administrative specialist

faculty

program coordinator

research specialist

administrative assistant

University of Idaho

The U of I is disappointing.  Many of your co-workers will be in the same boat you are; either you or your partner (or both) have finished a degree or washed out of a program and need a job.  Depending on management, this is not the worst place-holder job you will ever have.  Many of your co-workers will be good, well-qualified people who really want to make a positive impact on the university and students.

Unfortunately, management and administration at the U of I are firmly concreted into the "we've always done it this way" culture, and even the most minute changes will be resisted right up to the level of retaliation (my sincere work and effort has been met with being laughed at, to my face, on different occasions).  They have recently undergone a $30 million regional survey to assess compensation at the university, which would have been good except that similar/competitive does not equate with a living wage or an equitable wage.  Add to this the insane real estate market since the Covid lockdown, and you won't be buying a house in the Palouse.

The results of the compensation survey were also used to solidify a very large structural change where there is no longer a career ladder for staff; senior, highly skilled staff that retire are replaced with entry-level (usually around $13.50 an hour) positions, where you can look forward to a 0.5% raise every two years or so; and absolutely no chance for promotion.  Junior faculty are paid a laughable salary (right around $55,000), and normally their duties include picking up tasks formerly performed by senior staff personnel (along with an extremely cutthroat environment of publish-or-perish culture).

There's so much potential at the U of I, a person could probably deal with last-in-the-industry pay and other compensation if you knew you were working on a team that was dedicated to the good fight; improving the university for students, faculty and staff...  but administration will not allow any activity or program that doesn't fit their strict, Big 80s Micromanagement, Top-Down business model.  Add funding threats from the legislature in Boise, and your chances of making lasting change are pretty slim.

I love the University of Idaho.  I'm faced with new challenges everyday.  I enjoy being with my family on all the paid holidays. Retirement plan is amazing.  I have great coworkers who do all they can to work together and help each other.  The university is a good employer in the broad sense, its stability, its culture, its diversity, its acceptance of individuals, its welcoming environment.  Even so, I can't say it is great...not yet.  I can't say it is great because the U of I suffers from an identity problem which I believe is even worse than the budget issues which we worked so hard to balance last year.  I think the U of I has tried to branch out in too many directions and has fallen victim to the old adage; "Jack of all trades, a master of none".  I'm not smart enough to know the answer but I do know the U of I's tendency to have presidents leave every few years has produced a campus community which has grown accustomed to feeling uncertain about the future as departments speculate about what direction new leadership will go.  Second only to what I just mentioned my biggest criticism of the university is a hiring process not to be believed in its complexity.  Good candidates are often lost while waiting on HR to validate hiring committee's decisions, which are impotent groups of employees who wield absolutely no authority in the hiring process, and are merely lackeys doing the leg work.  The inability to expeditiously hire help when it is needed is a huge detriment to department's success campus wide.  Overall I will always hold a place in my heart for the university and the opportunities I've enjoyed working here.  Its a good place to work, and treats people well, but it has room for improvement; its not great...yet, but we're working on it.  

Aside from being a student, I enjoyed working within the Housing Association bettering my fellow students experience that lived on campus. coordinating weekly events and holiday themed events and getting as many people involved was a chore and a joy. The hard part of my job(s) (LLC Senator, Programing chair) was getting people to commit and participate to the events, not that they didn't want to, but during school it's hard to get volunteers when they would rather prioritize a paper over stetting up for an event... so i did a the bulk of the work myself. the most enjoyable part like any job is seeing your finished product working just as planned and everyone having a good time enjoying your hard work. It made the typical day of corresponding with catering, running around campus for meetings every few days, and submitting written/oral reports on my events worth it,when everyone has a great fun time at events you created and implemented. Having that school setting really drove home the importance of team building and motivation. You cant put on an event for 500 people alone and everyone there just wants free food with no commitment, so you either learn to motivate the people around you or you dont have any events... and I'm proud to say I had plenty of events and learned how to motivate many groups of disinterested students to become regular volunteers! weather rallying students behind a cause while senator, or as programing chair, finding the right motivation is/was key.

Like any workforce, there will be those individuals who are very well rounded and able to accept differing opinions and make adjustments to ultimately improve the university.  But then there are also those who are in roles who have been institutionalized to the point where they never have successfully run anything before as long as they can sell it as a success to their manager. 
Working at UI has been great and terrible at the same time.  You will find that people are respectful and accommodating towards one another.  There are events happening all the time so networking is a breeze.  I found it relatively easy to pursue many of my interests.
But i will say that I have been working here for a few years, i’ve seen lots of great people be held back meanwhile seeing lots of bad people be promoted and get incredible pay raises.  It all depends on the department you work for and who oversees your department.  I think UI has a management problem that is not conducive to a long term healthy and happy college workforce.  I recommend managers get off their high-horse and start taking action towards making the campus better.  

