Western Governors University Reviews

Former Employee – worked at Western Governors University full-time for more than a year

Pros – Work from home and flexible hours.

Cons – It's about the numbers and only the numbers.

Advice to Senior Management – You should get to know your employees.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Western Governors University full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – 100% work from home, except for faculty meetings twice a year

Cons – Long hours, most Mentors (Faculty) work 45 to 50 hours per week sometime 60+ on busy weeks if adding many new students in the same week. If you are considering joining the IT college as faculty, look somewhere else. The Managers and Senior Managers in the IT college do not have degrees in IT, CS, or IS. They are not qualified to do the work you will be doing and they are pretty clueless. I have rarely had worse management in my whole career. I had 4 managers in 3.5 years and none of them had a background in IT or a degree in IT. I think most colleges require a degree in the field to teach in the field. Business, Teachers, and Health Professions colleges all have faculty with a background and degrees in their fields, particularly in management roles. IT has had poorer student performance when compared with the other colleges and because you are not compared against your fellow mentors, but rather against those in other colleges, you are set up for failure from the start. For 10 years IT has underperformed the Business and Teachers college and has had much higher forced turnover that other colleges, as well as fewer raises, and a double the number of faculty on performance review of the other colleges. If you want a fair shake and you are set on WGU, be sure to go for business rather than IT.

Advice to Senior Management – For those Managers in the IT College, leave before you destroy a good thing. For the upper management, what the hell are you doing having incompetent middle managers who have no background in the colleges where they are managers. You should respect the IT college like you do the others and you should judge Mentors against their piers within the same college.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Western Governors University full-time for more than a year

Pros – Work from home with flexible hours. Much autonomy to do the job the best way I see fit. Non-profit allows affordable education for all students. I feel called to educate. I love working with students! Full time jobs in education are hard to come by.

Cons – Flexible hours become long hours- usually at least 45-50 per week. Heavy workload/number of students. I am evaluated/ salary increases are based on student performance. Some students will not do the work or be successful. I can only do my personal best. It never seems to be good enough. I am worried about keeping my job for the long-haul because of this constant pressure to perform. I am a professional with a Master's degree plus further education. I do not need to be, nor should I be micromanaged.

Advice to Senior Management – 12 month salaries are equal to 9-month salaries at other universities. Salaries should be increased accordingly. Metrics used to evaluate performance should be re-evaluated- they do not give a clear picture of employee performance. Middle management must learn to motivate by
encouraging others, not belittling. Quality faculty have been lost because of this. Quality faculty are valuable employees- NOT easily replaced!

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

Current Employee – been working at Western Governors University full-time for more than a year

Pros – Working from home, full benefits, 70% tuition discount.

Cons – The pay is low and not a lot of options for moving up.

Advice to Senior Management – Listen to your employees concerns.

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

Former Employee – worked at Western Governors University full-time for more than a year

Pros – Working with students from all over the mainland US and Hawaii. Helping them to stay motivated and committed to achieving their degrees both Bachelor's and Master's. Working from home and having flexible hours.

Cons – I would appreciate more opportunities to collaborate with peers.

Advice to Senior Management – Treatment of employees when FMLA issues are involved. Be more sensitive-HR department.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Western Governors University full-time

Pros – Many employees work from home, schedule is flexible as long as you put in your requisite 40-45 hours.

Cons – Metrics are based on student success rates so, while there are many things you can do to have an impact on student success, you don't have complete control over how your numbers ultimately come out.

Advice to Senior Management – Keep doing what you are doing on the Mentoring side of things.

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

Current Employee – been working at Western Governors University part-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Flexibility
Being part of a change in higher education
Working as part of a great team
Independence

Cons – The pay is low for having a Master's, but the job is enjoyable and so flexible and that is important to me.

Advice to Senior Management – On the assessment side the management is great. They are very easy to work with, responsive and fair. They trust that you can work and perform independently and give you the freedom to approach your job creatively.

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

Former Employee – worked at Western Governors University full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Excellent benefits for health and retirement. Most employees work from home and WGU offers very good technical support for computers and telephones. There are some wonderful employees there who are dedicated and sincere and great to work with.

