Kenosha County Eye has concluded a multi-month investigation into allegations from Gateway Technical College employees that the College’s President, Ritu Raju (D) is doing a terrible job. Raju is a “woke” educator that prioritized diversity, equity and inclusion. She works from home about three days per week according to many sources. Plainly put, she is doing a poor job and most of the faculty and staff have noticed. Board Chairman, Rebecca Matoska-Mentink (D) is also the Kenosha County Clerk of Courts and a failed candidate for County Executive. She isn’t willing to talk about it the failed leadership of Raju, in fact she supports Raju 100% – so do the other eight board members. Those who want new leadership at the college, which is funded by tax dollars, shouldn’t hold their breath.
In early November, 2023, KCE was tipped off about a survey that was recently completed. The survey was conducted by a third party company called “Energage.” This company does surveys all over the country. They do many hundreds of surveys for other colleges and universities.
The company invited 601 faculty members and staffers to participate in the survey. Of those, 445, or 74%, responded. This is more than the average response rate of 61% participation. This suggests that the faculty and staff of GTC were highly motivated to participate in the survey.
On December 19, 2023, KCE made a public records request for the survey. It wasn’t until three months later that we received it. When we reviewed the survey, we could see why they violated the Wisconsin Public Records law that says the government must provide the requested documents “as soon as practicable and without delay.” The results painted a picture of a college that doesn’t value its employees.
Most of the college’s departments rank the college and leadership in the bottom 5% of colleges and universities in the United States. Only two departments in the college gave above average scores. 62% of GTC employees have considered searching for a better job in the past month. Only 48% would highly recommend working at GTC. The former is 16% worse than the average and the latter, 24% worse. Another section of the survey shows that the longer someone works at GTC, the worse they like their job.
We then showed this survey to a faculty member at GTC. “This isn’t the entire survey,” he quickly barked. “I’ve seen the entire survey and they didn’t give it all to you, nor did the President give the entire survey to the board.”
As many can image, KCE doesn’t take kindly to the government taking too long to release records, but we absolutely despise it when the government hides and withholds records even more. That’s what happened here. KCE had to send a letter to Quarles and Brady, GTC’s legal counsel and threaten to sue. Yesterday we got the entire report, only after threatening legal action. The comments from faculty and staff filled man dozens of pages with nasty comments criticizing the president, the VP’s and more. Again, we can see why GTC violated the Wisconsin Public Records laws, because the information was detrimental to the staff and leadership.
Here are some of the comments in this new, secret report:
Of course, we reached out to Raju for comments. She didn’t have anything to say. Lee Colony, a GTC spokesman, however, was nice enough to respond to KCE. He wrote, in part:
“The college does take the results of the survey seriously and we want to be transparent with you in that our leadership is working to address these concerns internally. That also includes partnering with Energage to give us an outside voice to suggest some action items to tackle these issues head on.
Gateway’s employees are its greatest resource and have the ability to change the lives of students, families and the community, and the college wants to ensure a positive workplace. That includes making sure our leaders have the resources to ensure this takes place.
Finally, we have had some large leadership changes here at Gateway around the time the survey was taken, with our top three leaders retiring almost at the same time. Sometimes change at the top creates apprehension, which may have been reflected in the survey.”
Indeed, there was a new change in leadership. The former president, Bryan Albrecht (D), retired in the fall of 2022. However, Raju couldn’t do the job alone, so Albrecht continued to work until the Spring of 2023. He then started a consulting group called “BDA Consulting,” a name bearing his initials. He then made $20,000 over the span of eight months doing tough work for the college, you know, like going to Las Vegas on the taxpayer’s dime.
Albrecht was the president who spent $135,000 fighting a special needs student over a “B-“. Albrecht also refused to discipline a WGTD-radio employee that incited rioting and looting. WGTD is owned by GTC and is a state-sponsored media outlet that receives very-low readership.
