CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) — Over 600 part-time adjunct faculty members at Columbia College walked off the job on Monday.
Students joined the striking Columbia College faculty members on Michigan Avenue to share in their frustration over the school’s cost-cutting measures, which include cutting hundreds of courses and merging many of those that remain. As a result, class sizes are expected to increase.
One student, who requested anonymity due to privacy concerns, said they're a transfer student in her first semester at Columbia College. The student said they just found out some of their courses are being cut.
“It’s going to be harder to get into the courses I need to graduate on time, and then … teachers are losing their jobs,” they said. “Teachers who are surviving are taking on double the students, and they can’t give us the personal, one-on-one quality education that we came here for. It’s really disappointing.”
George Cohlmia, an adjunct professor at Columbia College, said faculty members learned about the decision while contract negotiations were already underway. Colmia said he wants to see a fair working contract and some guarantees from the administration.
“Guarantees that, while we’re in bargaining, they don’t make unilateral cuts of classes to diminish the quality of education for the students — and that teachers who generally planned to have classes next semester [won’t] suddenly have them cut,” he said.
The union representing the faculty members estimated about 1,000 classes will be impacted.
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