St. Thomas students who were supposed to work on campus this summer have been forced to adjust their summer plans as the spread of COVID-19 has changed the format of many campus jobs.

“All university employees are expected to work from home unless they are considered an on-campus essential employee,” university President Julie Sullivan wrote in an email on March 23.

Essential employees include: those in campus safety, educational operations, residences, dining services, facilities, healthcare, Innovation and Technology Services, licensing and banking, time-sensitive research employees, spiritual car employees, professional services, Student Data and Registrar, those involved in minimum basic operations and other key services including Post Office staff.

Junior Tiaryn Daniels was looking forward to living on campus this summer while working as a full-time orientation leader.

“Usually, orientation leaders will work full-time for about a month but this year the hours are cut,” Daniels said. “It was especially inconvenient for me because the past two summers I worked on-campus jobs and they have provided free housing.”

Sophomore Isabelle Spooner was hoping to take advantage of free housing on campus and live in St. Paul this summer.

“I wanted to be an orientation leader, and it also comes with housing, which is really convenient considering I didn’t have a lease signed for this summer,” Spooner said. “I feel like sophomore year is when you try to start establishing yourself more in the cities, and I was really ready to do that.”

Associate Vice Provost for University Libraries Dan Gjelten explained in an email that he is still working on what student work will consist of this summer.

“Students can still work, but there is a process to go through,” Gjelten wrote. “Since the libraries are not open and probably won’t be for the coming weeks and months, we need to identify areas and functions that would be considered ‘essential’ for the summer.”

Junior Sophia Rouse has continued working at the library’s music and media collections as the staff transitions to working remotely.

“Luckily, my hours have been pretty much the same,” Rouse said. “I’m pretty sure some of the supervisors have been working even more hours now with everything going on, they have to work so hard to get things transitioned to be virtual.”

Sullivan encouraged students to continue the hard work while working remotely.

“For all employees who are working remotely, please work with your manager to continue to work and maintain university operations to the greatest extent possible,” Sullivan wrote. “This means you should create a remote work plan, be in touch with your manager whenever possible and think of tasks that you can perform that will help the university in the short-term and the long-term.”

Joey Swanson can be reached at swan5350@stthomas.edu.