High Point University Reviews

Current Employee – been working at High Point University full-time for more than a year

Pros – Ability to make things happen and accomplish goals at rapid pace and without intense bueracracy. If you are interested in growth and continuous improvement, it's an amazing place to be. Incredible community support from business and local leaders. Culture is more private-corporate with high expectations for inventive, energetic leadership.

Cons – Culture is more private-corporate, so faculty can feel as though they have little voice or control over their futures. There is often anxiety over student-parent interactions and intense burnout from heavy demands on personal time--mostly in recruiting efforts. Can be difficult for families. While requirement to publish is low-this can disadvantage an academic who invests so much in students there is little time or energy left for scholarship. If you are not a workaholic, HPU, or ACADEMIA may not be a good fit for you.

Advice to Senior Management – Create better bridges between faculty and administration. Faculty would prefer being heard to getting gifts, although money certainly is appreciated! Seek greater faculty governance structures and value academic performance of students over luxury perks. We have amazing faculty and student-scholars -celebrate them frequently. Admin has improved in this area-a welcome change.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at High Point University full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – good training opportunities
beautiful campus with security patrols
good number of paid holidays and time off
very energetic atmosphere
dining cards given twice a year
Gifts during some staff meetings

Cons – low pay compared to other local employers
noticeable difference in treatment between faculty and staff
pressure to "drink the kool-aid" and promote the university outside of work

Advice to Senior Management – Better pay is a must in order to retain professionals and talented people.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at High Point University full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Ancillary benefits of being on a college campus
Access to many resources
Opportunities to interface with wonderful students

Cons – Pay is grossly below average in addition to the amount of responsibility not being commensurate with job title;
management shows little interest in employee morale or well-being;
Lack of overall vision for critical support departments.

Advice to Senior Management – Like others have mentioned, its difficult to keep good employees without decent pay.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at High Point University full-time for more than a year

Pros – You believe you are truly working to help students. Most of the students you work with are incredibly sweet and competent.

Cons – You work 50+ hours every week. Be prepared to work numerous weekends. If one person has to be there, everyone has to be there.

Advice to Senior Management – Take people's personal lives into account. If you're going to have an employee work a weekend, let them have a day of the week off.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at High Point University full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – innovation is appreciated. Environment is unmatched! Bureaucracy doesn't slow you down. Great opportunities to contribute no matter what dept. you are in.

Cons – Not for me, but seems the thread of cons here deals with expectations. I like a challenge and appreciate the fact that HPU expects contribituions at all levels.

Advice to Senior Management – continue to listen to frontliners and implement suggestions when feasible.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at High Point University

Pros – The campus is beautiful and the environment is exciting.

Cons – The pay is not satisfactory.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at High Point University

Pros – A beautiful campus and getting more so, but it has a "new" look and feel that makes it seem artificial. The students are pleasant and most of the faculty members were friendly to me right away.

Cons – I served in a non-tenured faculty position (FT) for approximately 3 semesters and departed High Point for a tenure-track position at a similar institution in 2009. I don't regret my stay at HPU, but I don't strongly recommend it as a place to work either. At HPU, the student is King, so ultimately anyone signing on (in any position) should be aware that potential disputes usually result with a ruling in favor of the student. This includes honor code violations, but typically excludes retention issues with respect to minimum GPA standards. Salaries are very low at HPU, but there was some attempt to offer better benefits to bolster the money issues. Newcomers will be surprised at the low wages because the campus is dripping with luxurious ammenities, and the students want for nothing. (Even the dorms have swimming pools, and singles for freshmen are apparently common.) Academic supervisors are sympathetic and will say so, but they don't have much decision-making power with respect to budgets.

Town/Gown issues were significant as well during my stay. The city of High Point is not affluent, and if you happen to live in one of the local neighborhoods, as I did, you may find a lot of resentment directed at the University, its rapid growth, and/or the omnipresence of the students. The school solved its "landlocked" issues by purchasing hundreds of homes and tearing them down, replacing them with student housing and greek houses. The HPU brand is everywhere, and the local media usually cover the issues with a bias that is always sympathetic to the university. I think this tendency frustrates local residents and business owners.

Frustration can set in for any employee who takes the time to look around and absorb the campus environment. HPU is a very student-friendly campus. The staff engages them constantly, and it would not be wrong to assume that at HPU what goes on outside of the classroom is viewed as more important than what goes on inside the classroom. It was not uncommon for me to find that students had skipped my classes (even exams) to attend a campus event or to hangout in the students' fitness center. I had the impression that the staff in the Student Life & Activities area were extremely overworked and very underappreciated. They worked a lot on the weekends and at nights. On most Saturdays, the admissions office "owned" the campus. That division of HPU is a marketing machine. Be prepared to do your part. Saying no is not usually an option.

