing great the job of two or three people, and that’s a 4% raise, virtually impossible.
Nobody cares about your career progression.
There are almost no benefits in actually using the educational infrastructure for staff.
In my case, HR didn’t take any measures against an abusive professor after two high profiled admin resigned stating clearly in their exit interviews the reasons. Title IX and physical violence allegation not heard.
I am an alumnus from the University, and all the compromise and pride I had once completing my grad degree here where rapidly removed while working here. As an example, in my position I discovered that endowments are used as cashflow, and not for the purpose they are intended to serve. They usually push donors away for the constant turnover and the lack of personnel. To the point that one donor discovered that not just a couple of donations/endowments were serving their purpose, but other minor donations had been lying still for years, without even being invested. A di-sas-ter.
Finally, there are just a few people, staff across divisions that are actually efficient and smart. Then, the rest of the staff is absolutely incapable. There is a negative/adverse selection, because after some time the staff who stays working here are just the ones who can’t find other jobs, even with the low salary and toxic culture.
The board and the President give the impression that they absolutely not care. They are not seen in campus nor involved, and I am saying this as an alumnus and as a staff.
The University is in a deep financial crisis, I would say it is broke. No one is responsible. The President of the University renewed his house on campus while a lot of people is being fired or, given the lack of leadership, vision and low salaries, everyone is looking for options or leaving. During the financial crisis, the townhalls were just a bad joke. No numbers, no goals, no assessments of the performance of the endowment and projections of different scenarios. It is hilarious that the place where the renowned Booth School of Business is, can be so absolutely missed managed.