An Update from the Community Advisors Union

When the college announced sweeping changes to the community advisor (CA) position for the 2026-27 academic year last November, the room of over 60 CAs fell dead silent. Those changes were never once solicited for our opinions but solely dictated by the college and became the final straw that led to CAs’ unanimous vote to unionize this March.

Since then, the Bargaining Committee of the Amherst College Community Advisors Union (ACCAU) and I, the Vice President, have met with the college and its attorneys periodically for the past four months. As the new academic year begins and the changes take effect, it is more important than ever to update this community from the CAs’ perspective and inside the bargaining room our bewilderment, frustration, and anger. 

The major changes to this year’s CA position include: switching from a stipend to an hourly model to significant wage decrease from previously no less than $26.25 per hour to the new $17 per hour, and an almost 20% position cut from 60+ student employees to the current 50, to the extent that multiple non-first-year dorms do not have at least one CA. It is critical to analyze each significant change, its respective effect, and how the college’s justifications deviate from reality. 

Editor’s Note: Among the changes to this year’s CA position, the Student Affairs and the Office of Community Living also restructured the CA role into three distinct positions: Residential Advisors (RAs), Community Advisors (CAs), and Independent Living Advisors (ILAs). This article uses “CA” to refer collectively to all three roles. 

Overhaul of the CA Compensation Structure

The previous stipend model compensated first-time CAs with a $6,000 stipend per academic year, with seniority pay of $500 for each additional year of employment (i.e., $6,500 per year for second-year returning CAs and $7,000 per year for third-year returning CAs). Further, the stipend model stipulated seven hours of work per week, roughly equivalent to $26 per hour for first-time CAs, $28 per hour for second-year returning CAs, and $30 per hour for third-year returning CAs. The new model eliminates seniority pay and switches to weekly timecard submissions in lieu of a biweekly stipend, and it also significantly reduces the hourly wage across all positions to a staggering $17 per hour, with a handful of lead positions at $19 per hour. 

After announcing the compensation structure change in the all-CA staff meeting last November, Director of Residential Engagement Leigh Bucey claimed that the new model would not decrease overall CA compensation and that CAs would, in fact, receive more. In a “letter to the editor” published last December, Associate Vice President for Student Affairs Megan Lennon further stated that “CAs who work the minimum number of expected hours can anticipate approximately $6,000 in pay; lead student staff on the First-Year Quad could receive more than $8,200.”

Bucey and Lennon’s estimate and promise, however, proved to be egregiously miscalculated. Based on the responsibilities detailed during the August CA training sessions, a CA working around 6.5 hours in a regular week, plus fall (around 50 hours) and spring trainings (around 20 hours), under $17 per hour and 30 calendar weeks, is projected to receive only slightly more than $4,500 per year — with lead positions receiving around $5,500. This is at least a 25% and 33% respective remuneration reduction than the college falsely promised, and roughly a quarter reduction compared to previous stipend and seniority model (you can find our calculation of projecting estimated pay here).

The rationale the college provided for switching to the hourly model remains inconsistent and contradictory. On the one hand, during the all-staff meeting and in private conversations, CAs were told the switch was due to “illegality” of the stipend model. Yet not only are the CAs at nearby Mount Holyoke College and Smith College still compensated with stipends, but also, from a private disclosure, at least one student employee at the August CA training continues to receive a stipend. Silent on the issue of “legality,” Lennon explained in her December letter that switching to the hourly model “offers flexibility for student staff in residence to work fewer or additional hours as needed.” 

Even so, it became abundantly clear in the August CA training that Lennon’s “flexibility” claim was delusive. A common sentiment widely shared among CAs was that they were unduly constrained in how many hours they could actually report and the potential surveillance, questioning, and rejection of timecards when logging more hours than expected. For instance, all the CAs were explicitly instructed multiple times during the first week of August training that they could not log more than 40 hours, thus denying CAs the opportunity of overtime pay. Given the exact workload for the first week exceeded 40 hours, many CAs choose not to log the hours they actually worked to avoid timecard rejections. CAs were also suggested privately to falsify their timesheets by shifting hours to the following week.

To further limit the number of hours CAs can report, CAs are now restricted to only one hour per week of “casual hours” with their residents (e.g., face-to-face conversations, text, email, etc.), and approval from the supervisor is required to clock in more than 60 minutes. When this policy was challenged by a fellow returning CA during August training, the response given was that casual interaction with residents exceeding 60 minutes per week indicated “poor boundary setting skills.” Moreover, in scenarios like being approached by a resident requesting a roommate mediation, CAs were advised to ask the resident to visit them during their individual “office hours” — set at specific time windows on specific days — or refer them to another CA. This practice compromises many CAs’ goals of being attentive and accessible to their residents.

Nor do the CAs have the “flexibility” to work “fewer hours” as Lennon alleged. That is, none of the job responsibilities, such as weekly staff meetings or the newly implemented weekly three-hour “office hours,” are optional. And it is hard to believe that a CA choosing to work fewer hours would not face any disciplinary actions. Consequently, the hourly model is “flexibility” in falsehood and a disguise for significantly underpaying and devaluing the importance of CAs.  

Almost 20% Positions Cut 

Another major change to the 2026-27 CA position includes a nearly 20% cut, reducing the total number of CAs from more than 60 in previous years to only 50. Though the number of CAs for the First-Year Quad remains the same, the ratio between residents and CAs in non-first-year dorms rises 50% to roughly 45 residents per CA (compared to around the 1:22 ratio in the first-year dorms), and multiple CAs are responsible for individually overseeing up to 80 residents. Moreover, some non-first-year CAs under the new model are assigned to an area of several dorms, meaning there is no longer at least one live-in CA. The CAs who used to recall the names of the residents living in their hallways are now tasked with juggling not only multiple floors but, much more commonly, several residence halls. In one extreme case, one CA has to walk for about 10 minutes from one residence hall to another they are assigned to oversee — imagine that in the snow. 