Whike Albrrcht didn’t respond specifically to questions about his failed leadership, he did have the following to say to KCE:
“Gateway is an important asset for the students, employers and citizens of southeast Wisconsin. I am grateful to have been part of an institution that provides opportunities for students to succeed in their chosen career paths. “
Both old and new president have allowed the spending of tens of thousands of dollars on Charcultary. Even after we exposed this wasteful spending, the college is still buying the gourmet food for its employees. It’s apparently still an expensive gesture, but not quite enough to make the employees happy.
KCE reached out to all of the board members. The Chairman, Rebecca Matoska-Mentink didn’t respond. We heard from:
Scott Pierce – “Thank you for your email. Protocol with any inquiries from the Media regarding any issues with the college must go through our Board Chair, Matoska-Mentink. Therefore, I am copying her on this email response encouraging you to contact her directly.”
Jason Tadlock – “The Board President provides any public comment to media inquiries on behalf of the trustees. I am sure Rebekah will be happy to answer your questions. I have no further comment on the matter. “ He spelled the chairman’s name incorrectly and he was wrong, Rebecca wasn’t happy to answer any questions.
The prospect of these board members giving up their first amendment rights to serve on a board in which they care so little about is telling to many employees of GTC.
No other trustees responded at all to questions about the damaging survey. Below is the executive summary and full survey that were completed. Raju earns $270,000 plus many other financial perks. Her contract is up June 30, 2024, but the board Chairman, Matoska Mentink has already promised to renew it.
BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Rebecca Matoska-Mentink
Chairperson
[email protected](link sends e-mail)
Jason Tadlock
Vice Chairperson
[email protected](link sends e-mail)
D. Benjamin DeSmidt
Secretary
[email protected](link sends e-mail)
Zaida Lange-Irisson
Treasurer
[email protected](link sends e-mail)
Jesse Adams [email protected](link sends e-mail)
Ram Bhatia
[email protected](link sends e-mail)
William Duncan
[email protected](link sends e-mail)
R. Scott Pierce
[email protected](link sends e-mail)
Pamela Zenner-Richards
[email protected](link sends e-mail)
77 Responses
If I remember correctly, several decades ago, Gateway routinely made the list of the best places to work in Wisconsin.
That was a long time ago in galaxy far, far, away.
Same goes for Kenosha county. Some many of these woke leaders prioritize racial ethics and diversity. When it truly is a joke. Kenosha county has a position that pays almost 100k a year strictly for racial ethics and diversity in the workplace. Couldn’t tell you what she does. Ever since Clara tappa has taken over as hr director things get worse and worse every year.
Ask Kenosha News employees what they thought of Clara? She was a train wreck for a small company running Kenosha County she is way over her head.
She ran them into the ground and now she is doing the same to the county!! She wants to run it like a cooperation do more with less. Finding ways to save money taking from the workers that keep this county going while “she , her” comes out on top. She needs to go! We need people that have the interest of the tax payers and the workers ,not just trying to show how woke and progressive we are as a county. Kenosha county government needs an overhaul !!!
very far away indeed! I would never set foot on that campus these days
Gateway sounds like quite the hellhole according to that report. Is any taxpayer-funded entity in Kenosha County even functional anymore?
Some days i don’t think it can get worse & it does.
How many directors does GTC need? Every time I turn around there’s another announcemrnt of another one. GTC has way too many directors look at website.
Just wait for it to get worse with some of the new board members that will come on. If the Carolyn woman gets on it’ll be even worse as she is a radical that supports the LGBT alphabet community.
F the perverse
Dr. Raju is very oppressive. Her culture impacts her understanding of what’s happening and how she perceived people. She’ll retaliate and sic the hr department on those who even dare challenge her.
Sounds like this person knows what is going on there. Who were the people who voted for her and what does she make per year?
Rita Raju was an equity hire and as a result she is ill prepared to run any institution of higher learning.
Great work on digging up the truth with survey results Kevin.
Corruption in the usa is destroying the country as we know it.
Is Gateway limited by state or county law as to tax levy limits?
To read the survey pages click on the arrows in the upper right hand of the “What makes you hesitate to recommend working at Gateway Technical College?”
