As the New York City council chair for higher education, Rita Joseph has vowed to be an advocate for CUNY. So far, she is working closely with the PSC to make full funding for CUNY a reality.
Rita Joseph, chair of the city council’s higher education committee, calls for the full funding of CUNY (Credit: Paul Frangipane).
Previously the chair of the education committee, Joseph said she wants to work closely with the K-12 advocates to think about CUNY and the Department of Education as linked entities with the same mission of educating the city’s future generations.
“Public higher education is one of the greatest promises our state has ever made,” Joseph said during a rally in Albany with PSC members and other CUNY supporters. “It is a promise that no matter your zip code, no matter your income, no matter where you’re born you deserve a pathway to opportunity. But a promise without funding is an empty one.”
Joseph has been active this year in advocating for the full funding for CUNY. Joseph said city lawmakers and unions like the PSC were successful in pushing against the austerity budget agenda of the Adams administration and was confident the Mamdani administration would understand the need for fully funding CUNY in the upcoming budget.
“Access without support is not equity, it’s abandonment,” she said.
Juvanie Piquant, Joseph’s chief of staff and former chair of the CUNY University Student Senate, said that in addition to fighting for a fair budget Joseph’s office wanted to fight for modernizing CUNY campuses.
Most of CUNY’s 300 buildings are more than 50 years old; 84 were built prior to 1950. CUNY Chief Operating Officer Hector Batista testified to city council that approximately 33% of CUNY buildings were in a state of “good repair,” which is “up from 27 % from last year.” New York City and State each provide half of the capital funding for the community colleges, while the State provides capital investment for the senior colleges.
Joseph’s goal is to visit every campus in the system and work with stakeholders like the PSC, student organizations and the college administrations to make the case that CUNY campuses need funding for capital improvements.
“We’re advocating holistically,” Piquant said.
In a recent higher education committee hearing on the subject of CUNY funding, Joseph was inquisitive about a number of important issues, asking PSC President James Davis if adjunct salaries were adequate–the union maintains that while the progress has been significant, there is still much more room for improvement.
Heather James-Zuckerman, the union’s legislative chair, said, “Rita Joseph is a fierce advocate for public education and the PSC welcomes her leadership as the new city council higher education chair. Chair Joseph ran her first higher education preliminary budget hearing last week during which her passion, emphasis on results, and detail orientation were on display. Chair Joseph takes the council’s oversight role seriously. We know she will work with us, in coalition with student groups and other stakeholders, and that she will fight tirelessly for CUNY. We look forward to working with her to advance the union’s budget priorities and the larger needs of CUNY’s faculty, staff, and students.”
In the 10 weeks Joseph has been higher education chair, she has already attended a PSC Delegate Assembly, traveled to Albany to speak up for CUNY at the annual Higher Education Action Day, and headlined a CUNY for All rally on the steps of City Hall.
Education advocates were largely favorable of Joseph’s time at the helm of the Council’s Committee on Education. “Her tenure as education chair coincided with a period of major uncertainty within the city’s school system,” City and State reported. “She steered the committee through multiple contentious budget cycles, conducted oversight as the city welcomed an influx of migrant students into its schools and grappled with learning loss and mental health challenges in wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.”
Joseph said that part of addressing problems meant looking at inequities: are campuses with larger minority student populations receiving the shorter end of the stick? She noted that part of that means reviving a campaign once undertaken by the higher education committee to look at the need for more Black faculty members at CUNY.
“It’s on the agenda,” she said.
Published: March 26, 2026
