At the end of a busy summer, FA President Dante Morelli addresses the Suffolk County Legislature’s Committee on Education and Diversity on August 27 regarding FA members’ work with student internships. Read Dante’s full story: “Educators meet legislators: FA encourages collaboration on student internships.”

I hope you all had an enjoyable summer and Labor Day weekend. For our union, Labor Day is a time to reflect on our working lives and the labor we perform for our students, and it is a time to reflect on our values.

We value solidarity

I congratulate the Guild of Administrative Officers for securing a fair contract with the recent support of the Suffolk County Legislature. I also want to congratulate President Sean Tvelia, his negotiation team and the entire Guild leadership for negotiating a fair contract for their membership.

We value our students

Sara Lopez Garcia is one of our outstanding students who was wrongfully and immorally detained by ICE the day before Commencement. A sincere thank you to the members of our community who contributed to her GoFundMe and/or helped raise awareness of this issue. I am also thankful to the National Education Association, the LI Federation of Labor and all the other media outlets that brought needed attention to Sara’s story. Please read FA Secretary Cynthia Eaton’s follow-up story about Sara and her message to the SCCC community.

We also value how students are able to take advantage of excellent opportunities afforded by the college that enhance their future success at four-year institutions or in the workforce. This includes invaluable student internships in local businesses, organizations and especially within Suffolk County government offices.

The highly accomplished student Commencement speaker Nancy Lorme is just one of these outstanding students who completed an internship in the Suffolk County Comptroller’s office, calling it “the best experience of my time as a student.” Learn more about FA members’ good work on these kinds of opportunities and current efforts to further develop and expand them: “Educators meet legislators: FA encourages collaboration on student internships.”

We value our members

I am beyond thrilled to welcome close to 90 new members to the Faculty Association! This was another highlight for our union this past summer. There are eight new full-time faculty lines, thanks to the popularity of the SUNY Reconnect program, most of which were earned by our adjunct faculty members. Congratulations to those colleagues.

We are grateful to members who go above and beyond during the summer on various special projects. We appreciate you. I want to particularly thank our members and colleagues in the following areas:

• Our members and colleagues in Adjunct Services for onboarding more than 80 new adjunct faculty
• Our members and colleagues in Student Services who worked incredibly hard to get students matriculated, advised and scheduled as a result of an enrollment increase
• Our members, colleagues and partners in HR and payroll for their work in onboarding our new members.

We value fairness and equity

This year, we will be engaging our members about the upcoming contract negotiations that will hopefully begin toward the end of the academic year. It’s hard to believe but our current stipulation of agreement with the college and the county will end on August 31, 2026, but please know that your union leadership will be prepared for the upcoming negotiations.

We value advocacy

We spent several days over the summer screening candidates for the Suffolk County Legislature. Please read my article about the endorsed candidates and please consider supporting our endorsed candidates in November. They are strong advocates for and supporters of labor and higher education, especially for the college.

We value professional development

The FA and Guild are proud to co-sponsor a professional development workshop on Friday, September 12, called An Evolving Community of Care. This takes place from 9 a.m. to 12 noon in the Montauk Point Room of Babylon Student Center, Ammerman Campus (breakfast served at 8:30 a.m.).

The needs of our students have grown over the past decades, especially after the pandemic, and this workshop is designed to better support you as you work to help students gain the skills they need to succeed. Read FA Executive Vice President Courtney Brewer’s article detailing this collaborative event, and we look forward to seeing you there—especially our classroom faculty members.

We value our work

We had a busy summer in the FA. In addition to some of the special projects mentioned above as well as our regular summer duties, we had ongoing work with the Beacon liaison program, end-of-course student opinion surveys and addressing and/or resolving a number of outstanding issues for our members.

We will have important updates to share on these summer efforts at our next Executive Council meeting on September 11. If you have any questions or concerns about these issues, you can bring it to your EC rep’s attention. Also, please check your email after EC meetings, as your rep will send you summary notes from the meeting, detailing important announcements and updates from the EC and leadership team.

Labor Day reflections

Our labor is directly connected to our students and our institution. Our labor, our work, takes up a major part of our lives. In meeting new members last week, I boasted and gushed about how we have incredible jobs; to get to work with students and help them transform their lives is more than a privilege.

I also bragged about how many of our members have careers spanning 30, 40 or 50 years of serving students at SCCC. This is, I believe, a testament to the good fortune we have to work at this institution.

Your union will continue to be very active throughout the year, and we wish all of our members a great start to the new academic year!