Part-time faculty are used to being shortchanged for the many hours they put into teaching outside of class—hours spent preparing for class, advising students, grading papers and so on. But hundreds of part-timers at five colleges in the City University of New York face a special injustice. In the last week of every semester, they are docked an hour of pay per class because the colleges say they are just proctoring exams.

Gail Graves teaches three courses in French in the Modern Languages department at Baruch College, one of the five colleges that doesn't pay for a complete 15th week. In a normal week, she is paid for nine classroom hours and one office hour. The last week of the semester, however, she is only paid for seven hours, despite the fact that "I'm inundated with e-mails from students, I am meeting with students all week who are practicing recitations," she says. "I also have to grade exams. I'm actually working more this week than almost any other week during the semester, but I'm not getting paid for any of that. I'm just getting paid for the time I spend proctoring. That's outrageous."

Two years ago, the union representing adjuncts, the Professional Staff Congress, filed a grievance on behalf of faculty at Baruch, Bronx Community College, the College of Staten Island, Kingsborough Community College and Queensborough Community College. When it went to arbitration, the arbitrator ruled that, because the union contract is silent on the issue of how many weeks define a semester, the case would be decided on past practice. Those 12 CUNY colleges where adjuncts had been paid for the 15th week were obligated to continue to pay them, but those five that had not paid the 15th week were not obligated to do so. The arbitrator did not say that the five colleges were prohibited from paying the 15th week.

PSC President Barbara Bowen and QCC professor Jay Appleman turn over 2,000 of petition signatures to Queensborough Community College President Eduardo Marti. PSC photo.

So this spring, the union mounted a petition drive, which rapidly garnered 2,000 signatures from full- and part-time faculty, staff and students. Then, during its "Campaign of Outrage," the union held demonstrations during the last week of May on the five campuses and presented the petitions to the college presidents.

"We have a new president who said a month ago that she didn't even know about this," says Graves.

Queensborough Community College president Eduardo Marti amiably received the

petitions in person from PSC president and AFT vice president Barbara Bowen, when the demonstration came to QCC on May 24.

"We're not talking about a lot of money" to make things right, says Graves. "It won't break the college." [Barbara McKenna]

June 1, 2007