By LAUREN SEARS
News Editor
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On Monday, Sept. 22, adjunct faculty at The College of Saint Rose voted 175-61 to form a union. Representation of the adjuncts will be provided by the Service Employees International Union as a collective bargaining unit.
The College works with two other unions on campus. According to a press release, the College has “respect for the negotiating process and will work with the SEIU to address the issues concerning the adjunct faculty that President Carolyn Stefanco recognized early on in her tenure.”
The vote was historic for the College. “For decades, adjuncts, who represent more than half of our faculty, have had no say in the contracts we were offered. It was simply ‘take it or leave it.’ That process has resulted in woefully inadequate compensation, a total lack of benefits, non-existent job security and growing stress on hard working members of the Saint Rose community.
Now that the administration has recognized the clear inequities resulting from years without adjuncts having a voice, we anticipate substantial improvements in teaching and learning conditions that put into practice the school’s often stated commitment to social justice,” said Bradley Russell. Russell has been heavily involved in the unionization process. He teaches anthropology and sociology at Saint Rose.
The process has only just begun. The next steps for the adjunct unionization process is choosing its leadership. This also includes “continu[ing] communicating with our membership about the coming contract negotiations. We have reached out to the administration about beginning the negotiations. We look forward to beginning talks as soon as it can be arranged,” said Russell.
The College also expressed the importance of communicating with adjunct faculty. “The issues surrounding the role of adjunct faculty in our nation’s colleges and universities is one that deserves national discussion and dialogue, and we thank our faculty for taking a role in propelling the conversation.
Currently, approximately 70 percent of the undergraduate and graduate credits at Saint Rose are taught by full-time faculty and 30 percent are taught by adjunct faculty who bring a wealth of professional experience into the classroom. As the collective bargaining process gets underway, I know we will continue to work together to move Saint Rose forward and to provide excellence in teaching and mentoring to our students in and outside the classroom. This is the heart of the Saint Rose mission,” said a press release from the College.
The organizing committee also says that “Our organizing committee would like to thank our fellow adjuncts, the full-time faculty, the students and our local community for the outstanding level of support that they have shown our team as we were doing the hard work required to move us into a new day here at Saint Rose.”
