Department Chairs Oppose Layoffs and Course Reductions

As the chairperson of an academic department at The City University of New York, I stand in strong and public opposition to layoffs of adjunct faculty and reductions of course offerings for students. 

I was elected to this position by my colleagues to provide academic leadership and serve the students we teach.  I was not elected to impose preemptive budget cuts that will mean faculty colleagues lose jobs and health insurance during a pandemic, students lose access to college courses during an economic catastrophe.  Cuts that will cause hundreds, if not thousands, of adjuncts across the CUNY system to lose employment in the midst of a public health crisis are morally repugnant.

Like all New Yorkers, CUNY department chairs have had our lives upended by the COVID-19 pandemic. We have seen the inequities of our society laid bare, as the rates of illness and death have risen disproportionately in the low-income communities of color and immigrant communities served by our university. We have witnessed unbearable loss of life in our city, including among our colleagues and our families.

The fiscal challenges we face are real, but calling for mass layoffs of adjunct faculty and reductions in course offerings is the cruelest way to address them.  It shows a failure of imagination, as well as of moral courage.  In this crisis, the CUNY administration should defend the city’s public university, not capitulate to budget cuts before they are even announced by State and City governments or accept cuts when announcements are made.  The CUNY Board of Trustees should stand with us and our union in advocating for new investment in CUNY as a lifeline of economic recovery.

Announcing massive, preemptive cuts to our already underfunded university before every dollar of federal stimulus, every college reserve fund, every potential increase in enrollment and every cost-savings from the campus shutdowns has been publicly accounted for sends the message that CUNY can withstand such cuts.  It cannot.  I oppose being directed to execute them. 

New York will be forever changed by COVID-19.  But the city will not be able to overcome the deepening recession with a hollowed-out public university.  The job of University management is to protect and enhance CUNY, not manage its destruction. I am proud to continue to fulfill the responsibilities for which I was elected as department chair, but I want no part in helping to destroy the University.

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