Excelsior College Employee Reviews about "people"

Pros

People are great to work with

Cons

Low pay for Albany area

Pros

The people here are very dedicated to student success. They are nice and generous people overall.

Cons

The college struggles as an organization to become more efficient. Use of technology to aid in this transformation is haphazard. They have some very standard departments and roles in technology, project management, organizational development, but they have difficulty understanding how to mobilize and utilize these roles. Teams are afraid to share information and changes to processes are dreaded.

Pros

Management could have better leveraged the expertise that once existed and listening that had already been done to improve student experiences, retention, enrollments, etc. The mission and talent were, at one time, highly competitive.

Cons

Poor management, business decisions, office politics and vision have systematically disassembled the good that once existed. One by one, the hardest working, most passionate, talented and knowledgeable people - the ones most dedicated to students - were driven out and replaced by yes men leading to the current low enrollments, negative student and staff reviews and declining reputation.

Pros

Students. People who care. Colleagues with great ideas.

Cons

High levels of stress due to uncertainty and constant change. Poor accountability. Roadblocks and challenges to innovation. Low trust.

Pros

My job is really rewarding - I come to work everyday knowing that my work can have a positive impact on my colleagues, on the institution and on our students. I am given room to grow and to work autonomously. My supervisor is incredibly caring and sets a really great example of what professional commitment and personal empathy looks like. The leadership of the organization maintains an open door policy and genuinely seems to value input. Benefits and compensation are beyond fair - especially medical. Having had to use them I can attest to how much of a difference that makes. The institution has a positive relationship with its students and the staff are mission-focused. You get to work with really great people in a community-minded environment.

Cons

As with most small higher education institutions, the College is facing pressures from the external environment and is also dealing with some internal challenges. Restructuring events from a year ago have also left some scars. Remarkably, there is a lot of resilience in the organization but the leadership and staff of the College need to come to a common understanding of that the future needs to look like for this College to survive and thrive. There is a sense that accountability isn't uniformly enforced. There are tensions between the academic and business side. Silos and factions get in the way of collaboration. Our processes are antiquated and lagging behind the competitive benchmark - the sense of urgency to remedy them is at times plodding and slow.

Pros

Some people care about the students.

Cons

Leadership does not have higher education experience.

Pros

Nothing good to talk about.

Cons

This is a terrible place to work with mean people and bad leaders. You can’t believe anything they say. They don’t care about employees and fire people every year. Disgusting place and dishonest higher ups.

Pros

None now. This used to be a great place to work. So much has changed. The company is being run into the ground.

Cons

Layoffs continue. Laid off another 45 people including many who have been there over 20 years and dedicated their life to Excelsior. No loyalty to employees. Cut benefits, cut pay, cut people. But kept people in the unit causing most trouble. Poor management decisions. Poor reorganization.

Pros

People in my unit were passionate about the mission and work of the school. Generally, people were open and welcoming. The salary is very high compared to other colleges in the Albany area.

Cons

Very poor financial management and enrollment forecasting. Silo-ed environment in many respects. If you don't take the initiative, you'll go unnoticed.

Pros

People are nice and supportive

Cons

History of financial instability. Lots of changes