The more you review the report you realize the taxpayers are subsidizing a real clown show and bunch of losers with no one responsible stepping up to stop the madness.
“Vos requested the amendment, with the instructions to increase property tax relief aid to technical colleges and “eliminate the operating levy for technical colleges beginning with the 2023-24 fiscal year.”
https://www.wpr.org/education/documents-speaker-robin-vos-pushed-eliminate-technical-college-taxing-authority
GTC administration is a joke. They need to clean house of all the high level admins. The reason they’re throwing Raju under the bus is so they can hire an internal VP, one who they can control. It’s likely an internal VP who is creating all this negative publicity for her. Albrecht was a criminal who stole from the taxpayers. They want Janisin or Riley as president so they can keep their cronyism alive and well. Drain the swamp, get rid of all those who worked for Albrecht and you’ll see progress!
Very true. She is making the tough decisions and it has thrown the leftist liberal faculty and staff into a tizzy. Bryan left gateway in a fiscal mess, with student enrollment down 30 percent or more. Raju is cutting, cutting, cutting and the legacy folks don’t like it. Other VPs and staff foment this rebellion.
Anything is possible, they have deans then hire associate deans. What’s next associate directors?
I briefly worked there as an adjunct instructor, a few years ago. I taught the class per the syllabus that was provided by the department. Several students rarely showed up for class and also did not turn in assignment even close to on-time. Per the syllabus, I would deduct points from their grades for late work. I was quickly taken aside by the department chair and told “We can’t be so hard on them, because they might not come back and we’re measured by that.” It was then that I realized that the syllabus was nothing more than a document to appease the accreditors, not worth the paper it was printed on. How this school, that hands out degrees to students that don’t earn them, has any credibility with industry is beyond me. If you want a meaningless degree, by all means, get it from Gateway.
You should see the quality of some of their graduates. They can barely read and can’t right. The started doing multiple measures which doesn’t just look at SAT/ACT scores, but things like HS gpa. With massive grad inflation for failing feessr schools, people with no business being in college attend, drop out, and are saddled with debt. Gateway is actually harming these students.
“barely read and can’t right” Seriously, you just wrote that?
Get over it. Quick typing on a small phone keyboard. I know the difference between right and write.
Do you mean “barely read and can’t WRITE?” Based on your comment, I’d assume you went to Gateway! LOLOLOLOLOL
What year did you graduate from Gateway?
Looks like your such an idiot. Maybe use a dictionary next time. It’s write, not right, kinda hard to make your point when you can’t even figure out how to write.
*you’re
Looks like your such an idiot. Maybe use a dictionary next time. It’s you’re, not your, kinda hard to make your point when you can’t even figure out how to write.
Sorry. I’m a gateway graduate.
Can’t right? lol
My daughter went there and never did get her degree because they kept cancelling classes. Then when she transferred to UWM, she found that a lot of her credits did not transfer with her. A horror story I heard from students when I taught there. As an instructor, I did not have a classroom to call my own, even though I had to teach labs. I was forced to squat in someone else’s lab, of which I was able to use one cabinet. One experiment required sunlight, so I put them in a window, only to have them removed because it looked “unsightly”. Student attendance was abysmal, but you couldn’t do anything about it without being reprimanded. My entire program was cut rather abruptly because I did speak up at the college forums; my credentials were cut so fast I wasn’t even able to post final grades. I had a very strong e-mail exchange with Bryan, but he was such a corporate shill for Foxconn and other donors to the college that it fell on deaf ears. I never viewed GTC as liberal; quite the opposite. We were told to recruit for Foxconn as they had an office on campus “or else”. Minority staff who complained were bought off with nice fat promotions to the upper echelon, only to become Gateway cheerleaders; white staff had programs cut to save money. (I hate to use “Anonymous”, but the retribution is real.)
This was a bad choice and the board has to find the lawful path to do what needs to be done. Not commenting on personnel matters is not unusual and may be sound to prevent future costly litigation. I would buy lunch on the board not renewing the contract. The survey certainly gives them the ammunition to move in that direction.
