They are the ones who work fervently behind the scenes day in and day out.
They deal with telephone messages, e-mail, irate students, frazzled employees, letters, faxes and the list goes on. Their titles include administrative assistant, clerical assistant, office assistant and secretary. Everyday, they do the work that keeps the office flowing.
With budget cuts looming on the surface of University of Memphis life, many departments are looking at ways to trim their expenditures, but based on the heads of departments, the secretarial positions are too important to eliminate.
“Without the secretaries, we could close the department,” said Monika Nenon, interim chair of the Foreign Languages and Literature Department.
Cathy Philpot is the administrative assistant for Journalism Department Chair James Redmond.
Philpot said she serves as the general anchor secretary for the department because she has been there the longest and knows a lot that goes on in the department. She does everything from contracts, schedules and time sheets.
“There are so many things (I do), I couldn’t in a few words describe everything,” she said.
Rhonda Smothers is also a secretary in the Journalism Department. She described Philpot as “a resource of wealth and knowledge.”
Smothers works on the journalism Web site and student files. She describes herself as “the finder of all lost things.”
Barbara Marese, the office coordinator in the Department of Mathematics, said secretaries have to be flexible because they do everything from greeting individuals when they enter the office, to making coffee, to helping students, to filing.
“People think because a semester isn’t going on, we don’t have stuff to do, but that’s not true,” Marese said. “Our work goes on.”
Redmond said he thinks assistants are critical.
“Secretaries run the place,” he said. “(They know the) ends and outs of bureaucracy.”
“Cathy keeps me out of trouble,” Redmond said.
Nenon said she feels the secretaries are “very much underpaid, they should get significant raises.”
Diane M. Mittelmeier, administrative secretary for Foreign Languages, said she does not see how they could get rid of anyone.
“We need an extra person,” Mittelmeier said.
The secretaries in the Foreign Languages department sometimes receive tokens of appreciation for their work. Tuesday, they had flowers on their desk from a professor thanking them for their handwork.
However, the Foreign Language department isn’t the only department to show appreciation for their secretaries.
“I have the best secretaries in the world,” said Jim Jamison, chair of the Math Department. “No, no one else can have them.”
