This week on Chronversations: Oct. 30 marks one-year anniversary of Columbia’s historic seven-week strike.

TRANSCRIPT:

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Welcome back to the Chronicle Conversations.

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I’m your host, Aaron Guzman 

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For campus news this week, Oct. 30 marks the one-year anniversary of Columbia’s historic part-time faculty Union strike which lasted seven weeks ending on Dec. 17.

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This was the longest adjunct faculty strike in United States history.

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Within the past year, the college has been undergoing administrative restructuring and budget cuts.

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The college laid off 70 staff members over the summer which include four therapists in the counseling center, four librarians, two academic advisors and nine staff in the tutoring center.

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Six people working in the student financial aid also lost their jobs and the college closed its on-campus health center in August.

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The college is now looking to eliminate 18 of its 58 majors.

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This fall, enrollment is down by 1000 students, and college leaders, including the chair of the board of trustees, blame the strike for the current financial crisis.

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The college’s financial deficit bloomed to 38 million after originally sitting at 20 million at the start of the fall 2023 semester.

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The Columbia Faculty Union hosted a town hall on Oct. 20, 2023, to protest any cost-cutting measures that the college was attempting to make at the time.

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The following morning on Oct. 21, the former president and CEO, Dr. Kwang-Wu Kim, held a president’s brunch on the fifth floor of the student center, where students interrupted to confront Doctor Kim and demand that he step down.

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Oct. 30 marked the first day of the strike.

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A Chronicle analysis at the time showed that the majority of the classes being held on the first day of the strike were taught by part-time instructors.

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The fall of 2023 had 221 full-time faculty members at the college and more than twice as many part-time instructors. Senior Vice President and Provost Marcela David shared in an email that full-time faculty members at the college would step in during the last few weeks of that semester to help students complete courses that the part-time faculty members could not help them with.

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The union had also threatened part-time faculty members who had crossed the picket line with disciplinary actions.

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But nearly half of the part-time members were already back in their classrooms.

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Just days after the semester ended, the college had reached a tentative deal with part-time faculty ending the strike with a new contract that provided new titles, new pay increase, signing bonuses and money for course cancellations.

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That’s all for this week.

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Make sure to stay up to date with campus and Metro news at columbiachronicle.com and sign up for our newsletter at columbiachronicle.com/newsletter.

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Don’t forget to check out our new Three C’s podcast where we give credible information to the Columbia community.

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Also, be sure to read the Chronicle’s brand new election issue available all over campus now

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I’m Aaron Guzman.

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Thanks for listening.