Adjunct Faculty Members Stage Rally During Rutgers Day

NEW BRUNSWICK – The sugary aroma of deep-fried Oreos wafted across Voorhees Hall, where students with their faces painted scarlet posed for selfies with Sir Henry and a rock band banged out some Nineties grunge cover.

It was a kaleidoscope of sights, sounds and smells as thousands enjoyed a raucous Rutgers Day on Saturday.

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Howie Swerdloff, however, was trying to choke back his emotions.

Swerdloff and other members of the Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union had just created a makeshift graveyard in front of Murray Hall with the names of 39 members in the Rutgers Writing Program who are in line to lose their jobs come fall as the university plans to trim courses.

Each faux headstone was decorated with one pencil per semester they had taught in the program that gives students the writing and research basics they’ll need as they continue on their educational journey on the banks of the Old Raritan.

For Marc Cichino, there were 19 pencils. For Virginia Gilmartin, there were 35 pencils. For Kathleen Wilford, there were 49 pencils. For Karen Thompson, there were a whopping 88 pencils.

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Swerdloff, the secretary for the adjunct faculty union who teaches freshman writing and a class called research and the disciplines, had 28 pencils on his headstone.

“I’m retired, so I’m not doing this for the money,” said Swerdloff, fighting back tears. “For me, it’s not a survival issue. I do it because I love to teach. But there’s a lot of people here. How are they going to make a living?”

Adjunct professors, who teach about 30% of all courses at Rutgers, won a bump in pay and some job security during last spring’s faculty strike. For instance, adjunct professors with a certain amount of seniority will be entitled to teach the same number of classes as the previous year, Swerdloff said. And, for adjuncts with 12 or more years at the school, they will have a two-year guarantee.

Swerdloff and other faculty members also hung a banner out of the second-floor windows of Murray Hall. It appeared to be a bedsheet with the words “Save R Writing Profs!” scrawled on it.

If it was their goal to bring attention to their situation, it worked.

Sahil Shah, a senior finance major wearing a Boston Red Sox shirt, shared a warm embrace with Swerdloff.

Shah said he had taken a writing course that Swerdloff taught a few years back. It was called food forums and the environment. Swerdloff recalled that Shah had written a well-reasoned research paper arguing for the privatization of the country’s water supply.

“I remember you wrote, ‘You almost made me vote for (Donald) Trump on the paper,’ ” Shah said, laughing.

Such one-to-one connections between students and teachers won’t be possible if the 39 adjunct faculty members are not rehired in the fall because writing courses will have more students in them going forward, Swerdloff said.

In a statement provided to TAPinto New Brunswick by a Rutgers spokesperson, the university assesses various factors when determining class offerings, including student demand. Following changes to the Writing Program curriculum, designed to improve equity and access and with substantial input from faculty, fewer sections were needed.

“In the current semester, sections are significantly under-enrolled, and each year numerous seats remain vacant in courses in other departments that meet the same core curriculum requirements,” according to the university’s statement. “Consequently, in consultation with Writing Program leadership, the School of Arts and Sciences moved to decrease the number of sections currently scheduled for the fall. Additional Writing Program sections will be added if necessary to meet student demand.”

The adjunct professors are prepared to fight for their jobs, Swerdloff said. The union rank and file has petitioned to have the matter of writing school faculty cuts placed on the agenda at Wednesday’s School of Arts and Sciences. Also on Wednesday, adjunct faculty members are planning a grade-in – a protest in which they sit on the porch and the surrounding area outside executive dean Juli Wade’s office on Hamilton Street and grade papers. They’ll probably chant and brandish signs, too.

The members of the AAUP-AFT, the union representing more than 6,000 full-time faculty members at Rutgers, will also invoke their right to impact bargaining with the university administration, Swerdloff said.

“This is not over,” he said. “I’m not sure how much money I would put on the outcome here, but it’s still in the balance.”

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