Students at the New York City campus of Long Island
University say they have begun the school year with classes being taught by
replacement teachers of questionable quality after the administration locked
out their regular professors as part of a bitter labor dispute.
About 400 full-time and adjunct members of the faculty at
the private Brooklyn school were barred from their classrooms and had their
email accounts and health insurance cut off just days before classes were
scheduled to begin on Sept. 7.
The university, which has about 8,000 students, has
remained open, but some students say they have arrived for classes that were
taught by replacement teachers who only took attendance or didn't know their
subjects.
Caroline Ortiz, a sophomore majoring in chemistry, said
she commuted one hour from Queens for classes that lasted only 10 minutes, with
the instructor leaving after taking attendance.
A biology class last week, she said, "was taught by
a pharmacist. I don't think he's in the biology field."
She said the laboratory session scheduled after the class
was cancelled because whoever runs science labs is required to have a safety
certification.
Some students have been joining locked-out faculty on
picket lines. In one demonstration Tuesday, students chanted, "You say
lockout, we say walkout!" as they gathered outside the main entrance. Some
students were looking to enroll at other colleges, and some professors said
they were looking for other jobs.
Long Island University officials said they were acting in
the students' best interest.
"Our first priority is and always has been our
students." said Gale Haynes, the university's chief operating officer.
"We maintain an unwavering commitment to ensure that students continue
their studies without interruption and that tuition remains affordable. This
has been demonstrated by the University capping annual tuition rate increases
at two percent or less from 2014 through 2020, an unprecedented
commitment."
The professors, represented by the Long Island University
Faculty Federation, have rejected a proposed contract that would cut salaries
for new adjunct professors and decrease the number of hours they can teach,
university spokeswoman Jennifer Solomon said.
The university is offering existing faculty average
raises of about 13 percent over five years.
Another sticking point in negotiations, according to the
federation, is that tenured professors at the university's Brooklyn campus are
already paid less than its Long Island campus, LIU Post.
Solomon said the differences in salaries between the
Brooklyn and Long Island faculty is a result of salary structures requested by
the union in previous contracts.
Susan Ziegler, who teaches a visual arts course at the
Brooklyn campus, said some of the replacement teachers are administrators from
the Long Island campus who have never before taught the courses they were
assigned.
Biology professor Carole Griffiths, who has been at the
university for 18 years, accused LIU's president, Kimberly Cline, of
"trying to break down the unions."
"We wanted to work without a contract while the
negotiations were going on, and she said no," she said, adding that the
person teaching her class is an administrator with a B.A. in biology, "but
that's it."
Nashrin Akter, 19, a nursing major from Bangladesh, said
she skipped a Muslim holiday on Monday to attend classes that were not taught
by "real teachers."
With tuition at about $35,000 a year, "I'm very
disappointed. What I'm seeing is not supposed to happen in America," Akter
said.
Source: Philly.com
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