Working as an intern at the International Programs Office at the UI, I was given the opportunity to work with individuals from a variety of cultures and gain knowledge of work within an office environment.  My main tasks included working with the UI study abroad staff with promotion, recruitment, retention, and program logistics while learning the full scope of the study abroad advising process.  In addition, I was responsible for mentoring and assisting both outgoing study abroad and incoming exchange students, presenting workshops, promoting the study abroad program to students, representing study abroad at campus and community recruitment events, and learning administrative processes.  I would not have been able to perform my job without the guidance of the senior staff.  They were helpful and friendly and I was not afraid to ask them about any issues I might have had.  One part of the job that frustrated me was the amount of workload, or lack thereof, throughout the year.  At peak hours I would be fully engaged with helping students, whereas during the low points there would be little to no work for me to complete.  Overall, I enjoyed working at the Study Abroad office and I am grateful for what I learned there.

What is the best part of working at the company?
The best part is the freedom of the schedule, if you are a part time employee. I almost always had 3 day weekends and whole weeks off for major holidays (no PTO). I like that it is an institution for higher learning.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
The most stressful part of working for U of I as a part-time employee was that I did not really have an actual daily job and the majority of the time I had to be creative in order to keep myself busy to get any hours on my paycheck. They hire many young employee that are not going to stay long or care about the work being done. It was kind of a revolving door in that respect.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
They are very neutral; albeit courteous and  respectful, but impersonal nearly to the degree of indifference. They don't care about your interests, your life outside of work, or your opinion most of the time.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
As a part-time employee, I had to do what I knew I could do to pass the time. It is repetitious, which is fine. However, there were busy days once or twice a month (or year) and the rest was an extreme lull. This was a crop science department though, I don't know about the University as a whole.

Staff at U of I 
I am doing a job that anywhere else is paid almost $30,000 more. 

Get your salary negotiated high at the very beginning because you’ll never get a raise. Ever. And you will never get a promotion.

The university is full of admin staff that don’t do anything but try to micromanage their team who do all the work, and there is zero opportunity for moving up to a “higher” position. None. 

I was literally told that if I want to go to the next level, I will first have to get hired on at another University and move there and work there at least a year or two then apply for a higher position at UI because that’s how you get promoted. 

There is a lot of switching around, however – you can apply for a higher position in a different college or unit but then your experience score in HR will start at zero again and you will get no credit for the four years you just worked in your previous job if it’s a different position all together so your salary will be low. BTW UI salaries are always low. And again that’s not the best way to do things because you still end up with supervisors that are not grown and developed within the unit so 100% of the time they are clueless and terrible supervisors because they were not in that unit before.

Assisted in the planning, assembly, execution, measurement, analysis and interpretation of a variety of micro and molecular biological experiments. Ordered, categorized and stored a large selection of lab equipment, chemicals and biological agents. Learned proper safety and handling techniques for maintaining sterile environments and disposing of bio-hazardous materials. Expanded on pre-existing skills in data entry, management and reporting (both written and oral). Co-workers were all informative and friendly, explaining advanced concepts in understandable terms. Hardest part of job was understanding advanced biological concepts and performing precise procedures to ensure correct and efficient experimental results. Most enjoyable portion of job was the satisfaction of completing complex and lengthy tasks and obtaining large amounts of valuable data.

o A team member in three Idaho Transportation Department (ITD) research projects: Solving research problems along with participating in the oral and written communications during these projects, and also participated in writing and developing final reports.
o Participated in two projects for the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) involving research and data collection about the effects of grades and speeds on car-following behaviors.
o Tutoring and leading 40 students each semester in different transportation classes: In these classes, I instructed students in the usage of several types of transportation software (Like: VISSIM, Civil 3D, and GIS), traffic operation issues, and fundamentals of intersections design.
o Taught two surveying classes on the use of Total-Station and GPS in the field, and then on the exportation of the collected field data to Civil-3D to start the process of roadway design.
o Performed many of engineering management projects, site visits, and interviews through my Engineering Management M.Sc. degree.
o All this previous work is in parallel with doing my Ph.D. research work.

When not working on a production, there is always maintenance work to do with the instruments.
During a production, I would receive a light plot and then come up with a game plan to accomplish everything in a timely manner.
I was a teacher/supervisor to work study and lab students, and I learned how to delegate work so that others would learn and gain the most benefit from the experience. 
The regular tech team was very close with good communication skills to make sure all departments had what they needed and accomplished all of our goals.
Was able to collaborate with a team, as well as be independent.
Each day was something new.
The most difficult part was when others might not keep to deadlines, which then would push back the amount of time we had to do our job making the electrics team have to work weird hours to still get everything done on time.
I loved the creative problem solving I had to do whenever something came up. It was very rewarding to be the one to find a solution to a problem.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Administrative specialist 45 salaries reported	$20.94 per hour
Faculty 16 salaries reported	$88,870 per year
Program coordinator 14 salaries reported	$21.67 per hour
Research specialist 15 salaries reported	$19.92 per hour
Administrative assistant 4 salaries reported	$11.84 per hour

Working at University of Idaho: Company Overview and Reviews

University of Idaho

University of Idaho Ratings

Popular jobs at University of Idaho

Salary Satisfaction

Job Seeker Tools

Employer Tools

Browse

Stay Connected