Office Plans Broader Summer Jobs Program

The Student Employment Office will extensively expand its summer job program, it was announced yesterday.

Dustin M. Burke, Director of Student Employment, said his agency plans to increase its contacts across the country to provide students from all sections with job opportunities.

In the next few years the Office expects to handle from 1500 to 1800 applications, an increase of over 500 from this year's total.

Burke indicated that his staff is interested chiefly in extending opportunities in the areas of industry and construction. He noted that this new emphasis should enable students to obtain higher paying jobs.

The long-range intent of the new policy, Burke stated, is to increase student earnings, both in term-time and summer employment, "making the student more self-sufficient, and consequently less dependent on parents and scholarships."

Since contractors will not hire in advance, the employment agency will provide students with necessary information and "send them directly to contractors when the work is starting, and in that place where work will be going on," Burke said.

This year, the office, in first putting its program into effect, has referred students directly to contractors for specific jobs mainly in eastern Massachusetts and New York, usually for road construction work. Burke said that these jobs average about $2.43 an hour.

Term-Time Employment

At the same time, he indicated satisfaction with developments in term-time employment. "The major effort here," he stated, "will be to raise the earning capacity of the students by trying to get a better level of pay on the jobs we now have, rather than to get more jobs."

Registration for term-time employment has amounted to about one quarter of the student body for the last few years, he stated. This year 293 freshmen worked at one time or another, earning a total of $101,000.

Earnings ranged from $100 a year, for some students who put in a few hours a week at library jobs, to $900 for dining hall jobs involving probably 18 hours a week.