Getting rid of her is only part of the problem. The school is becoming top heavy with administration which dilutes services.
Want to talk about the circus!?
Hire a clown to run the show and that’s what you get. Want to make it even more entertaining? Create an executive board that are professional clowns and now you have the real circus!
Sounds like communist Gateway is shaking a little? People are afraid to speak up because of losing their jobs??
Yup… a communist clown show. Sounds very entertaining
What is she cutting? They are hiring more to cover for people who don’t work. Example a controller was hired last year, she doesn’t work so looking for assistant controller. Too many incompetent people. HR had good survey results, they are grossly overpaid & overstaffed. Too many jobs are posted internally so they can promote incompetent people who don’t have a clue. Look at latest HR promotions, those jobs weren’t even posted. They don’t want external people, theyll tell them what isnt ethical. HR should be investigated. College has a surplus of money, I don’t but have to pat taxes to fund the, WTF!!
The board is responsible for hiring her and so is responsible for correcting its mistake. Hire a leader and not a person who fits a certain narrative or image. That will take integrity and courage. Let’s see if that exists at Gateway.
It’s like Gateway and Parkside are in a race to hit the side of the mountain. Shut ’em down financially and let them sink or swim as private institutions. We can fix the current wefty edjamkator thought-speak, but we should be able to vote to recuse ourselves from paying for it.
Gateway is a great place to work if you’re incompetent or lazy. They never get rid of the wasters. There are highly paid administrators that spend most of their time traveling to committees on other campuses and soaking up the tax free mileage reimbursements. In fact, many of the employees there from clerical staff up to VPs have unnecessary meetings that could be done virtually or handled in an email just to get the mileage reimbursements. They should do an audit on how much that costs us.
Thank you for sharing this. I teach at Gateway. Our admin did not share all these comments with the faculty and staff, and now I can see why. When I started here, I marveled at how positive the workplace was compared to other institutions where I have taught. With our leadership change the mood is very negative now. Many of the instructors are not sure if they will have a job in the near future. Admin is constraining how we operate based on doom and gloom forecasts of population decline and enrollment cliffs, yet our enrollments are up in most areas. Despite how bad this makes us look, I do feel we do good work here overall and most of us do good, if not great, work for our community. We help the residents of our 3 county district train themselves for gainful employment with area employers, which helps to support families, and improves our whole area. The new admin leaders are looking at what we do in terms of profit/loss, and economic measures of efficiency, without calculating the positive impact of that successful students have on our area, both economically and socially. I realize that many of the readers on this site want to blame equity and diversity concerns, but that frankly is complete BS. Holding funding hostage based on offering diversity programs is part of the reason admin is trying to tighten up operations. The problem is simply poor management decisions without involving the stakeholders (the community, the students, the instructors, and the front-line support staff). We look at changing the student to teacher ratio so that teachers must take on more students to earn the same pay (somewhat understandable), but we do NOT consider the administrator to student ratio which has grown significantly over the last decade. We are inefficiently top heavy, with too many VPs, and directors. Those that actually do the work of teaching and helping students succeed are being overworked, mistreated, and disrespected. We cannot just blame the college president, but also those in charge of the academic affairs and their shortsighted visions. Most of our leadership simply does not understand what we do, because they have never done it. We are also cancelling classes before students get a chance to enroll. In many cases students must wait up to a year for a course to be offered again, and the admin thinks it is ok. The students are angry too. Some students’ degrees and certificates are being cancelled while in progress, all based on silly metrics and technicalities – they are not being allowed to finish. What they don’t realize, is that other technical colleges in our state who often offer identical programs are willingly grabbing up our students via online offerings. At the same time we are being punished for poor metrics which results from classes being canceled that in the past would have run, which hurts graduation rates. Even in areas of strong growth (Nursing and STEM fields being a good example), things are being constrained and limited. It just simply makes no sense. We are NOT a business. We a public institution serving the needs of our community. When we take a look at the UW system, where enrollments are in significant decline, it makes sense – 4 year schools are expensive and not focused on training people for jobs. Our enrollments are up, and they should go higher as people realize that a technical education is much better for getting a job than most 4 year degrees. Our instructors know the skills needed for employment, because all of us must show significant experience in our field before we can teach in our areas – not true for most university professors. We succeed at helping people succeed despite what negativity abounds right now. I find it shameful frankly that this must be reported like this. Gateway is a truly a great institution (or used to be). We have (mostly) quality people working here who truly care about what we do. It is amazing how quickly things can sour with poor leadership. I am ashamed in many ways to even feel compelled to respond in this fashion, but as you can tell, we have problems here, someone must say something. The problems are fixable however. I do fear that until this situation gets fixed, we will lose many of the quality people we have here, and the quality of instruction will decline. Not sure what else to say, but these are sad days at Gateway.
