"L.I.C new Logo" by Vijay Bandari is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

In my role as FA president, as you can imagine, I'm often on the receiving end of hearing the good, the bad and everything in between.

Some of the phone calls, texts, emails and in-person conversations are more difficult than others. The most difficult of all tend to be ones in which members feel a personal conflict with others at the college.

As the person who heads our conflict mediation program—and as one of our trained conflict mediators—I try to stay mindful of all perspectives involved, remembering that there are always multiple narratives and motivations at play. It's not easy, especially when things seem personal. It doesn't matter if the issue at hand involves faculty and students, faculty and faculty, faculty and administrators or anyone else for that matter.

What's important is to keep in mind a quote from Elie Wiesel who said, "Just as despair can come to one only from other human beings, hope too can be given to one only by other human beings."

When things get tough in the FA, in any of a range of ways, we know that just as the challenges are human made, the solutions are human made. That's why we work together to try to bring positive change—to make things more hopeful—for all involved.

Here are some of the ways we've been doing this in the FA recently.

Hope comes from voting

Please consider voting for our Executive Council's endorsed candidates on November 2 or through early voting. You'll be happy to know, I believe, that the FA political action committee met over the summer and had important discussions about the lack of full-time classroom faculty and the over-bloated administration—and those conversations are working.

Legislator Kara Hahn (LD-5) asked President Bonahue at the legislature's September 20, 2021, labor and education committee meeting about the lack of full-time classroom faculty. Additionally, Legislator Tom Donnelly (LD-17) and a few others reached out to Ben Zwirn, college director of legislative affairs, and inquired about the lack of full-time classroom faculty. Ben disclosed this to me a few weeks ago and his response to legislators was "I can see you had a conversation with Dr. Morelli about this."

That is correct. Our conversations with all legislative candidates, including incumbents, is just the beginning of our advocacy efforts in our quest for more full-time classroom faculty. 

Your vote for each candidate on the Suffolk County Legislature is important because this is the body that has the final vote on our contract which expires soon as noted below. Additionally, the legislature annually votes on the college budget. We are supporting and campaigning for these endorsed candidates by sending out more than 10,000 mailers (paid for by their individual campaigns), sending nearly 7,000 robocalls to our fellow NYSUT members and participating in labor walks for our endorsed candidates.

The legislators asking these pointed questions were all endorsed by the FA Executive Council in August. Please consider supporting them with your vote, as they are supporting issues that matter greatly to our union.

Hope comes from the judicial process

The FA secured a major labor victory in a case that appeared before but was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court and will not be heard. An adjunct employee here at SCCC joined the class action lawsuit Seidemann et al. vs. Professional Staff Congress et al. (PSC is the union representing CUNY faculty). As a result, the FA was listed as a defendant in the case. The plaintiffs are not members of their respective unions and were fighting to have all of their past union dues returned to them as a result of the 2017 Supreme Court Janus decision. Their argument was illogical, yet serves as a reminder and warning that more anti-union cases will most likely come up through the courts.

Someone may think "Wow, to defend a case that went up to our nation's highest court is expensive." Legal counsel for a case of this nature is certainly expensive for unions. Thankfully, we are members of our state union NYSUT, and their legal department represented the FA in the case. I want to personally thank all of the NYSUT legal staff who worked diligently on fighting this lawsuit, especially Michael J. Del Piano, Andrea A. Wanner and Edward J. Greene, Jr. 

The union gets to live another day as a result of this lawsuit being rejected by the Supreme Court, but an important lesson for us is to continue to be prepared and be ready to fight off the next anti-union case.

Hope comes from being together on campus

The college is transitioning to a larger on-campus presence for the spring 2021 semester.

Masks will still be worn by everyone on campus, and students will still have to provide vaccination status if they are returning to campus for the first time in the spring.

Also, the college's restart task force voted on Monday to recommend to President Bonahue that class capacity be raised from 75% to 100%.

Faculty are reminded to please submit their vaccination cards to avphr@sunysuffolk.edu. If you are not vaccinated then you must be tested weekly. If you wish to seek an accommodation, you'll need to reach out to HR as they are determining accommodations on a case-by-case basis.

Hope comes from negotiations

Our current collective bargaining agreement expires August 31, 2022, and we are currently building our negotiations team and conducting research on college documents and budgets. A comprehensive survey will go out to the membership near the beginning of the spring 2021 semester.

Additionally, the FA will hold multiple contract forums both in person and via Zoom as well as a general membership meeting to present the results of the survey and to address priorities for negotiation. 

Hope comes from collaborating on retention

A recently released report from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center indicates that undergraduate enrollment at U.S. colleges and universities is expected to fall by another 500,000 students this fall when all data is collected. This puts institutions in a deeper enrollment hole compared with last fall.

Of all sectors of higher education, community colleges have experienced more severe enrollment loss than any other group—a loss of 20.8% nationally from fall 2019. My April WORD article highlights some of the reasons why enrollment has dropped and could potentially stay low for the next few years.

We know that SCCC's loss of enrollment reflects current trends across the nation. To help combat this, the FA is teaming up with college administration to implement a task force that focuses on retention of our current and future students. President Bonahue discussed the importance of reliable retention strategies that contribute to student success, and we look forward to working with him and his team as we begin work this semester.

Between enrollment, gearing up for contract negotiations, transitioning more fully back to campus, fighting off anti-union lawsuits and holding elected officials and the college accountable, your union is working incredibly hard to get through the challenges facing us. 

Hope comes only from other human beings. Join us as we work together for a brighter future.