Advice to Senior Management – College is about academic achievement, not quality entertainment.

Everyone is overworked.

HPU is growing too fast. Slow down and enjoy the success and let your employees breathe a little bit.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at High Point University

Pros – Attractive (but cramped) campus; good benefits; really good food options; friendly (but cynical) faculty. Parking was free and campus security was acceptable when students were in residence.

Cons – Recently HP evolved (devolved?) from a sleepy liberal arts college into a showy "boutique" university that caters mostly to upper-middle class students from affluent families. Internally, these students are known as "full-pays," and the admissions office courts them almost exclusively. As such, campus diversity suffers, and students with serious academic goals are left feeling isolated and unchallenged (the bulk of whom transfer after one or two semesters).

The biggest problem with HPU is the school's educational philosophy: the buyer is always right. Students and their wealthy parents are catered to non-stop with a whirlwind of exciting activities in glamorous surroundings. There is pressure to inflate grades (frustrating for faculty) and even more pressure to overlook bad behavior outside of the classroom (frustrating for staff). "Helicoptering" is not just encouraged, it's celebrated. Students graduate with a degree, few academic challenges, and a tremendous sense of entitlement. All of the employees play a role in it, and no one feels really good about it.

What most surprised me about HPU was the "Office of WOW." The job of the WOW office is to entertain the student body 24/7 with anything and everything their hearts desire. Most have no problem with such a concept until they realize just how much time and money go into keeping the students spoiled and happy. This office was added in past few years, and is probably the reason the campus has such an amusement park type of atmosphere.

As a member of the faculty, one should expect a lot of private cynicism from one's peers as well as a sense of dread. Tenured faculty are paid well, but the rest fall short of regional standards. New faculty members are put through an orientation program that says all the right things, but no one warns you about the lack of intellectual curiosity from the students or the appalling interference from parents with respect to grades, class attendance, and assignments. Upper administration encourages this, so there's very little faculty can do to stop it.

For staff, the outlook is much worse. Most of the longtime staff members who survived the transition in 2005 are clearly burned out from 70-hr work weeks. Starting salaries are below the regional average and turnover is high. I have never met a more stressed-out group of people in my life. Those who stay tend to be young and inexperienced. New staff members with previous experience elsewhere tended to leave quickly and quietly. The biggest issue seemed to be upper management's inability to understand how many hours staffers put in. The emphasis is to be "lean" within each office but to cater to every student's need at the same time. The result is far too many staffers working until 9 or 10 pm or all weekend just to keep up.

My experience was that HPU functions with a very top-down approach to leadership and management. The University's president and a few VPs hold all of the authority. I sat on a couple of key committees, but we were powerless with respect to making changes or recommendations for reform. All changes come from above, and there is a certain air to new directives: Embrace this or please leave.

Advice to Senior Management – Replace the current VPs with experienced and credentialed administrators who will serve as a voice for faculty/staff and not as watchdogs in search of dissent.

Hold students accountable and treat them as adults, and encourage parents to back off.

Focus more on strengthening academic programs and less on the "Wow Factor."

Kill the budget-busting, Disney-like atmosphere and use the available funds to reward the hard work of faculty/staff with merit-based pay increases. Add additional staff positions to diminish workloads.

Enhance the student population with a stronger commitment to diversity of thought, ethnicity, and socio-economic status.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at High Point University full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Amazing benefits, great people to work with, paid time off, holidays frequent, great experience for young professionals and great mentor to work under.

Cons – Working many weekends, not much room for promotion, no appreciation for the work given, they still want even more of my time without extra compensation. Sometimes can be a stressful work environment.

Advice to Senior Management – Too many leadership positions, too many promoted prematurely.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at High Point University for more than 7 years

Pros – Good pay, no pressure to publish, beautiful campus, fabulous classroom facilities, gated campus with good security, university is expanding rapidly--lots of growth

Cons – Students are bratty and spoiled, essentially the only criteria for admissions is "do you have a bank account?", if you don't give out lots of high grades (regardless of what the students truly earn) they will rip you to shreds on the class evaluations--this is what the university uses as its main guide as to keep or fire professors. Students can lie on these evaluations and chancellor does not care. So glad I found a position at another university!!