Queens College faculty calls for CUNY to reverse cuts

Faculty at Queens College are opposing cuts to adjuncts and resources at the college.  Photo via Professional Staff Congress

By Ryan Schwach

Faculty members at Queens’ largest City University of New York college are pushing back against budget cuts, which have led to a number of cancelled classes and layoffs of adjunct professors.

Several departments at Queens College were told earlier this year they had to cut their overall budgets, and were recently told to slash their part-time staff budgets, which faculty say will continue to hinder their ability to provide services and educate students.

Queens College faculty protested this week and are calling on CUNY to reverse the cuts, which include a recent order from the college in July to cut their adjunct faculty budget by as much as 40 percent.

“I don't know what they expect us to do,” Melissa Checker, chair of the Urban Studies Department at QC, told the Eagle. “How do they expect us to be able to run this college with so many ongoing cuts?”

The college has had to cut classes, staff and access to library services and other resources.

The Chemistry Department cut laboratory sections because it didn’t have enough part-time workers to maintain student safety, according to faculty members.

“The effects are really very widespread and are really hindering our ability to carry forward our programming and our academic mission,” Checker said.

At her own department, Checker told the Eagle that the cuts have limited her ability to hire part-time adjunct professors, many of whom are actively working in the fields that they teach in.

“It helps them really get prepared for what life will be like, what their jobs will be like, and to figure out what they want to do professionally, and to develop these important real-time networks,” she said. “When we have to cut adjunct instructors, we're not able to do that.”

“We've cut as much as we can possibly cut, and we will get told from our administrators,

‘We know that you have cut as much as you can possibly cut,’ and then they ask for more cuts,” she added.

According to the Professional Staff Congress, the union that represents CUNY faculty and staff, nearly 4,000 fewer class sections were offered in the 2025-2026 academic year than in the 2019-2020 academic year.

Faculty members hope this upcoming school year could see a reverse in poor enrollment trends at Queens College seen since the start of the pandemic, which wrecked enrollment totals CUNY wide.

Checker said the latest round of cuts are doing the opposite.

Department heads were told by the administration at Queens College to cut their adjunct faculty by nearly half for the upcoming academic year.  Photo via Queens College website

“They keep telling us that our enrollments are dropping, but in a few programs, we're getting huge enrollments,” she said. “Like in our early childhood education program, we're getting lots of new students, and also in our information sciences program, which is a graduate program, tons of new students. But even those programs are being told they have to cut. [The cuts] are sort of doing the opposite of what we need, which is to encourage enrollment.”

James Davis, the president of the PSC, wrote in a letter addressed to CUNY Chancellor Félix Matos Rodríguez and Chairman William Thompson that “a jewel in the CUNY crown risks being tarnished beyond remedy.”

“The administration’s latest cuts are ill-timed and unstrategic,” he wrote. “The faculty who perform the challenging role of chairing Queens College departments have already been told to do more with less, and they deserve better, as do our students. Departments need not only more full-time faculty but also the support of college assistants and non-teaching adjuncts which recent cuts badly depleted.”

Several Queens officials have gotten behind faculty members, including Assemblymembers Claire Valdez and Catalina Cruz, as well as Assembly candidates David Orkin, Samantha Kattan and Brian Romero.

“Queens College is an engine of economic and educational mobility and opportunity for working families across our borough,” said Romero, a CUNY graduate and former adjunct. “Slashing department budgets, laying off staff, and reducing course offerings hurts our students and undermines the quality of public higher education at CUNY.”

The CUNY-wide press office directed the Eagle’s request for comment to Queens College.

“Queens College is preparing for the coming academic year while continuing to ensure that our students meet their educational goals,” said a Queens College spokesperson. “Adjunct faculty appointments are subject to both student demand and available resources. Queens College is working collaboratively across the campus to identify where reductions can be made with the least impact on vital student services.”