Rebuild CUNY/ Rebuild NY

Introduction
Budget Priorities
Full-time Faculty
Adjunct Office Hours
Graduate Fellowships
Centers for Worker Ed

and PSC Testimony on CUNY Budget

 

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REBUILD CUNY, REBUILD nEW YORK   

 

OFFICE HOURS FOR
PART-TIME FACULTY:

A CRITICAL BENEFIT
FOR STUDENTS

 

Harvard statistician and professor of Education Richard Light recently published a major study on the most important elements of college education.  Number one on his list, which emerged from hundreds of hours of interviews and surveys, is the opportunity to learn outside of the classroom.  The most successful college students consistently cite their experiences with faculty in small discussions or individual consultations as the “capstone” of their academic career.1 

At CUNY such experiences are off-limits for thousands of our students.  More than half of CUNY courses are taught by part-time faculty, and none of these courses includes office hours.  Part-time faculty, paid on an hourly basis, are not compensated for any work outside of the classroom—exactly where Richard Light’s book shows that the most important learning takes place. 

 

 

With the academic workforce at CUNY restructured to be primarily part-time, the lack of paid office hours means that our students are disadvantaged from the start.  No matter how hard they work or how gifted they are, our students are robbed of a defining element of college education.  They are undermined before they even begin. 

One of the priorities of the PSC is that this year’s budget provide an appropriation of $8 million dedicated to this purpose.  The appropriation

would allow the union and University management to negotiate the terms under which office hour

1 (Richard J. Light, Making the Most of College: Students Speak Their Minds, 2001).