Cons – The president of WGU, Bob Mendenhall, wants more than anything for WGU to be one of the 100 Best Places to Work, and he just can't understand why his employees disagree. I worked there for three years and cannot count the number of times we 'reorganized.' I think Bob feels like reorganizing will somehow fix things (kind of like rearranging the furniture to address a leak in the roof). Reorganization meant changing everyone's title, confusing everyone about who was now responsible for what (including themselves), and, finally, laying off people or groups of people that had crossed Bob in some way. These reorganizations were intimidating and caused an undercurrent of fear among the employees. Because WGU is a business far more than it is a university, employees are bombarded with numbers about student progress, graduation rates, growth in programs, student satisfaction surveys, etc. However, employees are not supported in their own professional growth nor are they rewarded for participating in professional development. In fact, they are discouraged (sending people to conferences costs money!). Course mentors and students mentors are asked to do everything by the book. Don't be creative, don't be innovative, don't rock the boat and keep your head down. If you want to be treated like a professional, to be supported in professional pursuits, to have independence and be creative in your job (after all isn't that why you pursued your master's degree or your PhD in the first place?), this is not the place to work.

Advice to Senior Management – Listen to what your employees say and don't take it personally. It isn't about you. Remember there are many ways to address problems and reorganizing is only one way. If the reorganization doesn't work (and it never did in my experience) then look deeper into the problem. Treat your employees like professionals and not assembly line workers. Oh, and watch your back. Your nice management job can be cut out from under you in a heartbeat (literally).

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Western Governors University

Pros – Opportunity to work from home
Allow to make your own hours within a reasonable time frame: get 40 hours between Monday to Friday 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. whatever your local time is. Must work 1 night a week and 1 Saturday a month.
Student focused, main goal for everyone involved is to get the right people in the program; in all my years here I've NEVER felt pressured to enroll someone who I didn't think was ready.

Cons – Just 2 things that really need attention in Enrollment Department.
1. There are SOME individuals in middle management who really play favorites. Not all, but some. Unfortunately, if you cross these peoples warpaths, then you will come to regret it. Upper management doesn't realize what kind of an effect these individuals have on overall team, and so those people are never brought to justice for being bullies, and only giving promotions and highlights to those who are in their circles of friends.
2. Pay is pretty dismal. The answer that "it is equivalent to what other people in similar positions at other companies would make" is a terrible answer. you always tell the Enrollment team that they are the backbone to the university, but then you pay them significantly less than what they deserve to be earning with the Bachelors degree that is REQUIRED for the position

Advice to Senior Management – With a little deep cleaning, the bullies could (and should) be removed from their positions of tyranny. This would allow for freer growth in the department.

Don't hide behind excuses for pay. Just because it is similar to what other schools do, doesn't make it fair. President of WGU is one of the highest paid Presidents of Private colleges (72nd highest paid out of 448). Perhaps he could PERSONALLY take a pay cut to pay those who he claims does all the work.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Western Governors University

Pros – WGU course mentors (content area experts) work largely in teams, which means that there is a built in support network for employees. The level of exhaustion one may have felt at other universities can be more effectively manged here, because the team approach often means a simple request for help is all it takes! Management at the team level, in my experience, is very responsive to employee needs. While we do work more days and hours than our previous positions, it's also true that when we need some flexibility, all we need to do is communicate that need to our manager. Additionally, the real benefit to working at WGU is the ability to really interact with out students on an individual basis. I have more extended content-related conversations and individualized instructional sessions now, in an online environment, that ever was possible before at either the college or high school where I previously taught "in person." Finally, WGU seems to have a real commitment to professional development. I have been lucky enough to benefit from tuition reimbursement here and I also expect to receive funding for a conference at which I will present this spring. Overall, most complaints I might have are pretty minor. My perception is that those with many issues often have them because their priorities don't align with the universities. You see, if you work at a student-centered university, you have to be student-centered. If you're not, you may struggle.

Cons – Coures mentors do work structured schedules, so the extreme flexibility you might imagine by "working online" is not really there, as at other online universities (however, I think this accounts for our higher level of quality). And, as previously noted, managers seem very willing to accomodate our needs (I've never been turned down for a reasonable request).

All mentors do work more days and hours that traditional universities. While our pay is fair and our benefits are great, especially considering the lack of commuter expenses, it's not quite aligned with the extra days we work. I made the same amount working 180 days...and I made MUCH more by working summer school, too, which is similar (but still less than) my current schedule. That said, I also graded tons of papers in my off hours and drove an hour per day, so it's a give and take, I guess!

Umm...my biggest con is this: without a large campus to walk around, weight gain is inevitable! If you decide to come and work here, plan to incorporate some extra exercise into your day :)

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend