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PSC CAMPUS EQUITY WEEK 2007
Campus Equity Week (CEW) is the last week in October. This biannual event, which was begun in 2001 by the Coalition of Contingent Academic Labor, is part of an international effort to transform the exploitative conditions of part-time faculty in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. This year the PSC will be participating in CEW by highlighting the indispensable role CUNY adjuncts play in making the University run and mobilizing to support the union’s adjunct-related bargaining demands.
At CUNY, “part-timerization” – the systematic effort to shift full-time university jobs into vulnerable, lower-paid part-time jobs – is evident in the conditions of teaching and non-teaching adjuncts, graduate assistants, and continuing education teachers. There are almost 10,000 of us, and we are sometimes referred to as “the shadow university.”
During Campus Equity Week, colleges and campuses throughout North America each undertake their own activities to educate campus communities, the public, policy-makers, and each other about contingent academic employment conditions. The issues that arise from the overuse of so-called part-time workers (many of whom carry more than full-time loads) are legion: low salaries, inadequate benefits, lack of job security, no protection by academic freedom, non-existent office space, to name a few.
Each of us is a brick in the wall that make up our college, our university. Part-time faculty at CUNY teach more than half of the courses. We make up half the University. Without us cuny cannot stand.
The PSC Committee on Part-Time Instructional Personnel, aka the First Friday group, invites you to bear witness, to show how each one of us helps to hold up the University. Together, we can demonstrate how vital part-time labor is to CUNY. Together, we can demand and win improvements in our conditions through the PSC-CUNY contract. Below, tell us how you help to hold up your college, your department, your program, your students,.
One of our key demands in this round of bargaining is for job security for part-timers. Even after dedicating years to CUNY, adjuncts can be told at the last minute that they no longer have a CUNY job. CUNY balances its budget on the adjuncts' back but treats them as little better than day laborers. And without job security, adjuncts also have no academic freedom. While we are focusing locally on fighting for adjuncts’ rights through our contract, the AFT is organizing a series of academic freedom forums as part of the national Campus Equity Week efforts this year. Academic freedom for part-timers is crucial to the unfettered exchange of ideas that is vital to university life, and none of us can count on academic freedom when half of us teach without it.
Bear witness! Tell us how you hold up your college, your department, your program, your students. First, look at the examples that follow. Then complete the online form below.
HERE ARE SOME EXAMPLES FROM FELLOW PART-TIMERS:
I demand: Health insurance after retirement. Because: I have given CUNY 20 plus years of labor, teaching thousands of students. Name/Title: Marcia Newfield/Adjunct Lecturer. School(s): BMCC. I demand: Higher salaries! Because: I think about my students 24 hours a day. Name/Title: Emelyn Tapaoan/Adjunct Lecturer. School(s): John Jay. I demand: Job security! Because: I have contributed to my department and my college teaching 14 different courses in 5 different programs for almost 25 years as well as at three different colleges. Name/Title: Diane Menna/Adjunct. School(s): Queens College/LaGuardia Community College/York College. Complete the form by typing in the text boxes below and then click submit.
the web psc-cuny.org