Ithaca College

Open Letter to the Ithaca College Community:

Following the lead of other departments, we, the undersigned tenured faculty in the Psychology Department are writing to voice support for part-time and contingent colleagues in our department and others across the campus in their collective union efforts to forge a mutually beneficial contract with Ithaca College.  Short of securing a sufficient number of full-time continuing lines in departments across the college, the administration will continue for the foreseeable future to depend on contingent faculty to meet our instructional needs. Given this dependency on highly qualified adjunct faculty, with whom we work side by side, and given the significant disparity between their part-time wages and our full-time salaries, benefits, and job security, we believe it is in the best interests of all— students, all faculty, and administrators — that an agreement be reached sooner rather than later. 

We remain hopeful that a mutually beneficial agreement can be reached without any disruption to our students’ education. We must be clear, however, that in the event that the union holds a legal strike, our shared sense of moral obligation would require that we respect their decision and not move, in any way, to replace our irreplaceable colleagues.

 Respectfully,

 Bernard Beins

Mary Turner DePalma

Carla Golden

Jeff Holmes

Ann Lynn

Judith Pena-Shaff

Nancy Rader

Cyndy Scheibe

Hugh Stephenson

Leigh Ann Vaughn