Jay Rowell has a soft spot for Lesley University, where he’s a film student. He feels his school has provided him a lot of opportunity to learn and connect with others.
But he also said the quality of life on campus has declined in his three years there. Meal swipes, his access to dining facilities, have been reduced. Resources for his peers who study photography have disappeared. Professors have to teach more classes with more students. The “magic” Rowell said he once experienced has faded.
“I don’t even feel like I’m here for education at this point,” Rowell said. “I feel like I’m here now to help make it a better place.” He’s gotten more involved with trying to improve student life, including as part of a group of students trying to make their voices heard by reviving a defunct student government board. It’s taken substantial time, to the point where he said “I feel like, now, I almost work at Lesley.”
Instead of helping restore student government, he said administrators ignored student concerns and instead established a “community life leadership council.” He is on the council, but said it doesn’t allow him and other students to advocate for themselves. “I plan pizza parties,” he said. “It is such an affront and offense to me as someone who has been talking to these people and trying to get a student government up and running since fall semester my sophomore year.”
Rowell is one of many Lesley community members concerned over the state of the university. Amid program eliminations and mass layoffs under the school’s restructuring plan, meant to address a $10 million budget gap.
He was not surprised to see Lesley’s core faculty members vote Thursday to authorize a strike, after almost two years of negotiations. The 82 core faculty members are represented by SEIU Local 509. In a release, the union said nearly 80 percent of members participated in the vote, with 94 percent of them voting to authorize a strike.
The vote does not immediately initiate a strike.
Faculty are demanding fair compensation, manageable workloads, and a successorship clause that would ensure their union contract remains in place should Lesley close or be acquired. The successorship clause is a protective measure as more small colleges shutter due to financial challenges they cannot overcome —Hampshire College in Amherst is the latest to announce its closure at the end of the calendar year.
Rowell said he was glad to see a strike authorization.
“I think, honestly, this was just inevitable,” he said. “At this point, what else can we do?”
Negotiations at an “impasse”
Kelvin Ramirez, associate professor in Lesley’s expressive therapies division, told Cambridge Day the negotiations process has hit an “impasse” over issues such as administrative changes to increase the cap of students enrolled in individual courses. The faculty say this hampers student learning and makes professors’ jobs more difficult, but the administration. He said administrators’ misunderstanding of faculty concerns and their lack of transparency about Lesley’s direction has frustrated him and his colleagues.
“There’s a disconnect between what faculty and students are experiencing from the classroom and some of the changes and demands that administration is proposing,” he said.
University officials declined to provide comment, pointing only to a statement sent to students Thursday where Janet Steinmayer, Lesley’s president, and its provost Brian Becker said they were disappointed that a strike may happen and will continue to “engage in good faith negotiations.”
“We have taken a number of steps to avoid [a strike], including offering proposals that address the faculty’s stated priorities, offering multiple and frequent bargaining sessions and recommending the use of a federal mediator,” the statement read. “We remain committed to continuing discussions and have sessions scheduled in the coming weeks.”
Ramirez, a core faculty member at Lesley for 12 years who earned his PhD from the school, said the vote to authorize a strike is the next logical step in a long list of attempts to communicate and connect with administration.
“I’ve worked under numerous presidents and numerous deans and I’ve never seen this level of bifurcation and silencing of faculty and student voice the way I see it now,” Ramirez said.
The next bargaining committee meeting is April 23. The spring semester ends May 12. Asked if faculty could go on strike before the end of the school year, Ramirez said anything is possible.
“The university has all of the power to show up to the bargaining table and negotiate in good faith,” he said. They have every ability to sit and be transparent and share their concerns so we can work through them effectively.”
Helplessness and uncertainty
Gihanah Seb-Di Dio, an English teacher at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, graduated from Lesley in 2021 and earned a master’s degree in 2023. As an alumnus, she said she is deeply saddened to see the turmoil at Lesley, particularly because her time there was critical to her growth as a teacher and a person.
“I have students that walk by campus every day, they participate in the early college program,” Seb-Di Dio said. “I really want to be able to say, ‘go to Lesley, it’s a phenomenal school,’ I want to say all of these great things that I am fortunate enough to [have witnessed] in its prime but I just don’t know where it’s going to be in … I used to say 10 years, but now I’m saying I don’t know where it’s going to be in five years.”
Her graduate degree was in international higher education, which was cut the semester after she graduated. She said thinking about the loss of programs makes the potential for a strike bittersweet.
“It’s the core faculty at that school that make the experience for students,” she said. “In my time there, I had the privilege of learning and working with very talented educators and professionals, and that definitely showed in undergrad and especially graduate school.”
Rowell said that there’s a shared sense of helplessness among current students and faculty.
“Everyone just kind of hates this school,” Rowell said. “People are automatically going to assume that they’re going to be left behind or not listened to.”
Faculty members have passed three votes of no confidence against Steinmayer since she took office in 2019. Rowell believes real change can happen if Steinmayer and other administrators resign.
“I don’t think a better Lesley is completely impossible,” Rowell said. “Is it probable? Maybe not, maybe, I’m not sure. But I don’t think this school is unsalvageable.”
Ramirez said that while Lesley’s main elements of social justice have eroded and there is a lot of anxiety and uncertainty, core faculty members remain steadfast in pushing for their demands to be met.
“I have never seen my faculty with such resolve and such fire and maybe that’s a good thing for our university,” Ramirez said. “Maybe this a point where we can really enliven a spirit of collaboration and accountability for our leaders of our university.”
Seb-Di Dio hopes that faculty members will get what they are fighting for but if Lesley ultimately closes, she wants them to be protected.
“I don’t think any person, whether it’s at Lesley or some other school, should be left in the dark because of the failings of the people above them,” she said.
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