Part-Timers! The Tier IV Pension Enrollment Deadline is Sat., Mar 31
New York is instituting a new, inferior pension plan (Tier 6) that will apply to all CUNY employees, including adjuncts, who join Teachers Retirement System (TRS) on or after April 1. Teaching Adjuncts, Non-Teaching Adjuncts, and Adjunct CLTs have a FINAL opportunity to enroll in TRS and be covered under the more-generous Tier 4 pension plan, but they must submit their enrollment form by March 31. TRS has set up a Provisional Online Enrollment Form available here, but the union strongly encourages part-timers to submit their Enrollment Forms IN PERSON to the TRS Walk-In Center on the 2nd floor of 55 Water St. in lower Manhattan by March 31. After the Enrollment Form is submitted, enrollees have until April 30 to submit a notarized Beneficiary Form and other required documentation to TRS. TRS’s Walk-In Center will be open extended hours from 8:30 AM – 5:30 PM Monday thru Friday and on Saturday, March 31 from 9 AM – 5:00 PM. Visit the website to get other important details.
Images from PSC’s Annual Junior Faculty Development Day
Last Friday, March 23, 70 new faculty visited the union hall for a day of workshops and discussion for untenured faculty entitled How to Survive and Thrive in Your First Seven Years at CUNY. Photos of the event are on the PSC website and Facebook. Contact PSC Organizing Coordinator Deirdre Brill (212-354-1252) or see the PSC website for more information about how PSC is working to empower junior faculty.
Pathways Opposition Continues to Grow. Sign the Petition.
Faculty and staff opposition to Pathways is gaining visibility, strength and momentum. The union’s lawsuit to stop the controversial new general education plan prompted articles last week in Inside Higher Ed, the Chronicle of Higher Education and the New York Post, and radio coverage on WNYC and WBAI. (Read President Bowen’s statement about the lawsuit.)
More than 4,100 faculty and staff have added their names to the online and print petition calling for the repeal of Pathways and its replacement by an alternative, and new resolutions opposing the initiative have been passed at Baruch College by the Weissman School of Arts and Sciences and the General Faculty, and at Queensborough Community College by its Academic Senate. The Social Science, English Language Acquisition, and English departments at LaGuardia Community College passed similar resolutions, and actions by the Brooklyn College Faculty Council and other faculty bodies are pending. The University Faculty Senate is keeping a list of resolutions, letters and statements re Pathways. To add your name to the petition, click here.
Lawmakers Propose New Investments in CUNY in Final State Budget
State budget negotiations are in their final hours, and today’s (March 26) Higher Education Budget Conference Committee report recommends the following additions to the Governor’s Executive Budget: $150 per FTE for community colleges ($9 million for CUNY), $540,000 for CUNY childcare centers, $1 million for CUNY LEADs restoration. This falls short of what we need at CUNY, but it is nonetheless welcome news, and a direct result of campaign mounted by the PSC: union members attended more than 100 lobby visits in Albany and at legislators’ local offices this spring, hundreds more sent letters to lawmakers and made phone calls, and many members also rallied against pension cuts and underfunding with students and with our NYSUT colleagues. Look for a statement from President Bowen when the rest of the budget is settled and the Legislature votes to enact the higher education agreement.
