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Kevin McCoy
The April 2023 issue of The WORD contains my article “Analysis of FA member demographics shows profound losses,” which provides an historical analysis of full-time faculty lines. In this article, I compare the current staffing levels at the college with the staffing levels from ten years ago. We obtain this data by filing a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request every September. You may recall that we included similar statistics in the June 2020 issue of The WORD. Please see the two charts below, which illustrate the loss of full-time faculty and Association of Municipal Employee (AME) lines over the past decade. At the start of the 2013-14 year, the college had 1,053 full-time employees. There were only 905 full-time employees at the start of the 2022-23 year. It is not that surprising that college lost 148 full-time lines over the last ten years. Like other institutions across the nation, we’ve seen a decline in student enrollment, numerous employees retired during the pandemic and we no longer will have access to federal Covid relief funds. What is alarming, however, is that the college has chosen to replace administrative lines while not filling faculty and AME lines. As the charts below illustrate, the number of exempt (higher-level administrators not allowed to be represented by a union) and Guild positions have remained flat when comparing 2013 to 2023, but both faculty and AME lines decreased dramatically. There are five more Guild and exempt positions today that there were ten years ago, while there are 77 fewer faculty lines and 76 fewer AME lines. These numbers are only going to get worse next fall. There have been over 15 faculty and Guild retirements this past year alone. Most of the faculty lines were not filled, while the open Guild lines were filled by full-time faculty—effectively shifting FA members into administrative lines but not filling those gaps. The college reorganization added an additional five Guild positions, and four of these were filled by our classroom faculty. By the start of next semester, we will have well below 400 full-time faculty. We will share the updated numbers in the fall. While our adjunct faculty and college aides do an outstanding job, it is difficult to operate a college with so few full-time front-line employees. Our AME colleagues are stretched thin, and they are trying to keep their areas operating effectively with an increasing number of college aides. As mentioned in previous articles, there have been numerous studies showing that retention is directly related to students’ access to full-time faculty. Faculty and AME staff work directly with students and are the public face of the college. We need more full-time employees working in these positions if the college is going to successful. FA leadership will continue to press college administration to fill faculty lines. This fall we will file another Freedom of Information request to college administration, as we continue to monitor college staffing levels. We have discussed this issue with members of the college Board of Trustees and our elected representatives in the county. We have stressed this point when conducting screenings with candidates for the upcoming county legislative and county executive races. We believe our advocacy will result in more full-time lines this fall. Please always be in touch with the FA if you have questions and concerns about the work being done in your areas or the impacts of having fewer full-time faculty and staff in your areas.
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