CUNY Board of Trustees Hearing via Zoom (formerly at City College)

The CUNY Board of Trustees sets the agenda for CUNY’s bargaining and approves the final contract.  They need to hear from us.

As of Friday, October 13, CUNY has changed the Board of Trustees hearing to fully remote. You can still tell us you’ll join the solidarity gathering at the PSC Union Hall to support the PSC members who will testify via Zoom.

Your Testimony

1. 3 minutes is a hard limit.
   1. There’s a warning light that turns yellow then red
   2. They will interrupt you. Wrap it up.
   3. 1.5 – 2 pages double spaced.
   4. It’s a good idea to time yourself.
   5. It’s Ok to read it.
2. Topics.
   1. We’re in bargaining and the BoT sets CUNY’s strategic agenda and approved the contract –it must be ratified by members and approved by the BoT, so you might choose to testify about our need for real raises that beat inflation, about continued remote work options, the need for additional equity salary increases for our lowest paid colleagues, about late paychecks for adjuncts and our demand to address them, about the need to keep and improve the 3-year appointment—or about job security for adjuncts mor generally.
   2. Or you might testify about how public underfunding of CUNY has affected your work and your students –cuts at the City level, long underfunding that’s only just started to improve in the last two years at the state level, your department or office, or about the infrastructure needs of your campus.
   3. Pick one issue—one demand, one theme, and use examples, anecdotes, a personal story – to make the case.
3. Be clear about what you want CUNY to do—
   1. agree to a fair contract that includes x demands that you just spoke about
   2. fight aggressively for full public funding so we have the resources to address y problem you just described
   3. Include “Would you care to respond?” at the end of your testimony.
4. Structure
   1. An easy outline one might use is
      1. Introduction–Who you are
      2. Legitimization-Why your testimony is well-informed (years of experience, role at CUNY, relevant expertise)
      3. Problem–going from the general (example: lack of funding/noncompetitive pay/etc.) to the specific (an example/anecdote)
         1. Good to speak about how students are impacted
      4. Solution (Example: The Board must advocate aggressively for full funding /or/ the board must support our contract demands and work win a budget that will fund them)
   2. But you can organize your testimony in other ways and be very effective.

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Published: October 4, 2023 | Last Modified: October 13, 2023