Gadfly May 17, 2001
The Evaluation of Department Chairs -- Perez Pushes Forward: CUNY central continues to press for college administrators to evaluate Departmental Chairs each year. At BMCC, President Perez has pushed this a step further, arguing at the April Faculty Council that departmental elections are in essence advisory and that he “appoints” all chairs. This major CUNY assault on faculty governance is already a subject of a university-wide grievance filed by the PSC. In addition, the PSC is circulating a petition protesting this CUNY’s call for evaluation of chairs. We need to stay in touch with BMCC faculty (1) to help circulate and collect petitions, (2) to mobilize for University Faculty Senate and Board of Trustees meetings that will discuss this issue, and (3) to stop evaluation of chairs at BMCC. (Fill out stay-touch-form)
Violation of Annual Leave Rights in the BMCC Department of Student Life: The BMCC administration is continuing its assault on the professional lives of our colleagues in the DSL. In violation of both our contract and a negotiated agreement (between the PSC, the BMCC DSL faculty and the college), the BMCC administration unilaterally has imposed summer work schedules on the counseling faculty. On Friday, May 11, The PSC argued a step-one grievance on behalf of the DSL faculty. In a letter below, DSL faculty explain why this is an attack on all of our rights to uninterrupted annual leave.
Letter from DSL faculty:
THE
COUNSELING FACULTY NEED YOUR
SUPPORT
OUR
PROBLEMS COULD SOON BE
YOUR PROBLEMS
Dating
from the 1990-1996 Agreement between the City University of New York and the
Professional Staff Congress, Section 14.1, Faculty - THIS MEANS
YOU - can be assigned to “an equivalent consecutive period” of
annual leave during the academic year in lieu of the traditional summer period
“commencing the day subsequent to the June commencement until the thirtieth of
August”.
Based
on this provision the administration has reassigned counseling faculty to summer
coverage since summer, 1996. Each
year, two general counselors and one College Discovery counselor have been
rotated, taking contractually negotiated equivalent periods of annual leave
during the academic year and working during the summer.
The first cycle of negotiated annual leave rotation will end at the close
of summer 2001 when all of the counselors will have completed one rotation.
Now
the counseling faculty is being
required to comply
with a violation of
the contract
(Provision 14.1): The faculty has been “assigned to provide (summer)
counseling coverage to the Counseling and Advisement Center for a period of two
consecutive weeks” and required to take “equivalent consecutive annual leave
time . . . from May 7th to June 1st”.
As you read this statement, half of the counseling faculty is no longer
in their offices providing needed services to students just prior to exams.
They are on mandated annual leave; a mandated annual leave for which they
were given two days notice in which to comply.
Those same faculty members will be required to return in two weeks to
complete the last two weeks of the semester while the other half of the
counseling faculty go on two weeks’ annual leave.
Then the entire faculty will be required to come in for two-week periods
according to a summer schedule arranged by the administration with no regard for
individual summer plans, for summer teaching schedules or for
graduate/dissertation/publication research.
This arrangement violates Article 14.1 of the contract which describes
the annual leave period for full-time teaching members of the instructional
staff as “commencing the day subsequent to the June commencement until the
thirtieth of August following such commencement or an equivalent consecutive
period of time”.
Although
the counseling faculty may have not done it joyfully, they complied with all
administrative directives to cover summers and inter-session breaks.
When the DSL (Introduction to Academic Life and Skills) course was
eliminated by the administration and replaced with the FYE (Freshman Year
Experience) workshop the counseling faculty taught the workshops.
When the counseling faculty was relieved of their teaching duties
and replaced with HEOs (Higher Education Officers) - THIS
COULD BE YOU
- they had no choice but they accepted administrative directive.
The counseling faculty followed all administrative directives and
contractual obligations while grieving or debating the particulars.
COULD
ROTATION AFFECT YOU ?
1.
Section 14.1 clearly defines annual leave for the
faculty and adds that it could be, “an equivalent consecutive period”.
This means that you, English professor
or you social
science instructor, could
be asked to rotate. Think about the
implications of this for those of you who teach multiple positions or who teach
during summer to earn additional pay. Now
that we officially run a week-end college courses and teaching schedules could
be arranged in a variety of ways. How would
it affect your
relationship with
your students, graduate
work, your research
and your family
life?
2.
As counselors know, because they have worked
inter-session and this year worked during spring break, the annual leave
provision does not cover Christmas week, inter-session or spring break. This means you, developmental
skills assistant professor or you mathematics lecturer, could be required to
return to work the day after Christmas if the administration deemed it
appropriate.
3.
At the June 26, 1995, Board of Trustees meeting 37
points designated, University Budget Planning and Policy Proposals were adopted.
Point 3 was: “The colleges should assess the potential for qualified
administrative staff to teach on a limited basis as part of their regular
workload in order to support increased enrollment”. This was clarified by an agreement between the PSC and the
University. HEOs can
teach the equivalent
of one course
a semester as
part of
their assigned workload. Think of the savings if
HEOs taught the
multiple positions offered by your department.
“Savings” is the argument which the President made when he
rotated counselors. A great
deal of money could be saved by covering multiple positions with HEOs.
The
present assault on the counseling faculty is the tip of a very scary iceberg.
Slowly, one by one, faculty are being “knocked off”.
What department will be next? We
are not indispensable. In fact, it
is cheaper to run a college without permanent full time faculty. But how
does it affect
the students who
are the life
blood of any
institution?