After a large number of staff and faculty took advantage of a retirement incentive St. Thomas offered, the university is working to fill 43 new staff positions out of the 72 openings, according to Mark Vangsgard, vice president for business affairs and chief financial officer.

Employment Services Manager Therese Sheehan said such a high volume of positions is more challenging than usual.

“There are a lot of positions to fill, so it’s created a backlog,” Sheehan said. “I think we are caught up, or close to. The volume is exponentially higher than what we typically deal with.”

Despite the backlog, Executive Assistant to the President Susan Alexander said the university is handling the process efficiently.

“There’s going to have to be lots more mentoring and transition planning, but the challenge should pay off as long as we do a good job of it, get the right people and have a holistic view of the institution,” Alexander said.

Getting everything processed in a timely manner is the most difficult obstacle, according to Michelle Thom, associate vice president of Human Resources.

“A lot of the departments need someone as soon as possible, so we’re working to try to find the best qualified candidate to fill the role and at the same time meet the expectations of the department,” Thom said.

Alexander said the situation also presents the university with an opportunity to be more efficient.

“Departments were expected to take a serious look at what they needed,” Alexander said.

Because of advanced technology, some departments may no longer need as much manpower, whereas others may be expanding or subtracting certain roles. This restructuring also adds time to the process, Thom said.

“With any department, there is an opportunity to look at business needs and determine ‘do we need the same type of individual, or is this an opportunity to make some changes,’” Sheehan said. “I think management has done a good job in stepping back and looking at what the business needs are.”

Senior Jennifer Murtha said she thinks an influx of new faculty and staff will provide St. Thomas with new ideas.

“I think it’s great – having new people enter the school … I think it just keeps us fresh, keeps us new,” Murtha said. “We lose some experience and expertise in the field, but in that we gain a new perspective from new people.”

Junior Mitchell Klein agreed that it will offer new perspective, but also noted that St. Thomas is losing valued professors.

“It’ll probably be good and bad,” Klein said. “It adds a bit more freshness to the program, but is also kind of sad because a lot of the loved professors are leaving. I know at least in the math department, we have one retiring and a few going on sabbatical, so they’re kind of scrambling to get positions filled.”

Thom said Human Resources partners and the specific departments are collaborating to identify the hiring priorities and meet them.

Even though a large number of faculty and staff retired, Alexander said it won’t be too noticeable because the open positions are widespread.

“It’ll have spotty impact,” Alexander said. “It’s spread over a large number of departments.”

Since it takes longer to hire faculty, Alexander added that St. Thomas may use more adjuncts this fall while most new faculty will be starting in fall 2015. However, she said it will not have significant impact on next semester’s academics.

“I think we’re in good shape,” Alexander said. “We miss our old colleagues, but we’re looking forward to new working relationships.”

Simeon Lancaster can be reached at lanc4637@stthomas.edu.