We often speak of CUNY as the nation’s premier engine of social mobility, celebrating its power to transform students’ lives. But no vehicle can run without its essential mechanics. Ignition, suspension, steering, tires — these aren’t optional upgrades; they are essential systems. CUNY’s professional staff are those very systems, and without them, this engine simply cannot run.
For years, CUNY has operated under a cloud of austerity — cloaked in evolving buzzwords from “Vacancy Review Boards” and “Campus of Concern” designations to “Enhanced Budget Savings Plans.” In the boardroom, “hiring freeze” may sound like a routine pause, but on our campuses, it means a steady erosion of the student experience. What administrators frame as “belt-tightening” is, in practice, a chokehold on our capacity to serve.
When a position is vacated and frozen, the work doesn’t vanish — it falls onto the shoulders of the staff who remain. The phrase “other related duties as assigned” in our job descriptions has become a way to compel a shrinking workforce already operating at capacity to seek new ways to increase output beyond sustainable levels. Today, it is commonplace to see a single staff member carrying the workload of two or three people. It is a crisis of morale and wellbeing, driving away vital institutional knowledge as burnout forces talented colleagues to leave.
The PSC opposes austerity (Photo: Paul Frangipane).
Ultimately, our students bear the weight of these cuts. When financial aid is delayed, registrar lines stretch out of sight, or advising offices operate at half capacity during peak registration, student success takes a hit.
Austerity fuels a relentless loop of burnout. We’re losing bright, mid-career staff to other institutions of higher education or other industries that better respect their time and pay them what they’re worth. Constant turnover isn’t just exhausting — it’s expensive. Training new hires costs significantly more than retaining the seasoned staff who keep our colleges running.
Beyond the balance sheet, the psychological toll is devastating. You cannot continue to ask staff to put “students first” while making those same staff members feel dead last.
While executive plans are drawn up in boardrooms, it is the professional staff who must labor and innovate to build the actual infrastructure, interpret the new rules, and translate high-level mandates into daily operations. Without adding capacity to match these new directives, every new project simply stretches an already depleted workforce past its limits.
During last year’s State of the University Address, Chancellor Felix Matos Rodríguez reflected upon a student’s inspirational remarks. Dr. Matos Rodríguez shared that this student’s “journey reminds us that college isn’t all lectures and exams — it’s about finding your path and your purpose. It also captures the promise of CUNY as a facilitator of success: We have opened doors for you, but it is your passion, your drive, and your vision that have propelled you forward.”
When the chancellor delivered his State of the University this year, he heaped praise on fundraising achievements and the wondrous virtues of ambitious new horizons. Yet missing from that shining narrative was the quiet crisis unfolding on the ground: the professional staff who are relentlessly squeezed to do more with less just to keep the university afloat.
PSC President James Davis’ response pointed to the need to hire additional staff in particularly under-resourced functions: “PSC congratulates the Chancellor and his team for raising $312 million in private funds last year. CUNY students deserve to benefit from every public and private dollar. CUNY must attack the city and state budget processes with the same vigor, starting with a budget request that reflects the full needs of our university, including funding to end widespread shortages of full-time faculty, advisors, and counselors for students. Additional aid is needed to support students’ success and completion. That includes keeping class sizes down and maintaining job security for the faculty and staff who make CUNY run, including adjuncts who teach the majority of CUNY classes.”
A university is not defined by its buildings; it is sustained by the people who power its operations and guide its students. We cannot claim a commitment to social mobility while depleting the workforce that makes that mobility possible.
We are told that hiring freezes are a matter of fiscal responsibility. I submit that degrading the university’s workforce until it can no longer fulfill its core mission is the ultimate fiscal irresponsibility. You cannot run a world-class university on a skeleton crew. Essential student resources — like CUNY Beyond and the Petrie Student Emergency Fund — alongside vital new efforts like the Constructive Dialogue Initiative and the CUNY Immigration Assistance Project, require dedicated staff to survive, let alone flourish.
CUNY’s administration must end the hiring freezes and fight for a budget that reflects the true value of CUNY’s professional staff. We are the backbone of CUNY — but even the strongest backbone will snap under an unsustainable weight. We implore the Board of Trustees and the chancellery to invest in the people who invest in our students, and provide the staffing necessary to ensure every student receives the consistent, high-quality support they deserve.
Kevin Adams is the director of community standards/student conduct officer at Medgar Evers College and the co-chair of the PSC Higher Education Officer cross-campus chapter. This op-ed is an edited version of his recent testimony to the CUNY Board of Trustees.
