Student Employment in University Village

As the city of Colorado Springs welcomes more new retail land development, especially in the very near proximity of UCCS, many wonder if this will mean more jobs available to students.

The University Village shopping center, which begins on the corner of Garden of the Gods and North Nevada and sprawls north for three blocks, is home to many successful retail chain locations like Chipotle and Panera Bread, and includes anchor stores Costco, Lowe's and Kohl's.

This new shopping center has the potential to employ hundreds of people with only a handful of storefronts occupied thus far. The Village's Costco location alone employs approximately 140 people.

The stores in this development have had mixed experiences with UCCS students so far. Some businesses have had positive experiences, while others were not so impressed. Maria Encarnacion, CostCo's assistant front end manager, describes her UCCS employees as "really outgoing" and hard-working.

"They have a great work ethic and are really focused on school," she added.

According to Encarnacion, about 3,000 people applied to work at Costco, including a minimum of 100 UCCS students. Costco, the largest of the chain stores, hired 10 students before its grand opening on Oct. 29, but now has just six, none of whom were available for comment.

Encarnacion believes the reason there aren't more UCCS employees is because of their availability and scheduling limitations. "We did get a lot of students who applied," she said, but most of them were limited by the above constraints.

Encarnacion used to manage the Costco on Powers and Barnes in east Colorado Springs, which did not have the same amount of UCCS students apply. Proximity to the school makes the Village location more convenient.

Other operations, like Chipotle, have no UCCS student employees at all. "There weren't very many UCCS students with culinary experience," according to Chipotle general manager Marley Vincent. Vincent also said the UCCS students who did apply were "snotty."

Chipotle also participated in a job fair in October before its grand opening. The restaurant posted employment opportunities in local papers and on Monster.com, but did not post job openings on Sean's Place, the university's student employment website. "We've done job fairs in the past at UCCS, and we didn't have a very good interest," said Marley.

Panera Bread employs "three or four" student employees, said UCCS transfer student and Panera Employee Matt Mitchell. Mitchell describes the UCCS students he works with as "very friendly."

"They have good attitudes and are willing to learn new things and be trained," he said. Mitchell also said his managers at Panera are "very flexible and understanding."

Assistant Student Employment and AmeriCorps Coordinator Shannon Cable was involved with helping students find jobs at the Village. She was an enthusiastic supporter of the shopping center. "Any company that comes into the Springs has the opportunity to benefit students because it increases the amount of jobs per capita," she explained.

Students interested in finding a job, said Cable, should check Sean's Place online (seans.uccs.edu) for employment opportunities, especially at University Village.

Cable is optimistic about the future of the Village and student employment. "The university is proactively trying to connect students with those businesses, and hope that we can generate a relationship between those businesses and UCCS," she said.