Unionized non-tenured faculty and Skidmore College have failed to meet their shared goal of agreeing on a contract before the start of the fall semester, but hopes remain that a deal is near.
Nearly two years after voting to unionize, non-tenured faculty at the private college in Saratoga Springs are still without a contract, but say they are hopeful the end of bargaining is near.
Skidmore Faculty Forward organizing committee member Professor Ruth McAdams says negotiations continue after the school responded to the union’s compensation proposal.
“At the last bargaining session in August, the college did finally respond to our compensation proposal. We were relieved to finally receive it, though the contents was really disappointing. They offered, basically, to maintain the current low-level of compensation that led us to form a union in the first place, and they didn’t guarantee any further raises in the out years. So, it was really disappointing we think that those numbers are way too low,” said McAdams.
Union representatives say they walked out of a July 18th bargaining session after Skidmore failed to come to the table with updates on faculty compensation.
McAdams says she is hopeful an agreeable contract is in sight.
“I would say that the administration does seem to be also realizing that we need to get this done finally after many months. There has been some good news recently—at the most recent bargaining session they did finally cave and offered us the three-tiered promotional structure that we had been advocating for for many, many months. My more senior NTT colleagues will tell you that they, we, have been pushing for this since 2006,” said McAdams.
In a statement, a Skidmore spokesperson says, “while the College cannot comment on specific elements of ongoing negotiations, it continues to bargain in good faith with the NTT faculty bargaining unit and is committed to reaching agreement on our first contract this fall.”
Jeremy Sloane shared his experiences as a new father and full time Biology Department Instructor at the most recent session. He moved to the region in 2020 to take a job at Skidmore and says the cost of supporting his family has outpaced his compensation.
“I am fortunate in that my position is a renewable contract, but there has been this trade-off that has evolved in this system where historically for non-tenure track faculty you either get the job security of having a renewable contract, or you get a living wage. The visiting assistant professors, the teaching professors, have higher salaries but they tend to be on serial-terminal contracts. Whereas the instructors and lecturers have renewable contracts but low-pay,” said Sloane. “And so, one of the ideas for the union was why can’t everybody have both?”
According to minutes from the September 5th bargaining session, the union highlighted pay inequity between faculty and campus leaders at a college where tuition runs to more than $65,000 a year and the total cost of attendance is more than $88,000.
“What we asked for as a floor for a salary for people on that first tier was $72,000 which none of us feel is a particularly big ask for Saratoga Springs and so we were pretty dismayed when they came back and their offer was to actually lower the floor for all teaching professors to what the floor has historically been for all teaching professors to what the floor has historically been for lecturers and instructors, it was very disappointing,” said Sloane.
Angus McCullough has been lecturing for the school’s John B. Moore Documentary Studies Collaborative on and off since 2019. He says the remaining compensation bargaining points revolve around how much value Skidmore sees in its non-tenured faculty.
“There are students that I’ve taught that have gone on to then switch majors, work with MDOCs, I have a student from 2019 who is now teaching aligned with this research-based teaching model that I have been working with and it feels like I’m not being valued for that work. I’m being valued by my peers and my department and the students and it feels good to teach and I’m not getting the compensation that actually feels commensurate with that effort,” said McCullough.
The next bargaining session is Friday.
WAMC’s Southern Adirondack Bureau is located on the Skidmore campus. Reporting from that bureau, I’m Aaron Shellow-Lavine, for WAMC News.
