Budget Cuts, Tuition Hikes, and Job Insecurity
RENEE MCGARRY AND JESSE GOLDSTEIN
We heard it officially this week. The nation has been in a recession since 2007, and we’ve all witnessed CUNY feeling the pinch. Undoubtedly, there are times when we, as both students and adjuncts, feel powerless, and probably times when we feel scared and alarmed. Do we have to? And what can we do to feel more empowered?
Of course we can (and should) attend protests and rallies. We can (and should) call the governor, the chancellor, our legislators, and our moms. But we often don’t feel the immediate impact of these actions. We all know that change takes time and effort, yet we can feel disheartened when our hard work seems unseen, ignored, unnoticed. Rallies and protests and phone calls are important, but they are singular actions that can leave us with post-event let down.
We need to stay active in this fight in our everyday lives.
Our suggestion? Let’s each and every one of us take it to our classrooms. In my classroom, I spend day after day with students, never once hearing their stories, and certainly never telling them mine. I always have an excuse: I’m an art historian—how do politics fit into my class? It’s just not my style. There are 90 students in that room! It will be chaos.
But then I wonder, what if, for just fifteen minutes, we talked about how a tuition hike would impact that girl who sits in the middle of the front row and has never missed a class? How would a long-term adjunct losing his job impact that kid who sits in the back and needs a letter of recommendation for graduate school? How many of my students would have to rearrange their schedules if yet another MTA hike went through? If my rent goes up, how many more jobs will I have to take on and how much less attention will my students get?
If, like me, you’re not always comfortable engaging on this level with your students, think about how you can work these issues into your syllabus. Relax in your department lounge for awhile and ask other members of your department how they would approach topics that are outside of your usual range. Is there a way to work the history of CUNY activism into your class? Or the current city, state, and national economic crises? It may seem impractical at first, but once you start brainstorming with your colleagues, you’d be surprised what you can come up with.
Along those lines, the Adjunct Project is happy to announce that the week of March 30th through April 3rd will be CUNY Equity Week, an opportunity to extend and expand this process during the Spring Semester. For all or a portion of a class during this week, we are asking that both adjuncts and full-time faculty make a coordinated effort to incorporate information on adjunct teaching conditions into class lessons. You may have a class discussion, a persuasive letter exercise, a statistical analysis of adjunct and full-time wages for the same workload, or an extra-credit assignment to find a link between course materials and adjunct labor.
Additionally, this year we are providing access to materials that will help you and your students map the CUNY system. You can use our materials, and you can be as creative as you want to be. Start the conversation in your classrooms and your departments. Think about CUNY and where it is and where you want it to be. We’ll also offer organized brainstorming sessions to help you determine how to best make CUNY Equity Week for you. If you’re interested in working on discipline-specific projects, or anything involving the upcoming week, please contact us at [email protected]
Another way we can become better teachers and students is to recognize the impact that juggling so many roles and responsibilities has on our lives and our health. With that in mind, the Adjunct Project is will host a series of wellness workshops over the spring semester. In these, there is the potential to take away a toolkit of exercises, nutritional advice, and coping strategies that will keep you safe and sane as you continue your career in school and beyond.
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