You’re right on many points but you’re wrong about DEI. DEI does not result in any improvement in excellence, but rather quite the opposite. It reduces standards so that lower qualified minorities have a leg up. It’s justified in the name of DEI itself. In fact, Henry Rogers said that you must undo past discrimination with current discrimination, and he is one of the most idiotic leaders of this movement. DEI is filled with a hatred of white people, American history, and Western civilization, with the goal of destroying it and rebuilding something new. The very people complaining about these things are the ones benefiting most from our Western view of equal opportunity and freedom.
This issue, despite those who promote this rotten ideology, is already settled.
https://youtu.be/FrzvzkDOB0I?si=xeGTNJ__YSvjFoXt
https://youtu.be/1lPl80AqMDU?si=6NpaFQuDcPka9HMn
The Energage survey wasn’t great when Bryan was there and now the issues have gotten worse. They hired a consultant to tell supervisors if they’re not happy, leave. The quality of employees is unheard of anywhere else. A clerical employee with only a high school diploma making more then employees with degrees. Granted she’s been there a long time but salary should have been capped many years ago since no initiative to get a degree. Director of Buget who doesn’t even have an accounting degree. Bryan given a bonus to stay years ago, they should have let him go. The list goes on. Most white females are treated the worse. Minorities are favored which I’ve heard was also done at Ritu’s prior employment. Her weekly videos are very poor quality, at least have your lips match rhe words. How can a college have so many overpaid uneducated people? Only at GTC. What can we do as taxpayers?
How can a person get a job in finance without an account degree? At Gateway you can, you don’t have to do a lot of work and earn more than those that work! Gateway has been known to hire unqualified people and MATC rejects, there have been a few.
Because you can get a finance degree to work in finance.
Usually an accounting degree
When I attended for my associates degrees in accounting we had an instructor named Jill B. She rarely showed up for class & when she did she was dressed sloppy. She didn’t post homework like she’d tell us she would. That year she received a faculty award. I was upset, I was there to learn. She was suppose to be teaching accounting principles 1 (I think that was the class name). The next semester when we took accounting principles 2 we told instructor we hadn’t learned anything. What a joke.
Gateway used to be state of the art but hashed difficulty keeping up with the times and changing needs. It isn’t all bad but has become way more bureaucratic.
A big problem, folks, is how higher education is run in this state. We used to have the University of Wisconsin-System, the state universities and the vocational and technical schools. A little over 50 years ago there was a reorganization. The two university systems were merged and there became a technical college system as well. Unlike other states in Wisconsin the two systems were barely frenemies and competed with instead of collaborating with each other. Kids from Kenosha could literally get Harvard to accept Gateway credits and UW wouldn’t. That has gotten a bit better over the years but still a lot of room for improvement. UW doesn’t like the more affordable technical colleges “stealing” their students.
How does this stack up with our neighbors? Let me use an example of a nursing student at a community college in Iowa where two tracks are offered: one-year LPN and two-year ADN/RN. So, what if you’re an LPN and you’d like to get your RN? Not a problem. You go back to the community college for an additional year plus one quarter and get your associate’s degree. You don’t lose credits. The programs are interfaced. Now what if you want to get a four year (or greater) nursing degree? Also no problem. Those community college credits are gladly accepted by the University of Iowa (and Iowa City is a pretty neat town, too).
