Takeaway: Click here to send emails to Rutgers-New Brunswick Chancellor Francine Conway and President Jonathan Holloway telling them to reverse the drastic cuts in Writing Program classes and increase in class-size caps.
Dear colleague,
The Rutgers administration is threatening to cause irreversible damage to one of the most important programs at our university: the Rutgers-New Brunswick Writing Program, which every year teaches up to one-third of our 40,000 undergraduate students.
The number of Writing Program sections being offered this coming fall is dramatically lower than last fall. This will make it harder for our students to take classes that they need to graduate and that are vital to their success at Rutgers and in their working lives. In addition, class caps are being lifted from 22 students (which is already too high) to 24 students—despite the evidence that smaller class sizes are necessary for effective writing instruction.
If these cuts go through, many Writing Program adjunct lecturers would lose their regular classes, and the burden of larger class sizes would fall on the full-time faculty who remain.
We are seeing damaging austerity measures like this in departments across our university. The administration is cutting back in order to save money—despite having record unrestricted financial reserves at last report. Our members in the Writing Program are drawing a line. They are gathering signatures on a petition to the administration, which they plan to deliver at the Strike-iversary celebration and speakout on Wednesday, April 17, at 1:30 p.m. on Voorhees Mall (behind Scott Hall, 43 College Ave.).
They need the support of all of us. Click here to send an email to Chancellor Conway and President Holloway calling on them to immediately restore the number of Writing Program sections to Fall 2023 levels and to reverse the increase in class sizes.
In solidarity,
Rutgers AAUP-AFT and Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union
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