assistant professor

dental assistant

patient accounts representative

maintenance technician

dental hygienist

Nova-Southeastern-University

What is the best part of working at the company?
Truthfully, the students who show ambition, passion for their work, and dedication are the ones who truly make going to work feel meaningful.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Lack of communication, neglectful behavior, little appreciation, etc. I’m honestly dying to leave this job because no matter how much work you put in, it never seems to be enough. At the end of the day, you as an individual are not taken seriously unless you’re in cahoots with someone of importance within your department or come from a wealthy background. Meanwhile, the regular everyday hire is often seen as incompetent despite holding the exact same credentials as their peers.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
This school once felt loving and truly like a community, but over time it has fallen into something unrecognizable. There no longer seems to be care, passion, or pride in the work being done—only pressure to produce something quickly, regardless of quality, in order to create photo opportunities, attract attention, secure funding, and recruit students into the department.

What is most disheartening is the impact this has had on education itself. Students deserve honesty and preparation for the realities of the careers they are pursuing, yet instead they are too often being sold false expectations and an inaccurate depiction of what these industries actually look like. Rather than preparing students for modern professional realities, impossible standards and misleading narratives are being upheld to disguise a system that is no longer functioning in the way it claims to.

That is what I find most upsetting—not only because it reflects poorly on the department (DCMA), but because students deserve better than to invest their time, money, and trust into expectations that are not grounded in reality

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
A typical day often feels like going above and beyond while simultaneously being expected to absorb the consequences of administrative mistakes and institutional shortcomings. You do your job to the absolute best of your ability, yet your efforts can still feel diminished because accountability does not always seem to exist at every level. Too often, those doing the day-to-day work are left carrying the blame while decisions made higher up go unquestioned. It becomes discouraging when hard work, dedication, and initiative are met not with support or recognition, but with additional responsibility and criticism for issues that were never within your control to begin with.

Additionally, it is extremely disheartening to hear from students that your work is being spoken poorly of or misrepresented behind your back by your own peers. What makes it even more disappointing is not criticism itself—critique is part of growth—but the unwillingness to have those conversations directly and respectfully. Professional environments should value communication, accountability, and mutual respect, yet too often concerns seem to circulate privately while basic courtesy and honest dialogue are overlooked.

When respect becomes conditional and accountability appears to travel downward rather than upward, it creates an environment where people feel undervalued despite giving their all. It becomes difficult to foster trust, collaboration, and passion for the work when conversations happen around people rather than with them.

NSU does not offer growth opportunities to their established employees. They seldom offer any training, career path or development.  They also stopped allowing employees to travel and go to conferences in order to learn and do their job effectively. The focus is solely on students and hence, employees are not valued or paid fairly. The executives at the university are getting paid RIDICULOUS salaries and they do very little. Employees are actively disengaged and demotivated.  Leadership decided to layoff 100+ positions but then after that, proceeded to give specific employees big increases to their salary. Perhaps a better decision would have been to shave off the executive salaries instead of laying off employees with tenure. The decision was strictly based on a vague study conducted by a third party. There is no transparency either which makes employees feel disconnected. NSU is steadily declining financially "budget cuts". They haven't offered merit increases in years stating there is not enough student enrollment but the president and his executives received increases consistently every year, including bonuses. It's unfair treatment and the work environment has become extremely toxic. There is no job security either, even after the layoffs they did nothing to reassure their employees they would be okay. When I started many years ago, there was a family feel and closeness between colleagues, not anymore. This is what happens with business people that think they can run a university.  Universities are not businesses. We do far more, we create and disseminate knowledge. We are the experts that allow businesses to do their work. NSU needs to reevaluate their mission as it is not working for employees or students. Student enrollment has declined severely because of many reasons, one comes to mind - employees/faculty/staff are not happy and are not working productively since they do not feel valued which could drive students away. In the meantime, they consider themselves a top notch university but cut all the IT employees out.  I do not recommend working at NSU, it is not stable, toxic work environment, they do not value their employees and they do not give employees increases to their pay but continue to pile on the work. We are doing so much more with so much less!

My work day stars by checking emails, voice mails, and fax. My responsibility is to make sure that children that cannot be seen in the dental clinic due to behavior management and have severe dental work get scheduled to be seen in the Operating Room. When I first started there was a wait list to be seen in the OR from 6-8 months. Within the last year I have been able to reduce the list of patients and just have them wait 2 months. I have learned a lot dealing with dental care as well hospital codes and being very organized when dealing with so much information from each patient. I schedule 30 patients a month so maintaining everything organized is very important. 
This is just a small portion of my day, I also help the front end staff by check-in and out patients, making sure all of the patient charts are up to date also making sure the patient does not have an outstanding balance. I also help with verifying insurance and answering phones. I am the only employee in the front end that has been here the longest. Since I am always getting new temps I learned that training becomes very complicated when I am the only one training. I decided to help myself and those employees coming in by providing them with new employee packets in which it shows them step by step on what needs done in the clinic on a daily base. It also provides tools just in case they are stuck they can always look back at their handouts. This was something that was not provided to me as a new employee but it helps with the on-boarding process for others that come in. 
The hardest part of my job is when we get a very upset parent come to the front and then I have to come in to mediate and help the parent and calm them down. I consider it hard because parents whom are upset are not always the easiest to deal with. When I do speak to them and explain to them what is going on in detail they seem to calm down and understand. 
The most enjoyable part of my job is when I know that because of all my hard work a child was able to get all of his dental work done in one visit at an out patient facility. It is satisfying because it feels good to hear a thank you from a parent for helping their child be relieved from pain.

