One of the challenging aspects of FWS supervision is balancing the special needs of students as employees with ongoing departmental work needs. Supervisors need to be flexible with student work schedules, particularly during exams and extra-curricular activities. We must always remember that a student’s primary purpose for being at USD is their education.

At the same time, it is important that students treat their FWS job as a real job. This attitude must be fostered by USD Supervisors. It is very important that you, as their Supervisor ensure that they always have work to do.

One misconception with the Federal Work-Study Program is that students should be allowed to “study while working”. This is not the objective of the program; students should not be paid for studying. Ideally, the work a student performs will have either a direct or indirect educational value, but that does not mean students should be paid to study.

With proper planning, all FWS Student Assistants will have tasks to complete when they work. One suggestion is to maintain a list of tasks with low priority that always needs to be done. The student can find work from this list when higher priority tasks and day-to-day functions are accomplished. If you find there is absolutely no work, it is acceptable to release a student for the day. This should not happen regularly, however. If a student continually has no work, let the SEC know so we may reassign the student.

There are some additional guidelines that are important to keep in mind when supervising FWS Student Assistants: