From Senior Vice President Nancy Pringle, Provost Linda Petrosino, and Professor Gwen Seaquist, representatives of the Ithaca College bargaining committee.

The Ithaca College bargaining team is disappointed that the contingent faculty unions have announced that they have voted to authorize a strike. This announcement comes despite the fact that there has been significant and meaningful progress made to date in the negotiations for a part-time faculty contract — having reached tentative agreements on 23 separate articles — and that negotiations with the full-time contingent faculty are still at an early stage.

The college remains committed to working out the remaining issues. There are bargaining sessions with a federal mediator set for February 21 and February 24. The college is eager to continue the negotiation process in these sessions to hopefully reach a final resolution. The bargaining team believes any strike activity prior to these sessions, or while meaningful progress is still being made, would be premature.

Ithaca College strives to deliver the very best for our students, faculty, staff and the entire Ithaca College community. We look forward to continuing the conversations with the contingent faculty unions to reach an agreement and avoid a strike, which would disrupt the education of our students.

In the event a strike occurs, the college will remain open and will be as flexible as possible to help faculty and students navigate the logistics of the strike while fulfilling our educational requirements and delivering the educational experience our students expect.