NSU has changed drastically in the last 5 years and exceptionally so in the last 12 months. 

The culture at NSU has evolved away from providing high quality education to students and work/life balance to employees. The goal is to churn and burn.

Wages are typically 20% lower than the average for the position with executive level leadership being the exception. One VP’s salary increased nearly 70% since joining NSU in 2012 with a base salary nearly $100,000 higher than the salary high point for similar positions, all while employees experienced little or no annual increases to their base salaries. 

Staff ratios are ignored in critical areas of the university with some areas understaffed by a margin of 40 to 50 percent while executive teams have multiple administrative assistants and coordinators for limited duties.  Recently NSU began its first phase of layoffs and true to form, did absolutely no desk audits for the positions being eliminated. In some cases employees were laid off and rehired as temporary employees for the same work they were previously salaried to perform. Information Technology has been outsourced to the detriment of the university’s infrastructure and budget.  

Professional development and training opportunities were all but removed from the university’s operating budget. The training and development team consists of one individual for a staff of approximately 3,800. Professional development is not high on NSU’s list of priorities. 

Benefits are competitive but family coverage is over priced. The university has a substantially lower than average contribution to family coverage compared to similar institutions in the US. Paid time off is available in ridiculous quantities but most salaried employees end up using vacation days to buy a work from home day and ultimately lose much of their vacation time at the end of the year.

Compensation was well below market compared to similar advancement roles, and there were no remote or hybrid work options within the department. The advancement function operated under a highly micromanaged, centralized management style, with detailed performance metrics shared broadly across the team. Weekly fundraising reports were publicly circulated, and the emphasis on visible metrics often felt more evaluative than developmental. There was limited autonomy in strategy or creative approach, as processes and expectations were tightly prescribed. Favoritism and "middle school" gossiping and the like were quite common. 

The work structure was outdated - fully in-person, with formal dress expectations and a strong event presence requirement. Staff were expected to attend numerous events without additional compensation, and certain workplace costs, such as parking and dining, were employee-funded. Turnover within the advancement division, particularly at senior levels, was high and appeared to be ongoing, which contributed to inconsistency in leadership and strategic direction. Performance metrics did not always seem aligned with current fundraising best practices or market realities. Senior management did not impress me; many did not seem very bright and were unprofessional and without high integrity. 

That said, the campus itself is attractive, with strong academic programs and generally positive morale within the colleges and schools. While the broader institution offers many strengths, the advancement office leaves much to be desired, to say the least. It may benefit from modernization in leadership approach, operational systems, and employee engagement practices.

I came into the job with recommendations from former students as well as someone who used to work there.  Unfortunately, their recommendations ill prepared me for obtaining the worst job of my life.

The main thing is the campus seems a continual mess.  Many people don't seem to have much knowledge for their position or what they are doing.  Some areas are years behind in their work.  There is micromanaging from the top down.  Bullying is an everyday affair and not only tolerated but encouraged by lack of management disapproval.  There are no anti-bullying services for employees.  If you get a bad review or have problems with a supervisor, you have no mediation services and HR will not help you.  You've had the good ole boys who have been there forever, and some people quit like wildfire.  They outsource some jobs.  Pay is incredibly unequal with some making dirt nothing and some making some of the highest compensation in their field, even compared to better universities.  Some people get treated like kings and queens with all kinds of perks, and others get so little budget, they can barely have the basic office necessities.

There is incredible stress to perform.  Even if you are amazing and do an amazing job, it will go unrewarded.  In fact, some of the incompetent ones will become extremely jealous and want to ruin you.  It's weird because some incompetent people stay years without getting fired, and the competent ones are persecuted.

There is little room for advancement with such a small workforce.  The under-staffment of the university makes workloads difficult.

I'm concerned about the financial state of the university as we are always seem to be hearing about budget cuts and enrollment going down.

I am so stressed all of the time from the worst management I have ever experienced (even in my lowliest of jobs), that my health is failing.