Let’s go north to Minnesota. Like Iowa and Wisconsin there are vocational programs that are not credit earning college courses. But if you’re in a college program, regardless of whether it’s a two-year or four-year school, there’s a (literal) checklist of core course areas that every student must satisfy to get a two-year or four-year degree. And those credits may be earned and will be accepted at ALL Minnesota state-funded colleges and universities (plus UW River Falls).
We need to get this level of interfacing in Wisconsin, no excuses.
I am a staunch defender of Gateway despite its problems, especially many of the people at the top. I speak first hand when I say that I’ve seen Gateway and its predecessors be a life changing experience for thousands of people. It was one of the best things about Kenosha. It’s a shame that it’s been allowed to get bloated and out-of-touch. It used to be a place where everybody knew your name and people cared.
I have a doctoral degree. I also have credits from Gateway. I first attended it in the eighth grade. There were some awesome instructors and courses — some as good as or even better than Parkside or Carthage. (One introductory level class I took at Gateway was the exact equivalent of the second semester course at Carthage!). The good teachers and staff deserve appreciation and respect. The buffoons and slackers bring everyone down. Gateway and schools like it are absolutely essential for Kenosha and other communities in Wisconsin. But Gateway has often been mismanaged. Programs can become outdated and new, relevant courses hard to come by. They need to do a better job of adapting to the needs of employers.
I also want to talk about Gateway students who are very diverse, some fresh out of high school (or even in school, as I was) and others much older from whom younger students learned more about life in the real world, something often missing in colleges. One of my classes there required students to give an extemporaneous speech. One guy in his 50’s who was rebuilding his life stood up and talked about his battle with alcoholism. You could hear a pin drop. The kids in that class got a valuable lesson that day.
There are some people who look down at Gateway students. They are utterly ignorant. Unlike a four-year school where you get two years to screw around and then get serious about a major when you go to Gateway you’re in your program on day one. You have to be MORE focused AND disciplined. You’re there for an education, not to screw off. I have enormous respect for students who roll up their sleeves and get down to the business of learning. They deserve more respect than they get but the image problem is made worse by incompetent and bloated administration that worries more about perpetuating its existence than serving the students and employers in southeastern Wisconsin. They are taking a once good community college and driving it downhill. Hell, even the website is a joke. Horribly difficult to navigate.
I am saying all of this and taking the time to write it because I know how good that school once was and how good it could and should be if the people who should care really did. Gateway, with few exceptions, has become its own little world and increasingly isolated from those it was missioned to serve.
And then there’s WGTD which is partially a bright spot but also a disappointment. Here’s why. WGTD was started as part of a radio broadcasting curriculum and was staffed by professionals and students learning the trade. It was all local. Local broadcasting, unfortunately, has been decimated and there are fewer career opportunities so the Gateway program was correspondingly downsized. WGTD has a few employees left but for the most part is an affiliate of Wisconsin Public Radio. That’s not necessarily bad but it isn’t what WGTD once was. Still, with how little local news is actually reported in the mainstream media, our little public radio station does, to at least a limited extent, try to fill some of the gap. I wish they had a larger local news staff because we sure need it.
OK, Kevin, I, and others have talked up Gateway’s woes but we haven’t offered much of a solution. I’m going to take a stab by citing what happened several years ago at UW-Parkside.
Parkside has a rich history. Kenosha and Racine had a deep but friendly competition for one of the two new four-year UW campuses that would open in 1970. The “compromise” was to locate it between the two cities and call it UW-Parkside (unlike the other new campus, UW-Green Bay). People who didn’t have college degrees, such as Assemblyman George Molinaro, fought hard to get a campus here. People literally gave their land for that school. The mission was to serve the people of Kenosha and Racine. And Irv Wyllie, the first chancellor, knew that.
