UPDATED: TeleFund’s student employees relieved to find out they still have jobs

When Dan Ament, who works for a service that raises funds for Pitt, first learned that he had lost his job Friday, the news came as a shock to him.

“There wasn’t any warning,” said Ament.

It soon turned out that the announcement came prematurely. After some confusion, Ament and the students who work for TeleFund, Pitt’s telephone fund-raising service, were relieved to learn that they still have jobs. TeleFund has continued to operate, and only the student employees were laid off temporarily. Administrators met with students Wednesday to discuss their status.

Vice Chancellor of Communications Kenneth Service said that none of the students who work for TeleFund, which raises about $2 million a year, are out of work. The news that they were out of jobs came instead from a misunderstanding.

“I know for a fact that the student’s jobs are intact and they will be paid,” he said.

The student employees, who have not been working since Friday, learned later that they will be compensated for their time off.

“[TeleFund] is one of the most important fundraising organizations for the University,” Service said.

Ament agreed with Service’s account that there was a miscommunication. He and the other students who work for the service received calls Monday from a representative for the Office of Institutional Advancement, which oversees TeleFund’s operations.

A meeting took place Wednesday that included all of TeleFund’s student employees. At the meeting, Vice Chancellor Albert Novak and Senior Executive Director of Annual Programs and Communications Christopher Bell, both for the Office of Institutional Advancement, apologized to students about the misunderstanding.

Will Broughton, a graduate student in the School of Public Health who works for TeleFund, said that he was also under the initial impression that he was out of a job, but he said that it was a misunderstanding.

At the meeting, Broughton said, Bell took the blame for the misunderstanding. But he did not elaborate on how exactly the miscommunication occurred.

Bell and Novak were not available for immediate comment Wednesday.

Ament said that the TeleFund employees were initially told that because of the “declining performance” of the organization they were losing their jobs.

At the meeting, the TeleFund employees were also asked to brainstorm ideas on how to better reach out to younger generations of alumni, according.

Broughton said that those present at the meeting said social media, including Facebook and Twitter, may be more effective than calling people individually because most young people don’t have landlines.

“Twitter: with one tweet [TeleFund] can reach thousands of people instead of calling each person individually,” Ament said.

This article has been amended from an earlier version. Due to an editorial error, the original version identified Christopher Bell as a vice chancellor. The text has been changed to correct the error.