Shirrell Patterson, a Harlem resident, has been unemployed for over a year. After her sister recently went to Columbia’s Employment Information Center and was not able to find a job, Patterson said she became even more discouraged.
“I need a job. I need a steady paycheck every week,” she said. “But Columbia just wants certain people.”
Frustrations over the University’s job offers—and the opportunities, or lack thereof, coming from Columbia’s employment center at Broadway and 125th Street—were at the center of a Monday night meeting hosted by local activist group Coalition to Preserve Community.
Around 40 residents attended the meeting of CPC, a group which has been vocally opposed to the use of eminent domain for Columbia’s campus expansion in Manhattanville.
“I was asking, and literally have been asking for five years, how many people are going there, how many people are filling out applications, and how many people have actually gotten jobs,” said Tom DeMott, CC ’80, and a CPC founder. “We had hoped it would become a real resource for the community.”
Columbia officials have repeatedly said they are dedicated to local employment, in general and in its Manhattanville expansion.
“We’re serious about our commitment,” Joe Ienuso, executive vice president of facilities, said in a recent interview with Spectator, explaining that Columbia devotes 35 percent of its contract spending for Manhattanville to minority-, women-, or locally-owned firms.
“It’s true for Manhattanville, it’s true for our day-to-day operation, and ... we’re always going to do our best to meet that quota.”
But residents at Monday’s CPC meeting said they were skeptical.
Jim White, a volunteer at St. Mary’s Church on 126th where the meeting took place, said that they are sending unemployed members of the church over to see if any jobs are available, but so far they’ve had little luck, especially with members who don’t have bachelor’s degrees.
Two women who stopped by the office who did not have high school diplomas “were not encouraged to come back,” he said.
“Has anyone gotten a job? Or is it just typical Columbia window dressing?” Ruth Eisenberg, CPC member, said in an interview at the meeting.
Local resident Melissa Nieves said she was worried about her job prospects in light of her neighbors’ stories.
“I’m disabled, but every now and then I do look for employment when I’m feeling better,” she said. “It shouldn’t be like this. ... We have so many skills, why not spread it around?”
Ienuso told Spectator he couldn’t offer specific numbers of employment, but said that the University continues to maintain the ratio based on minority, women, or local firms, regardless of the size of the workforce.
“It is absolutely being met,” he said.
DeMott, though, said on Monday that he was upset Columbia has not made an effort to train workers locally before beginning its construction. “Before you start the work, you start training people to do the work. That has not happened in any way, shape or form.”
CPC members said that employment may become a major goal of their group, with frequent protests and flyering in the neighborhood.
George Gruenthal, CPC member and University alumnus, said he may be willing to give Columbia the benefit of the doubt—he is trying to persuade his son to stop by.
“I think it’s always good to encourage people to go, even just so that they find out directly what’s really happening, and what’s not,” Gruenthal said.
A Columbia spokesperson declined to comment on the meeting.
Sarah Darville and Sam Levin contributed reporting.
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