UW-Milwaukee dining halls can't find enough student workers. So they're asking professors and other staff to work there for free.

A staffing shortage on the UW-Milwaukee campus led the university to make an unusual ask of its professors: Come help in our dining halls.

Faculty and staff received an email asking for volunteers to clean tables, serve food and replenish buffet bars, all in an effort to keep the thousands of students who moved into dorms last week fed.

The request prompted pushback from some professors who saw the plea as a casual suggestion to work for free and offset poor administrative planning.

"Let’s ask faculty and staff to do yet another thing on top of the many others things they already do that are unpaid or severely underpaid," said English professor Joel Berkowitz. "Frankly, I find it pretty perverse."

Nolan Davis, who leads UWM's dining services, said the situation isn't unprecedented and is due almost entirely to a shortage of student workers, not full-time workers.

Before the pandemic, about 80% of student dining workers returned each year, he said. But when the campus closed in March 2020 after COVID-19 hit, all student employees were let go and only about 20% of them returned in the fall of 2020 and in 2021.

That left UWM scrambling each fall semester to hire new students at a time when some are still settling into school and not necessarily looking for a job. Volunteers helped fill the gap for those first few weeks, he said. Most of them came from within dining operations and units that had reduced hours or services due to the virus.

This school year marks the first in which all dining locations are open for the first time, leading UWM to expand its call for help to the broader campus.

UWM needs about 300 student workers to staff its three cafeterias, Davis said. About 40% of those slots are filled, meaning the university is looking to hire about 180 more students.

The staffing shortage this year is actually less severe than in the previous two falls, Davis said. It's just attracted more attention because UWM sent an email as opposed to relying on word-of-mouth like the past two falls. The email approach was taken to include an easily accessible link to an online sign-up sheet, allowing prospective volunteers to quickly see what shifts need workers.

A student worker with no dining experience can earn $11 an hour at UWM. Pay is always an issue, Davis said, but he sees the timing around the start of the school year driving the current shortage more than pay.

UW-Madison, meanwhile, recently announced it increased starting hourly pay for dining hall workers from $11 to $15. The pay bump's already led to an uptick in applications, officials told The Capital Times.

The number of UWM employees who signed up to volunteer wasn't available Tuesday. The four-hour shifts run from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m., though UWM's email said "we will take whatever generosity we can get."

The email asked employees taking time out of their regular work day to clear it with their supervisor and noted that time donated outside of regular work schedules is unpaid.

Joan Nesbitt decided to help out at Sandburg Cafe from 3 to 7 p.m. Tuesday. Having just started as the university's vice chancellor for development and alumni relations earlier this year, she saw the volunteer request as an opportunity to meet new people and provide students with a great experience.

Many of the cafe's full-time dining employees thanked her for volunteering, she said, and the experience reinforced how hard they work.

Like all volunteers, Nesbitt doesn't take the place of the skilled chefs. Their work supports the trained restaurant professionals. She cut fruit. Others may restock the salad bar or serve food at one of the stations in the food court-style cafeteria.

"I've never cut so many pineapples in my life," she said about two hours into her shift.

This isn't the first time a university has asked employees for help in dining halls. Michigan State last fall made a similar plea, drawing ire across social media.

Marquette University is also facing staffing challenges, spokesperson Lynn Griffith said, but "we are fortunate that our current dining services team can manage and navigate these challenges at this time."

UWM said it's not uncommon for workers in one unit to help out in another. It happens every year during move-in.

The comparison came across as disingenuous to lecturer Eric Lohman.

"The university is on public relations cleanup duty, trying to spin this about how common this thing is and it’s just a big misunderstanding," he said. "Well, it blew up in their face and they’re trying to do damage control but the damage is done."

Contact Kelly Meyerhofer at kmeyerhofer@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter at @KellyMeyerhofer.

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee seeks faculty help in dining halls