News & Events
The Professional Staff Congress/CUNY, the union that represents the faculty and academic staff at The City University of New York, joins students, faculty and staff colleagues at Brooklyn College and throughout CUNY in denouncing Professor Mitchell Langbert’s disgusting statement that committing sexual assault in high school is a prerequisite for being “a member of the male sex.” Regardless of Professor Langbert’s subsequent claim that his remarks were intended as satire, his advocacy of sexual violence, together with the misogynistic and homophobic views expressed in his blog post on Judge Kavanaugh, are the antithesis of what colleges—and unions—represent. Nevertheless, the PSC vigorously opposes calls for immediate dismissal of Professor Langbert, repugnant as his comments are. Professor Langbert is entitled to the due process protections the PSC has won for every CUNY employee represented by the union. The right to due process offers protection of dissenting and minority positions, no matter how repugnant those positions may be; due process must be upheld in every case if it is to have meaning. The PSC will continue to support the thousands of CUNY faculty, staff and students who work every day to make the university a safe and vibrant institution.
PSC Members March Through Wall Street Calling for Competitive Salaries and Funding for CUNY
Manhattan—Nearly a year after the expiration of their union contract, 600 CUNY faculty and staff marched through the Financial District today to demand public investment in The City University of New York and raises for underpaid faculty and staff. Led by a brass band and carrying lighted signs, hundreds of union members picketed outside the NY Stock Exchange before chanting their way to the investment banking firm of William C. Thompson, chairperson of the CUNY Board of Trustees.
Full-time salaries at CUNY lag thousands of dollars behind those at comparable institutions such as Rutgers and University of Connecticut. The 12,000 adjunct faculty who work at CUNY now teach the majority of courses, but are paid a near-poverty wage despite having PhDs or other advanced degrees. The union has called for an increase in adjunct pay to $7,000 a course, to bring pay at CUNY in line with adjunct pay at Fordham, Penn State and Rutgers.
CUNY was once free; it can be free again — and well-funded.
Tens of thousands of poor and working-class New Yorkers, particularly people of color and immigrants, depend on CUNY as a gateway to good-paying jobs and mobility. But only 2 in 10 community college students graduate within 2 years. That is unacceptable.
To succeed, CUNY students need:
- Free tuition
- Individualized advising and faculty mentoring
- Free MetroCards
- Free textbooks
There is already a program that provides these things – ASAP (Accelerated Study in Associate Programs) and ACE (Accelerate Complete Engage).
Investing in and improving ASAP and ACE means doubling graduation rates, giving students access to upward mobility while saving the state $6,500 per graduating student in the long run. And, as NYS and NYC grapple with widening disparities, ASAP and ACE are powerful engines for racial and economic justice.
Click read more to sign the petition.
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