{"id":3192,"date":"2020-11-03T21:47:32","date_gmt":"2020-11-04T02:47:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/?p=3192"},"modified":"2020-11-16T12:17:36","modified_gmt":"2020-11-16T17:17:36","slug":"former-college-assistants-question-hunters-new-hires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/2020\/11\/former-college-assistants-question-hunters-new-hires\/","title":{"rendered":"Former College Assistants Question Hunter\u2019s New Hires"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Hunter
Hunter College’s 10 New Faculty Members<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Hunter\u2019s sky bridges were often populated by student tour guides showing off the campus to prospective students. That is until the pandemic struck.<\/span><\/p>\n

When <\/span>Governor Cuomo made dramatic cuts to the state budget<\/span><\/a> in April, Hunter was one of CUNY\u2019s 25 institutions forced to lay off thousands of adjuncts across departments. The administration was also unable to reappoint college assistants, who led the tours among other things, for the summer. There was <\/span>upheaval in Hunter\u2019s art department<\/span><\/a> this past summer when 30 of the college assistants almost lost their contracts. Now, student college assistants want to know how Hunter\u2019s administration was able to afford the appointment of<\/span> 10 new faculty members<\/span><\/a> in September following the layoffs.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Hunter College hired 10 new faculty members following layoffs of college assistants and adjuncts. Students want to know how and why they chose to do it now. \u201cThey\u2019re choosing to hire these distinguished lecturers and just leaving thousands of people without health insurance in the middle of a pandemic,\u201d said Marc Roy, a former Hunter tour guide and junior Macaulay Honors student at Hunter.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Governor Cuomo\u2019s cuts to CUNY\u2019s budget resulted in <\/span>almost 3,000 adjuncts being laid off<\/span><\/a> across the schools, leaving students and staff alike upset. The Professional Staff Congress, the union responsible for representing CUNY\u2019s staff, did not respond to comment on the layoffs or their effects on the Hunter community, though they <\/span>held a rally<\/span><\/a> at school on October 15, calling for a reversal of the cuts.<\/span><\/p>\n

Roy, a nonbinary media studies and urban studies double major, was one of the college assistants whose job was put on hold for the summer. They had been making $15 an hour <\/span>leading tours for prospective students throughout the campus before<\/span> the school shut down to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Once the switch to online learning was made they were only paid for the occasional task they were assigned during the first few weeks. Then, as Hunter\u2019s fiscal year came to a close, they were informed that everyone was being let go for the summer until the budget was announced.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"A
A college assistant gives a campus tour around Hunter, pre-COVID-19.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIt didn\u2019t even feel like a firing, it felt like, just wait and we\u2019ll let you know what happens,\u201d said Roy. They used to enjoy leading tours around campus, passing on their wisdom to high schoolers and prospective students visiting with their families. While Hunter did ultimately offer them and a few of their coworkers positions doing virtual tours during the fall, Roy decided to turn it down. For Roy, virtual tours were a sorry, if necessary, replacement for the in-person tours they used to give on campus.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Roy, like other Hunter students, said they couldn\u2019t understand why Hunter\u2019s administration chose to appoint the new faculty members now, given the budget cuts and layoffs. They said they\u2019d have preferred if Hunter had rehired adjuncts instead of older professors who might struggle with online learning applications like Zoom or Blackboard. They also expressed a desire for more diversity to the faculty. \u201cIf it were all Black professors being added to the Black Studies department then I\u2019d go, \u2018Oh yeah, honestly good move, Hunter\u2019 but that\u2019s not the case,\u201d said Roy. <\/span>The 10 new hires filled roles in the School of Arts & Sciences and the Silberman School of Social Work; among the new appointees were experts in the latest methods and research in their respective fields, though only two are African American and none were additions to the Black Studies department.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

According to Hunter\u2019s <\/span>Assistant Vice President for Communications Bob de Luna, the staffing decisions had already been in the works before the school moved to online learning. \u201cThose commitments were made before COVID and before the financial stressors,\u201d said de Luna. He said that the contract negotiations for the staff additions had happened months beforehand. Some of the appointments filled vacancies that the departments couldn\u2019t function without, while other positions already had funds allocated to the fulfillment of the position.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

De Luna said that the appointment of new staff members was done specifically with the futures of Hunter students in mind. De Luna says that their appointments were necessary to best prepare Hunter students for their careers. \u201cThese decisions are thinking about Hunter students\u2019 future careers,\u201d says de Luna. According to de Luna, the success of Hunter\u2019s students is still of the utmost importance, even despite the financial challenges facing CUNY. \u201cWe want to make sure that students are ready to work and have good chances at getting the job they really want in the workplace,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hunter College hired 10 new faculty members following layoffs of college assistants and adjuncts. Students want to know how and why they chose to do it now. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[350,303,279,138],"class_list":["post-3192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-collegeassistants","tag-covid19","tag-huntercollege-hunterstudents","tag-adjuncts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3192"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3192\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3212,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3192\/revisions\/3212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}