But after Irv things got crazy. Parkside got too big for its britches, bringing in eastern liberals like Alan Guskin who disarmed the university police and wanted to run the school like some wannabe Ivy League-junior campus. Other chancellors were equally as goofy and out of touch. Parkside seriously lost its way. Even Carthage had much more of a community connection. Finally the light came on for the regents and the UW system after a revolving door of chancellors. UW system president Katherine Lyall came down and had meetings with community leaders to ascertain, “What the Hell is wrong with Parkside.” We told her about how the campus came to be, what it was supposed to be and how it lost its way by the succession of goofy leaders who were out of touch and off track.
Madison listened and Jack Keating came down from Alaska to become the new chancellor. Lines of communication with the community began to be repaired. The son of a Seattle cop, Jack treated the university police as professionals and with respect they hadn’t had for over 20 years. They went back to being a real law enforcement agency. It seemed like much of the damage was being repaired but then Jack retired and the new regime in Madison came up with Debbie Ford — not as bad as Jack’s predecessors but not Jack, either.
So, if the powers-that-be reached out to me as they did 25 years ago and asked me what was the one thing they could do to help fix Gateway, I’d tell them to find a clone of Jack Keating.
Thanks for reading.
P.S.: To add about Jack Keating. It’s one thing to hang around with silver spoon folks and another to pound the beat, so to speak. I saw plenty of instances where the big kahuna on campus would go to bat to help a student or their family. Not so busy or so uppity as to not be able to lend a hand. That’s leadership.
Thanks for sharing this interesting and enlightening history. You’ve made many great points. Leadership matters. And unfortunately, it sounds like Gateway doesn’t have that now.
Gateway is mostly good, but they have a lot of toxic employees and they tend to promote people who lack the skills for the position and then make others do the actual work. Secretaries and others here are grossly overpaid for all the sloppy work they produce, but their bosses refuse to hold them accountable. This kind of poor management tends to create an unhappy work environment and you are seeing the result. This once a year survey is the only time people can voice their dissatisfaction because the managers don’t want to hear it. Faculty should not be cleaning up a lazy secretary’s errors. They should test people before gifting them with a good paying job here as I suspect half of the clerical workers lack the basic skills for the job and they are paid well.
Exactly some secretaries are coddled until their supervisor or dean retires and the new person doesn’t want them because they are highly incompetent. They should have been fired years ago but Gateway stills keeps them knowing their incompetent & moves them to another department. Not fair to the department that gets them. When I started Gateway was still paying for a few secretaries to use Word Perfect. They call this a technical college??
not surprising, picking on colored folk again. who are you, “mr keven, to point out colored folk’s poor performance reviews. you just do not understand the suffering that colored folk went through as slave people. give them a break and celebrate their poor performance, violent tendencies, raping, poor table manners ect. shameful reporting making fun of the inferior black folks and racist as usual.
Bringing up slaves, were you one? If so you must be 200 years old.
It’s your dumb shit that’s the problem. You’re not a victim. Stop it.
I’m not sure why I just read, are you mad?
Things are very messy.
As a current employee of Gateway, I can confirm there are a lot of very frustrated employees and faculty. The new President has done nothing to earn the trust of the employees and faculty. She takes all the credit and none of the blame, this is not a good strategy for success or to get people to trust you. The VPs are not after her job, these are very hard working and dedicated people that could find new jobs tomorrow. They stay because they believe in Gateway and want to see the college succeed. Things are not going to get better until the President recognizes they have ownership for the success of the college. It appears that this role is just a check mark on their personal growth story, she won’t be here long, but the damage will be done. People that work for Gateway love Gateway and its mission to help change people’s lives. This is why they stay at Gateway. There is a good reason for the lack of trust with leadership at Gateway people are overworked, overlook, undervalued, underutilized, blamed and shamed. There is a lack of accountability for poor performance and decision making, which negatively impacts everyone around them. There is a lack of appreciation for skill sets and professional expertise. There is no two-way communication in decision making. These things are very real, and it takes listening with an open mind and desire to actually change things. The people that work for Gateway are its most valuable asset, they make things happen every day. I just hope the President opens her eyes to this truth.
Why would they say they’re going to renew her contract when she hid parts of the Energage survey from the board.
