High Point University Reviews

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.

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.

Pros

Benefits are good, many "regular" employees are great people! Very nice campus. Parking is free, which is not always the case at colleges and universities.

Cons

The culture is cultlike, and if you are not 100% into the culture, your job can be very difficult. Salaries are horribly low compared to area averages for the same positions at other comparable institutions. Stress levels are off the scale, and my health was negatively affected by dealing with the stress to the point of absolute burnout. Many offices are understaffed at a critical level, and the higher-ups expect the already-stressed-to-the max employees to make up the difference. My supervisor was/is a workaholic, arriving two to three hours early each day and leaving past 7 PM most nights, and fully expecting all employees to do the same without overtime compensation of any sort. Those of us who have families cannot work 80+ hours per week every week. Salaried positions aren't eligible for overtime, but killing your employees by working them to death isn't a good way to retain talented people.

Some of the VPs supervise areas in which they have no expertise or experience. Their judgments of workloads and job performance are muddied by unrealistic expectations and/or not fully understanding the areas they supervise. Staff are quite often summarily regarded as "necessary evils," and this is terrible for morale.

Advice to Senior Management

Saving a buck by grossly underpaying your staff and inadequately staffing key offices is not a way to succeed in building a qualified, committed staff. You cannot force employee loyalty; you must earn it. Treat your staff as valuable individuals and they will be more likely to commit themselves to the school. Pay them what they are worth! If you allocate financial resources to investing in your employees instead of buying a mall or remodeling in certain areas, your returns will be tremendous. Just because you can't outwardly see what a person's job does for the school doesn't mean you should ignore your employees.

Pros

Beautiful campus with great facility. Colleagues are nice and friendly and students are polite in general.

Cons

Very little transparency in how decisions are made and the school has a very centralized management style in general. Employees are afraid to speak up and have to know who the right person to talk to if they need things done.

Advice to Senior Management

Please find ways to increase employee motivation. A beautiful campus is not enough.

Pros

Beautiful campus and buildings. Good colleagues. Good benefits.

Cons

Very rude, negative management. Salaries are extremely low and it is a very stressful environment.

Advice to Senior Management

Value the quality employees there.

Pros

Opportunities for advancement. Every type of tool you need at your disposal

Cons

Expected to work crazy hours for next to nothing. University uses its funds to make the campus facilities better, not to reward or make their employees comfortable.

Advice to Senior Management

Show some love to your employees...pay them!