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As deans of Columbia College Chicago, we are responding to a recent story depicting an institution — where we have worked a combined 79 years — none of us recognize.
Columbia is — and always will be — a college for creatives, where students learn alongside full-and part-time faculty actively engaged in their disciplines, providing students with the hands-on experience they need to succeed.
Never has the administration contemplated, as union leadership claims, turning Columbia into a for-profit school. But like other institutions we have enrollment challenges and financial realities, which for Columbia has created a $20 million deficit that has to be addressed.
That has meant cuts in staff and administrative positions, and now strategic adjustments to course offerings. It’s true that class sizes have grown — 55% of courses are seeing an increase in spring, by about five students a class. In each instance where a class section has increased, we have made a careful assessment; seats have been added only when we determined learning won’t be compromised. Classes that must remain small — studio courses, for instance — remain small.
Columbia has repeatedly offered the part-time faculty union pay increases totaling 16% over four years, a signing bonus, two new college-funded health care benefits and additional input on academic decisions. When after a month some striking part-time faculty refused to return to classes, the college had no choice but to find alternative teachers to ensure students could complete the semester. We repeatedly requested federal mediation — to which the union finally agreed in the 14th week of the semester.
One student the Tribune quoted worries she’ll have to pay for another semester of classes. The college is doing all it can to help students complete their studies. The college has taken a number of steps, including giving students the option of requesting a pass/fail grade — but the college is absolutely not requiring this, as your story suggested.
Our continued success needs everyone — full-and part-time faculty and our invaluable staff members — working together to ensure our students learn and grow while at Columbia and find fulfilling work and sustainable careers.
But sound finances and business decisions are necessary for us to succeed. We are doing everything feasible on our end to move forward with the rest of the semester and to find a resolution soon.
— Steve Corey, Tom Dowd, Suzanne McBride and Rosita Sands are deans of Columbia College Chicago
Not functioning
Two things you can count on not to function — Congress and last year’s Christmas lights.
— Patty Wolfe, Mount Prospect
College athlete pay
The proposal from the NCAA to pay college football players is a proposal fraught with many problems. The thinking that these players deserve pay is ridiculous. Many are scholarship athletes who are already getting a free education and most likely other perks provided by well-to-do-alumni. Moreover, this will create a further disparity between the well endowed schools and less prosperous ones, and perhaps provide less incentive for these paid athletes to even attend classes. It would make college football become a mini-NFL. There is another aspect to this issue which I believe should be considered and that is the connection between this and the student loan problem. Instead of having the government involved in the student loan repayment issue why not make this a problem for the universities to solve since they created it by inflating tuition and other college costs. Rather than using their resources to pay football players why not require them to guarantee student loans and thus be responsible for those loans that students can’t afford to repay? Many have plenty of endowment resources to handle student loan repayments when necessary.
— Dan Schuchardt, Glen Ellyn
Bad drug policy
A Chicago Tribune editorial rightly urged Congress to take advantage of the rare alignment of Republican and Democrat issue interests regarding the immigration conundrum (“Congress should seize this rare chance at comprehensive immigration reform,” Dec. 10). Its editorial writer correctly noted that some Chicago politicians believe the immigration solution venue is in Congress and not local. The writer also noted the obvious fact that the federal asylum process needs fixing, as evidenced by the languishing inability of Congress to fix even the “Dreamers’” issue.
Yet, what the editorial overlooks dwarfs what it gets right.
Chicago Tribune Opinion
Bad drug policy — drug prohibition — pressurizes the immigration pipeline. That pressure causes it to overspill the Mexican-U.S. border and flood sanctuary cities. Bad drug policy fuels gangs and drug cartels with an estimated annual $500 billion opportunity, the commonly estimated value of global illicit drug markets. For perspective, that sum is roughly equal to nine times the annual national defense spending of Russia ($61.7 billion in 2020).
Inevitably and unavoidably, violent crime and corruption partner with the drug-prohibition business opportunity making life often unlivable and survival questionable in many South and Central American countries. Bad drug policy is the problem, and better drug policy is the solution. That better solution needs to be enlightened, legalized and regulated drug markets, just as it was a century ago for alcohol.
Democrat and Republican politicians in Congress cannot continue to bicker over immigration policy, its funding and solution, while ignoring the horribly bad, U.S. and United Nations drug policy they themselves fashioned with bipartisan cooperation. Bad, drug-prohibition policy indisputably exacerbates our immigration crisis and many others as well.
— James E. Gierach, Palos Park
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