This new system was created without any kind of public discussion or deliberation or formal policy-making. Speaking for the PSC, Steve London emphasized that the restructuring of CUNY s instructional staff into a majority contingent workforce was not brought about by some force of nature, but by funding policies enacted at the state and city levels. Therefore, he said, the state and city have a responsibility to deal with the consequences of what they have helped create. Speaker after speaker detailed how full-timers and the university itself are harmed by exploiting adjuncts as cheap labor. Full-time faculty suffer from an overload of committee work, curriculum development, governance and administrative duties.
Students suffer from turnover, the lack of conference time and recommendations for graduate school.
Dr. Fred Beaufait, President of New York Technical College, cited the overwhelming burden on the college infrastructure of having to search for and hire almost 700 adjuncts a semester, without sufficient allocations to cover salaries so monies have to be drained from other areas. Never before in my experience at several major universities in other states have I seen as critical a situation as the one we face at City Tech, said Beaufait. Others, such as Steve Leberstein, head of the City College Center for Worker Education, former University Faculty Senate President Sandi Cooper and PSC Senior College Officer Nancy Romer all cited the lopsided burden of non-teaching college responsibilities when they have to be shared among so few. All of us are carrying the University on our backs. At City College, the provost spearheaded an effort to improve the ratio by the wholesale firing of adjuncts, said Crain.