Hey guys, my supervisors caused quite a commotion among the student staff by telling us that graduating RAs have to stay a few days after their graduation ceremony to help close residence halls. I've been trying to ask around to see how other institutions do this, if they require any or all student staff to stay after commencement, but I haven't gotten many answers.
But for some explanation, part of the issue that we're currently trying to work out is that the supervisors keep bringing up that it's in our contract, but no RAs seem to have a copy of the contract so we have nothing to review. Whether or not it's in the contract, the real issue remains that several seniors have explained that they have other obligations after graduation, and some are confused how they're supposed to travel home if their families are coming on a Saturday to watch them graduate but they aren't supposed move out of campus housing until the following Tuesday. And since seniors in past years were allowed to leave after commencement while underclass RAs stayed to finish closing residence halls, none of them were planning on that. Through email exchanges, we were told that RAs will be charged for every day they miss between the time they leave campus and the end date of our contract.
In other words, the major issue is that since our only compensation as RAs is free housing and meal plan, they're threatening to charge us for housing and meals for each day of our contract we miss as per our contract. For example, if senior RAs leave the day of graduation, they'll be charged for I think four days of housing and meals. Is this enforceable? I know we'll have to see what we signed in the contract to be sure, but assuming the contract says nothing about a consequence for leaving before the contract end date, are they actually allowed to charge seniors who leave after commencement for housing that they won't be using and a few days of meal plans that expire two days before graduation, therefore preventing students from getting their diplomas and transcripts until they pay this charge? In contrast, several RAs quit last semester, and those who quit before the semester ended were not charged for housing and meals.