The VPs aren’t hardworking too busy with useless meetings that don’t actually accomplish anything. Many are minorities like Ritu , they won’t get rid of them.
How much money was spent on holiday parties? Normally, they are potluck. We heard after the fact that food was purchased for meet & greet with Ritu. Then, they should have told employees beforehand if this was true.
Ritu isn’t the only one to talk out of both sides of her mouth. Many of the executives are liars.
Students aren’t priority to the executive staff, they just want the numbers which are probably inflated.
How Gateway gets accredited is amazing, is someone paying someone off?
Did Ritu attend the holiday parties? Probably not!! Wasted money on food once again. Gateway people don’t understand that college funds are supposed to be spent on STUDENTS not high wages for the incompetent or food. The college shouldn’t be providing coffee or water other than from the tap. Soda isn’t provided for those who don’t drink coffee. How much is spent on coffee & water?
Worse than that — Gateway HAS a Culinary Arts program. Dontcha think they should be using their own students and provide them with real world experience.
STOP!!! making sense!!! Sounds like dumb and dumber only care that they get their bonus money and the hell with students.
They do use them, but that food isn’t free.
How can a person get a job in finance without an account degree? At Gateway you can, you don’t have to do a lot of work and earn more than those that work! Gateway has been known to hire unqualified people and MATC rejects, there have been a few.
Between this and the international teacher unions behavior during covid, I think it’s safe to say that education has nothing to do with educating and any kind of funding referendum in any amount should automatically be voted down because every dime of it will be wasted, no matter what they do with it. We will have to continue importing doctors, engineers, and people who know the recipe for Soylent green, because we can only produce couch potatoes on our own, and millions of unskilled and semi-skilled illegal immigrants is not going to fill the bill. We don’t even need gang members and thieves to be produced locally since we are importing them in numbers we can’t begin to understand, but we sure will shortly.
Because you can get a finance degree to work in finance.
Zina Haywood, the former provost, who is herself a racist, was one of the more unqualified higher there. She and the administration handled COVID terribly, keeping the college lockdown for 18 months. Now they let nearly everybody work from home. You really think they’re working hard all day?
Interesting comments about Ritu, some people never change.
https://www.fwweekly.com/2022/11/02/taxpayer-funded-cover-ups/
I really hope Gateway can turn things around but if they don’t start researching before hiring, bad apples will get in at every level. Meanwhile, HR will continue to get promotions and raises that no one else will ever be able to get.
HR is larger than some big companies. Waste of taxpayer dollars. Need to get rid of Jacqueline & her department & start over. A lot of money could be saved. Highly doubt anything will happen since she’s a women of color like some of the other useless VPs.
HR is larger than some big companies. Waste of taxpayer dollars. Need to get rid of Jacqueline & her department & start over. A lot of money could be saved. Highly doubt anything will happen since she’s a women of color like some of the other useless VPs.
What is ratio between administrative & faculty, count & salaries??
Kenosha news used to publish the salaries of everyone at Gateway.
Get rid of Ritu, the executive staff and all the directors. GTC needs to start from scratch with people who value the students & the hardworking staff. New leaders than can get rid of the lazy & incompetent employees. Obviously current management can’t see or chooses not to see those not working. We have quite a few lazy people in our department. The one overpaid director doesn’t do what he’s suppose to do so they give the work to others. He also has two employees doing one job. Tired of seeing taxpayers money wasted on these idiots.
Be careful what you wish for. You know the old saying if everyone else is a problem, maybe you are the problem.
This week Town Hall meetings, doesn’t the survey explain the problems? The quantity of comments must have set a record. Not many employees willing to talk with direct supervisors, etc in the zoom meeting. Very doubtful Town Hall meeting will solve any of the issues. It’s just another way to vent and waste time.
We wondered how long it would take for everyone to figure out how horrible Raju is. She did the same thing at Tarrant County College in Texas. She was on a PIP when she left for the job there. A formal investigation revealed she created an impossible work environment. These documents can be requested via foia.
Seems like the problems never end there. Toxic indeed.
https://gatewaytechcollege5.wordpress.com/