NCC faculty, board clash over budget cuts

More than 30 faculty members rallied on campus Wednesday against the president of Nassau Community College, saying he defied tradition by not consulting them before imposing stringent budget cuts that they said will negatively impact students.

"The academic chairmen, the faculty senate and the full-time faculty union has a long list of complaints, including that President [Donald] Astrab has not been consulting with the faculty that has a long history of shared governance here," said Frank Frisenda, vice president of the Nassau Community College Federation of Teachers.

But college spokesman Reginald Tuggle said in a statement that Astrab -- who was hired in November 2009 -- and the college's board of trustees took necessary and appropriate steps "to ensure that NCC continues to fulfill its mission of providing an affordable, high quality higher education to our students on into the future. . . Emerging challenges require an on-going evaluation of [how to] . . . best achieve these goals."

He said Astrab had consulted at times with the faculty, but that under the law it is the president and the board of trustees who govern the college.

Frisenda said recent rallies -- Wednesday's was the third -- were not about jobs but student education. But he noted the union has a grievance against NCC regarding Astrab's recent firing of 40 temporary full-time instructors to help keep the budget at last year's level of $202.9 million.

"It's a past practices grievance," Frisenda said. "It used to be that after teaching four semesters, temporary faculty became probationary, which is the road to tenure," Frisenda said. "But Astrab unilaterally ended that."

Some faculty carried signs around the campus and spoke to students. One sign read: "NCC Is Not Fast Food. No Drive Through Education."

Shoel Cohen, a 44-year psychology professor at NCC, said: "Astrab has changed the collegial relationship faculty had with the administration."