No cuts to CUNY! Write a letter urging your NYC council member and the NYC mayor to invest in CUNY and reverse the mayor’s cuts!
Are you a student who just graduated QC on June 1? Congratulations! You accomplished something great despite not getting as much support as you deserved due to decades of state and city disinvestment at Queens College and CUNY. Do you believe future students should get more resources and support to help them graduate? Send that letter to say No Cuts to CUNY!
Are you a QC student who should have graduated this semester, but you couldn’t… because you couldn’t get the classes you needed or the required advisement, or bursar or other holds on your account kept you from registering, or the lack of financial aid assistance held you back? That’s all because of decades of budget cuts. Share your frustration: make a video about missing your graduation this semester due to QC’s neglect of student needs! Share it to your social media, use the hashtags #MissingAtQC and #APeoplesCUNY and tag the PSC QC Chapter (@psc_qc) and any student group or academic department you’re connected with.
Check out coverage of our commencement actions on Twitter in this summary tweet and mixed in with other CUNY commencement actions at the hashtag #APeoplesCUNY, and also on Instagram!
Check out graduating student Tenzin Namgyal’s speech at the May 30 Baccalaureate ceremony, referencing those graduates, staff, and faculty who are missing from QC due to disinvestment.
Who is missing from QC?
Queens College has been deeply understaffed for years. Staff and faculty are leaving in frustration over low pay, unmanageable workloads, and lack of promotion opportunities. Those who remain are missing the colleagues who used to share their workload–and are doing more work for the same pay, which means a pay cut. Students are missing—dropping out because services they need like financial aid, advising, tutoring, and counseling are in short supply. Full-time faculty retire or leave and their positions disappear, leaving departments to rely on underpaid and overworked adjunct faculty. Adjunct faculty are laid off and courses canceled abruptly–leaving students without the classes they need to graduate on time.
Too many are missing. We want them back.
Just when it seemed we could start to rebuild QC’s capacity to educate and serve its diverse students, CUNY imposed a hiring freeze, brought back the Vacancy Review Board to block hires already under way, and has insisted on deep budget cuts from the colleges–including QC–despite a state budget surplus and more state funding than expected for CUNY.
Rather than raise their voices to support our union’s demands for the New Deal for CUNY, QC President Frank Wu and his administration are playing along with the CUNY Chancellor’s austerity games. Who loses? Students, staff, and faculty.
Make missing colleagues and students visible and fight the cuts! Use this form to report who is missing and how it impacts YOU, or drop by our table to fill out the flier. And join us for:
Postering! We printed posters drawing attention to the problem of QC’s missing students, staff, and faculty. Pick up posters from Room 203 in the Music building and put them up near your office and anywhere else you want around campus.
Social media blitz! Photograph those missing posters on campus, and make videos about who is missing and the impact of the budget cuts to share on social media. Publicize and amplify all the upcoming actions, too! Post your videos with the hashtag #MissingAtQC and tag and follow the PSC QC Chapter (@psc_qc) in your posts on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
Tabling! Join us in the fall semester to talk to colleagues and students about who is missing, invite folks to fill out a flier with details about their missing colleagues and add the info to our online form, offer union buttons and other materials, and share information about upcoming actions. Faculty: move your office hours to the table and tell your students to come by!
Use this form to tell us who is missing from your office or department. Help illustrate the impact of the cuts. A few of the examples we have collected so far:
Missing: full-time lab tech, plus work-study student lab monitors.
Impact: Students can’t get the help they need with lab assignments.
Missing: Mental health counselors.
Impact: Students are experiencing mental health crises yet can’t access support.
Missing: Subject Specialty Librarians and expanded weekend hours at the Library.
Impact: Librarians doing work that used to be split between two or more people, and students lack adequate space to study and access to materials on weekends.
Missing: Enough IT staff who can resolve issues.
Impact: Technology problems can take weeks to solve. No help on weekends. Librarians are stuck with IT questions from students via the library web chat because no one can get help.
Missing: Writing Center administrator.
Impact: Inadequate help for students who struggle with writing. Students are not aware of the center as a resource and receive little help if they have trouble making appointments.
Missing: Staff trained to work with students with special needs and accommodations.
Impact: Students who most need support can’t access it.
Past actions:
Thursday, June 1, 7:30am-1:30pm: We honored the 2023 graduates and demanded the critical ongoing investment that QC and CUNY need to help more students achieve their goals. Check out the coverage at the hashtag #APeoplesCUNY on Twitter in the posts of the PSC QC Chapter (@psc_qc) on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
Thursday, May 11, 12:30pm: City Budget Rally at NYC Hall! Hundreds gathered to put pressure on the Mayor and City Council for a fully-funded CUNY.
Monday, May 8, 4:30pm: Queens Borough Hearing of the CUNY Board of Trustees! PSC members and students from across CUNY spoke against CUNY’s so-called “savings plans.” See Max Thorn’s testimony to the Board of Trustees about who is missing at QC.
Tell Governor Hochul to support a New Deal for CUNY! https://actionnetwork.org/letters/38839c82b5f6bb8e1ce6083a4792a34922fbf403
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We are the QC chapter of PSC-CUNY, the union representing adjunct and full-time faculty and professional staff at QC. Check out these events and more on our PSC QC Chapter calendar! For more information contact qcpsc.chapter@gmail.com. The short link for this page is tiny.cc/QCmissing.
