Comm. College President Says New Faculty Contract Has to “Benefit the Whole College”
Clinton Community College President John Kowal says he is hopeful a new contract between the institution’s Board of Trustees and Faculty Association Union will be agreed upon soon.
The FA has gone without a new contract, and thus, salary increases, from the board since 2017.
In that time, several attempts at negotiating a contract have proved unsuccessful for both sides, with the last known negotiation stalling out earlier this month.
Some members of the FA, including President Dr. Denise Coughlin, had then felt their next step should be to move into a “Work to Rule” status at the college, which they will remain in until a new contract is finalized.
Under “Work to Rule,” faculty at the college fully embrace the duties outlined in their current contract, and nothing extra, Coughlin had said at the time.
On Thursday, Kowal outlined some of the issues that were holding up a deal officially getting done.
“I think the biggest holdup, from my perspective, is the existing language in the prior contract that’s still in effect, regarding an array of extra compensation issues,” Kowal told the Press-Republican.
“That whole framework was developed when we had about two, and maybe, three times as many students, many more faculty, a lot more offerings of classes.”
Kowal explained that FA members, excluding adjuncts and non-teaching faculty, have had many opportunities since 2017 to make extra compensation, as it is outlined in “Appendix G” of their current contract.
“And because we have so fewer faculty, those responsibilities have distributed among fewer people. So there’s a greater level of compensation for that,” he said.
‘AWARE OF THE REALITY’
With tight budgets and a decreased enrollment, that’s one area that he and the board want reworked, he added.
“I’m aware of the reality of them not having had salary increases all these years, which is difficult and it’s an issue that does need to be addressed, but I’m also a very, very firm believer in a level of equitability across the entire institution,” Kowal said.
“As we downsize, because of the decreasing enrollment, the reality of that is we need to also look at our structure and how it best meets the needs of the students, and also, uses our resources wisely and as equitably as we can. So it really has to do a lot with the structure and the structure is specified within that contract. So that has to be done as a negotiated item,” he continued.
“The understanding I have is the Faculty Association prefers to first do the base salary increase and then discuss structural changes. From my perspective, I prefer to deal with all of that collectively.”
When asked if increasing pay for NTFs and adjuncts would be a priority in the budget then, Kowal said “they have to be.”
“There is a certainly… dichotomy there,” he said.
“There are the non-teaching faculty that don’t have that extra compensation so there we looked at… average salaries, if you just take the non-teaching faculty compared to the teaching faculty, with the typical extra compensation they’ve been receiving over the past three or five years, there’s a big difference between the two.”
REMOTE TEACHING
Kowal also pointed out some teachers’ apprehension with returning to in-person teaching as another ongoing problem.
“There’s an issue regarding the remote teaching — that became an imperative for the pandemic,” Kowal said.
“SUNY was very, very clear, really, in the fall of ‘22, that starting 2023, we needed to come back to fully in-person with some exceptions… So we moved back to in-person because that’s where we pride ourselves on as a college… We did insist that any synchronous courses that were taught remotely would be taught from on campus so that those students, eventually, are forced to come to campus for those classes.”
Kowal added that the reality of where CCC is with their budget has played a big part in negotiations as well.
Therefore, when a contract does eventually come to fruition, it will need to be both beneficial and financially sensible for the entirety of the college, he said.
“Ultimately, we need to have a system in place, and you know, address the needs of all our faculty and staff, but most important of all … provide the best possible educational experiences for our students,” Kowal said.
“No doubt that the faculty do a wonderful job teaching, advising, all of that. I honor that. I want to be able to honor that, and I certainly respect it and appreciate it, but like I said, I also have this holistic perspective in terms of the full college community, and ultimately, the needs of our students.”