Every day for me at NSU is different, you never know what will cross your path and what you may have to research and deal with on a daily basis. My position is supposed to be a Monday through Friday 8:30 to 5 job but I start early & can work late into the evening especially since the pandemic. 
My position is one that requires to me to work with a plethora of folks across many different departments I find their work & research immensely interesting and I feel a sense of pride to see what they contribute to our world & environment. Unfortunately there are always the good & the bad with any job. My personal opinion is the management at least in my department has an attitude of my way or the highway. Upper management belong to their own Good Ole Boy's society. Once the pandemic hit we transitioned to working remotely, but now we have been FORCED back into the office. My position does NOT require me to have any face to face interaction with faculty or students.So you cannot make me understand WHY we have to return to the office. I don't understand why they cant see there could substantial savings to the university by closing our office and allowing us to continue to work remotely. 
Hardest part of this job: is to feel like even though we are asked for an opinion about a myriad of things but in the end our opinions don't count because ultimately it will be upper management who decides what happens no matter if it goes against the entire department's wishes.
The most enjoyable part of the job: all of the vacation & Holiday time off. 
What Ive learned: So called Anonymous surveys end up coming right back to you or your department if you give a negative response. It would be laughable if it weren't so sad at the same time. 

The good news is that the average person who works there is timid and easy to get along with. There is a free week off around Christmas for all employees, and there are plenty of places around to go for lunch

Be aware that if you are going in as a software engineer that NSU is a stagnant organization that uses incredibly irrelevant technology compared to the wider business world combined with a complete lack of modern development practices,
below average pay, and cronyism in management.

This was my first job out of college so I did not really have anything to compare it to professionally but I have since found much better more fulfilling jobs, if you work here
as a developer be aware that nothing that you do will be applicable outside of Higher Education, the stack that you use will mostly be proprietary to a third party company, 
they use TFS but managers do not actually understand what agile means. There is very notably a culture of fear in all employees except for the friends of the CIO who are all in
upper management/director positions: the "Kaplan" crew. There is also no work from home policy, and there has not been a cost-of-living raise in over two years. 

If this sounds like an OK or Ideal place to work for you then you will fit right in, otherwise if you have any other options and any real marketable skill I suggest you steer clear of NSU.  

These are all true statements and NSU keeps paying to remove these reviews and I am fine with this.

Advice to Management

Promote people from within, give a COL raise to keep up with inflation, and treat the people who stop the schools technology from imploding better.

The university has a habit of not informing its entities of changes prior to implementation. For instance, they changed the logo but did not inform the entities so the entities spent money on programs and marketing materials prior to the change, costing additional funding. The program chairs do not seem to care about the students satisfaction. When I received multiple complaints about a professor and informed the program chair, they did nothing to improve the students experience. Managers have a habit of saying don't do things but turning around and doing them. For instance, working remotely. The university has provided a bonus but puts it as part of your already low salary, gets it taxed, then it raises your tax bracket. The insurance is deplorable. The 401K does not offer high risk options to maximize the potential of gaining in funds. You do not receive yearly raises with inflation of the economy. Higher ups will not remove people from their jobs out of fear of losing that position being filled. The university also does not have user friendly programs to maintain your job, none of the applications work efficiently and effectively with one another, the computers are also ancient so they are extremely slow. Productivity is extremely low because of these issues, but no one seems to care. If they invested in better software they would not need as many employees to do jobs within the colleges. The only positive aspect are the students themselves, being able to help and assist them as best you can with what the university provides you. You do have to go above and beyond as most entities do not have contact information so you have to search to find phone numbers so someone can help a student. 

Things change over time. It's inevitable and part of growth.  The problem is when people don't change with the company/culture. Stuck in their old ways, toxic, negative, always complaining, etc. Those people flourish and stick around for decades, making life miserable for anyone having to deal with them. Every single department at NSU has someone like this. The more you can avoid them, the better.  There are also many people masquerading as intelligent life, who are sadly encouraged and promoted by those who somehow cannot see they are sus.  Pretty sure I saw them in electric and they weren't completing a single task, yet oddly enough, that's where the dead body is.  

With that said - NSU has great benefits, if you get a good boss, the flexibility and time off are amazing.  You can do absolutely nothing and stay employed for a very long time.  Just shuffle papers around, find people who LIKE to work and somehow convince them to do your job!! Sit back and live like the royalty you are.  

Some notes about the stars:
Compensation & Benefits: Compensation sucks, but benefits are good.  So I give this a 4, but really compensation is a 3 and benefits are a 4

Job Security & Advancement are 2 different things at NSU.  Job Security is a 5 unless you are a complete mouth breather.  Advancement on the other hand is next to impossible unless you are a favored golden child.  You need to apply to different departments for promotions, wait for someone to die, or just hope your boss wants to keep you around and budgets some money for your promotion. So Job Security is a 5 but advancement is like a 2!! I put it at 2 for this reason. 

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Assistant professor 9 salaries reported	$85,778 per year
Dental assistant 6 salaries reported	$18.60 per hour
Patient accounts representative 11 salaries reported	$45,727 per year
Maintenance technician 2 salaries reported	$17.68 per hour
Dental hygienist 9 salaries reported	$31.00 per hour

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