I want to thank the 377 faculty who filled out the FA health & safety survey. This represents nearly a third of our members.

Here are some basic demographic stats on our respondents. 57% of the respondents are full-time faculty members and 43% are adjuncts. We had broad representation across the campuses: 57% work at Ammerman, 34% work at Grant, 18% work at Eastern, 3% at Sayville Center and 2% at Culinary (and some faculty work on multiple campuses). We also had a good mix of classroom and nonclassroom respondents: 61% classroom faculty, 24% nonclassroom and 15% fill both roles. The teaching modality for classroom faculty reflected student enrollment.

We had asked a series of questions to assess how a Covid outbreak could affect faculty who are working on campus. 55% of respondents share either an office or workspace with a colleague. 17% of respondents indicated it would be difficult to socially distance from coworkers. Daycare and eldercare are also a concern for many of our faculty; nearly 27% of respondents would need to find coverage if schools and/or daycare centers are closed. We will make sure that administration is aware of this information when making decisions on how to react to a Covid surge.

We also tried to determine the health risk for our faculty if they contracted Covid.  These questions were optional, but only a handful of faculty did not answer them. I frequently remind administrators that a significant number of faculty have co-morbidities that would endanger them if they contract Covid. The survey results confirm this: 33% of respondents indicated that were either immunocompromised or had another condition that would put them at risk if they caught Covid. In addition, 47% of respondents are over the age of 56. Also, aside from the safety concerns, the FA officers are very concerned that we could have dozens of additional retirements in the near future.

The final two questions asked faculty if they are vaccinated and whether they approve of vaccine mandates for employees. These questions were also optional, but the response rate was excellent. Here's what the responses show. The vaccination rate of the faculty who responded was very high: 94% of respondents have at least one dose of vaccine and 72% of respondents are fully vaccinated and boosted. 

There is also broad support for a vaccine mandate.  68% of the faculty who responded support a mandate, 25% think there shouldn’t be a mandate and 7% indicated not sure.

The most interesting part of the survey are the comments. We received a total of 151 comments. Because it would be difficult for me to address all the comments and questions here, I'll present a brief summary of the most common concerns. 

There are many pro and con comments about a possible employee vaccine mandate (SUNY has not given us any indication that this will happen). Several faculty point out that if there was a student vaccine mandate, then there should be an employee vaccine mandate. Some faculty also express concerns that the student mandate was impacting enrollment. Nearly all faculty who include enrollment issues in their comments support having students return to campus. Some faculty think we need to do this ASAP, while others believe that we need to be sure the campuses are truly safe.

Below is a list of some concerns—in no particular order—beyond the most common concerns about safety and missed class time. There was obviously not consensus on many of the issues.

• Masks – enforcement issues
• Masks – provide N95 or KN95 to students and employees
• Masks – not necessary in the classroom since there is a mandate
• Testing and contact tracing – both pro and con
• Adequate ventilation
• Social distancing concerns
• Working one-on-one with students (tutors and counselors)
• Nursing clinicals on Covid floors
• Comorbidities – both for faculty and people they live with
• Missed class time – both for students and faculty
• Childcare/eldercare issues

Many of the specific questions in our survey were answered in the recent College Brief, and here are answers to the ones not covered in that brief:

• Faculty need certification to teach an online class. Additional information about certification will be forthcoming.
• Masks will be provided to students and employees who forget their mask.
• Faculty should contact the FA about bumping/assignment concerns.
• All accommodation requests should go to HR, not your area supervisor.
• Health services verifies student vaccination status through a New York State Department of Health database.
• Students services will make sure that students are aware of the vaccine requirements and give students an opportunity to make sure they are complying with the mandate. Health services, student services and the computer center have done an outstanding job making sure student are in compliance. While there may be students who are electing not to enroll because of the mandate, the college lost very few on-campus students due to the mandate.

Finally, I want to thank everyone who responded to this survey. This feedback is incredibly useful and will help inform our advocacy on your behalf. If you did not get a chance to complete a survey or if you have additional concerns, please contact me or Dante.