Elected Leaders Join Hundreds of PSC-CUNY Members & Students Rallying for Investment in CUNY

Hundreds of faculty and staff represented by the Professional Staff Congress, students and CUNY allies joined forces with City Comptroller Brad Lander, Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine, Assembly Member Karines Reyes and members of the New York City Council and New York State Assembly yesterday on the steps of the Tweed Courthouse to oppose cuts to City of University New York colleges.  

CUNY has been targeted for repeated cuts with Mayor Adams' “Program to Eliminate the Gap” (PEG) and in his Executive Budget, eliminating hundreds of unfilled faculty and staff positions at CUNY community colleges. Accelerate, Complete, and Engage (ACE), an academic support program known to improve graduation rates, is also on the chopping block. CUNY administrators, facing the mayor’s draconian city budget cuts and other financial pressures, ordered a hiring freeze and painful “savings target” cuts earlier this year that will undermine academic departments and student services, leaving adjunct faculty jobs at risk and students without the support they need.

“Cutting CUNY means throttling the engine of mobility that our city relies on,” said James Davis, president of the Professional Staff Congress. “Two CUNY degrees helped to propel Mayor Adams from a working-class Queens community to prominent roles in state and city government. Thousands of young people in that neighborhood and others like it need the opportunity that he was afforded, and that is what’s at risk in this city budget. Thankfully the City Council, under the leadership of Speaker Adrienne Adams, has a plan that better meets the needs of CUNY students and PSC members. We urge the Mayor and his administration to collaborate with the Council and reach a deal that’s good for CUNY and good for the City of New York.” Read more here and in the NY Daily News.