The position cut unnecessarily takes away the potential of the interpersonal relationship that the CAs could develop with their residents. The CA is no longer the familiar face who lives in the hallway, but a hasty figure who comes and goes, and the names of the residents on their rosters are no longer potential relationships they could develop, but a tiny font in the expansive Excel sheet. 

Further, the absence of live-in CAs in multiple dorms also contributes to a sense of insecurity among residents. In light of the recent trespassing incident in the first week of class, multiple residents shared they could no longer rely on their CAs who were more aware of the unfamiliar faces and more comfortable with emergency procedures. 

Unpreparedness and Inconsistency of Supervising 

Area coordinators serve as direct supervisors to CAs, but for the past two consecutive years, the Office of Community Living has lost two area coordinators annually, and as of this writing, half of the six area coordinators were hired this July.

During the August training, it became abundantly clear to many CAs that their direct supervisors were unprepared. When the CAs met with their respective area coordinators on multiple occasions during the training, the recently hired area coordinators were often themselves bewildered by the changes to the CA position and regularly asked returning CAs for clarification. The inadequate training the area coordinators received directly resulted in CAs receiving differing and conflicting messages, and CAs often had to direct the questions to the supervisor of their supervisors for clarification.

The junior area coordinators are not at fault here, as their more senior colleagues also routinely sought additional clarification from their supervisor. The area coordinators’ lack of preparedness, therefore, exposes not only inadequate training, but a larger issue of the managerial team at the Office of Community Living. It remains evident to many CAs that the managerial team is still scrambling to figure out exact logistics of the newly implemented CA model and repeatedly relies on ad hoc workarounds when prompted by the area coordinators and fellow CAs.

Further, with all the changes to this year’s CA position, the managerial team from Student Affairs and the Office of Community Living purportedly dictated the changes without soliciting public comments from area coordinators, CAs, or residents alike. Reportedly, the area coordinators, though working much more closely with the CAs and residents than the managerial team, had no say in this year’s CA position change and were first briefed on it the same week the change was announced to all CAs. Amid these changes, area coordinators confided surprise and apprehension during private conversations with CAs.

The hasty and improvisational rollout of the new CA model illustrates the Student Affairs and the Office of Community Living’s reactive, trial-and-error mindset, rather than a deliberate operational plan. By failing to contemplate how each change realistically impacts students, they are leaving this community at the mercy of their whims. 

Inside the Bargaining Room

The college (and its attorneys) made it clear from the very first bargaining session that they would prefer to make as little progress as possible and delay the ratification and adoption of the contract. In almost every bargaining session over the summer, it followed that the Bargaining Committee introduced and presented the proposed articles, the college then left the room to caucus, only returning an hour later abruptly ending the session. That is, instead of countering our proposed articles in each bargaining session, followed by debate, caucus, reconcile, and tentative agreement, the college decided to prematurely conclude each bargaining session with neither tentative agreement nor offering substantial counters. 

The Bargaining Committee, however, is not alone at the bargaining table with the college and its attorneys. In May this year, with another unanimous vote, the ACCAU officially affiliated with the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, which has since then been offering training and sitting with the Bargaining Committee in each bargaining session. Affiliating with a parent union not only connects us with experienced bargaining negotiators and ensures a fair ratification of the first labor contract, but in the long term, safeguards the longevity of this union even after students’ graduation. 

When closely examining the history of Amherst, one finds that the student-led movements tended to wind down as the trailblazers left the college. However, through our affiliation with an external parent union, we ensure the ACCAU’s longevity in representing the voices of all future CAs to secure competitive wages, reliable job security, and the power to shape their own job responsibilities. 

Affiliating with the external union does not mean, as the college has accused in one bargaining session, that we are being externally manipulated. It is quite the opposite: though we use a boilerplate version of the contracts the CA unions at Mount Holyoke College and Smith College ratified with their respective colleges, the Bargaining Committee has invested more than double the hours they spent inside the bargaining room tailoring the contract to the specific structure of the residential life at Amherst, the needs of Amherst students, and the grievances of the Amherst CAs. The college’s accusation is thus baseless. 

The Bargaining Committee aims to reach full agreement and contract ratification by year’s end, and we call on the college to make every biweekly bargaining session productive, constructive, and grounded in good faith. 

Conclusion

Last September, still naively believing I could make CAs’ voices heard through the CA Advisory Group, I was asked to speak before the Board of Trustees to share my experience as a CA shaping Amherst residential life. To many of the trustees’ liking, I used a simile comparing the role of CA to making the dorms feel less like a hotel and more like a hostel. That is, through daily interactions between the CAs and residents, alongside the programmings the CAs intentionally carry out to bring residents together, the dorms are no longer simply rooms for rest (i.e., a hotel) but a place where interpersonal relationships, peer support, and deep-seated camaraderie are constantly initiated, developed, and refined (i.e., a hostel). The arbitrary, drastic, and hasty changes the college chose to carry out this year, however, are significantly undermining this ideal.

We are not fighting against the college, as our unionizing effort and collective bargaining align closely with the purpose of the education we receive from Amherst. We are fighting against bureaucracy and the administrators’ dictation of how and how much we are paid, how we do our jobs, and how we are valued as student employees. We are fighting against hasty decision-making processes without engaging in dialogues, soliciting opinions, and deliberation on ramifications. We are fighting to safeguard the potential of residential life at Amherst. 

When the college announced the changes to the CA position last November, I remembered how silent the room was. Now, however, we make our bewilderment, frustration, and anger loud and clear.