Fighting for a Better University
“Education is a social process; education is growth; education is not a preparation for life but is life itself.” – John Dewey
It is not often that one gets to say this about CUNY, but recent events have been inspiring. The Adjunct Project’s actions during Campus Equity Week last month, combined with the PSC rally at Cooper Union on October 30th, leave one with the sense and the hope that something important and original is beginning to take shape at CUNY. The students and faculty of the university in particular, and to some extent, their union representation, are finally beginning to wake up to the fact that we are all of us in this together: part-timers, adjuncts, staff, graduate students, and tenured, and non-tenured faculty. Although we have a long way to go toward true equity – whether its for the adjuncts (who make less than half of what their full time colleagues make) or for the tenured and tenure-track professors (who still make less at CUNY than their counterparts at other New York universities) – there seems to be a growing sense that these inequities hurt all of us, regardless of where you are in the pay scale. We are all effected by the conditions of the University, and sadly, these conditions are not unique to CUNY.
Moving forward, however, it is important to remember that we aren’t only fighting for better wages and benefits but that, at the end of it all, it has to be a better university that we are really struggling to achieve. It is important as well, to remember that it is not only CUNY we are trying to make better, but that we should also be working to improve conditions at state and public universities across the nation.
Say what you like about ideological state apparatuses and the military academic complex, but public universities have the best shot of offering a truly alternative vision for creating the conditions necessary for collective intelligent practice, reform, resistance, and political reconstruction that this society so desperately needs. Indeed, it is precisely against the threats of state, military, and conservative interference in the operations of our universities that we must stand.
As we struggle for higher wages, we should also be looking for ways to continue to improve and increase faculty self-governance, while simultaneously developing means of faculty and worker control over the administrative functions of the universities where we work and teach. As we seek to secure greater health benefits for ourselves and the other workers at the university, we should also be thinking about ways that we can increase academic freedom and tenure and actively resist the impositions of conservative groups like Campus Watch, which threaten both the intellectual diversity and vigor of our discourse. And as we look to insure that all of the students, staff, and faculty at CUNY receive adequate and affordable health insurance, we should also be resisting the corporatization of our schools by encouraging much greater public funding and support and demanding that the trend of rising tuitions be reversed.
Chancellor Goldstein and the Board of Trustees are currently soliciting proposals for the 2008-2012 CUNY Master Plan, and The Advocate encourages its readers to participate. It is imperative that the chancellor and the Board understand the needs of the faculty and staff and recognize the significant changes that are necessary to reach CUNY’s full potential, but we should remember that if we want more than just a raise we will have to prepare ourselves to do a lot more than merely advise and solicit the administration.
We must begin, instead to prepare ourselves for the long and difficult work of rethinking and remaking the university we want now.
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