By Natalie Lett
Boston University News Service
On March 27, a sophomore going by Jessica checked her email. In her inbox was a message from her school, Wellesley College, informing her that one of her classes — which she had been taking for 12 weeks — would no longer meet, and the credit she was supposed to receive would be cut in half.
The class, Physics for Future Presidents, was one that Jessica had signed up for expecting a full credit towards her degree, which she is supposed to receive in 2027. For almost a month, she thought she would have to take an extra credit later in order to graduate on time.
Jessica is one of many Wellesley College students who received this email. She said she was lucky because the credit reduction, which she would still have to make up for later, didn’t drop her below the three credit threshold required to be a full-time student: a requirement for her scholarship that would normally cost her family over $90,000 per year.
After nearly a month of not attending her class, her college announced that the class would resume instruction for the last week of the semester. She received another email from her registrar’s office, reversing what they told her earlier: Physics for Future Presidents was back to receiving one credit unit.
Other students were not so fortunate.
“Your fight is with us. You can come after us. Don’t you dare come after our students,” said Sara Melnick, an instructor in the Computer Science Laboratory at Wellesley College.
Melnick is one of the Wellesley Organized Academic Workers, or WOAW, who went on strike on March 27. In this union are approximately 125 non-tenure track faculty and postdoctoral scholars that make up 30% of faculty and teach 40% of the courses at the college. From March 27 to April 25, classes taught by the faculty did not meet.
The college immediately announced their plan to reduce credit for students in classes taught by striking faculty.
The plan, announced the same day the union went on strike, called for classes taught by striking faculty to be suspended. If the strike were to continue, credit earned by students in the classes would be reduced from one to 0.5.
The reduction posed questions for numerous students, including seniors who were counting on a certain number of credits to graduate, international students on visas, and students receiving scholarships or financial aid that require them to be full-time.
“When it became apparent the strike was really happening, we had to put a plan in place,” said Courtney C. Coile, Wellesley College’s provost, at a student government senate meeting days after the strike.
The day the strike began, the college sent out an email to students informing them they would be unable to award full credit for classes that do not meet a total of 1,650 minutes. Federal regulations govern the number of contact hours, and if classes do not meet the required amount of hours, they can not be considered a full credit.
Coile said that due to the public nature of the strike, federal agencies would be watching Wellesley’s response, and that awarding full credit to the classes would risk the college’s accreditation.
Wellesley College opened mid-semester registration for students to earn 0.5 credit by enrolling in a different class. On March 28, students had a registration period to choose a new class to fill in the credit gap.
“We are depending on the tenure-stream faculty to offer these classes and on students to enroll in them. The education of our students is our responsibility and our priority,” the college wrote in an email.
WOAW announced on April 24 that their members would return to their classrooms for the last week of class.
For students whose classes met for at least 1,650 minutes during the semester, taking into account the last week, full credit would be restored. For students whose classes fell short of that number, they would still have their credit reduced to 0.5.
“We didn’t expect to have to call off the strike, and we were prepared to continue holding the line, but the credible threats and risks posed to our members, especially those on visas and those experiencing medical issues, made it the right decision,” said Anne Brubaker, a senior lecturer in the writing program and a member of the organizing committee of WOAW.
The initial decision was met with backlash from striking faculty and students.
Christopher Eldrett, a visiting lecturer, said it seemed “absurd” that the college was “refusing to negotiate” and end the strike.
“It seemed like a scare tactic,” Eldrett said.
Marilyn Sides, a senior lecturer in the department of English, has worked at Wellesley College for 42 years. She said that it was shocking to hear the decision, and felt the college was using the students as a bargaining chip.
“It’s terrible,” Sides said. “It really shows how they don’t seem to care, they just hit anybody they think they can hit.”
“It is not in anyone’s interest to start a class in week thirteen,” Melnick said. “Even a class that doesn’t have prerequisites has a first twelve weeks. If you haven’t gotten the first twelve weeks, you’re not going to understand the last five.”
“I hope that students can focus on the opportunity to learn in their new courses,” said Coile at the senate meeting.
A student asked, “Where should we direct our parents to get refunds?” at the meeting.
Brubaker said the college could have worked harder to prevent the strike.
“The college had really been surface bargaining and purposefully stalling, not returning or responding or justifying their positions.” Brubaker said.
On the WOAW website, the union outlined their goals in negotiating a new contract with the school.
Brubaker said the biggest striking point for the union has to do with workload. Currently, a full-time teaching load is four courses per year, and ten months ago, the college proposed to increase the load to five courses.
“There literally aren’t enough hours in the week where we can be sitting and working with students, and doing our grading, and doing our prep for labs or classes,” Melnick said. “We do so much more than just stand in front of a class and talk. They are trying to lessen who we are and pretend that we aren’t all of those things, and…all of those things aren’t what makes Wellesley.”
“Part of the reason I came here is because there’s a tight relationship between professors and students, and I think the five class course load in particular would obscure that,” said Alex, a student majoring in Chemistry.
Melnick said that faculty’s duties are “more than just teaching.” Faculty support student researchers, mentor theses, and advise students.
The other biggest striking point, Brubaker said, has to do with the salary. She said in 2008, the college froze the non-tenure-track starting salaries at $55,000 and didn’t adjust that salary for 12 years. In 2021, there was a 9% raise, but she said the union has been arguing it’s not sufficient to make up for the 12 year deficit.
As of 2024, Wellesley non-tenure track faculty had a starting salary of $64,516.
Wellesley public school teachers get paid an average salary of $100,778, per the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
The starting salary of $64,516 is starkly below a living wage in the area, according to Brubaker.
“How does Wellesley pay professors so little that they qualify for food stamps?” said Jessica. “That to me is just bonkers.”
As of April 27, Wellesley College proposed a 26% increase over three years. The proposal would increase the starting salary’s minimum to $70,000 this fall.
Last year, all Wellesley non-tenure track faculty, including those hired before 2008, were paid an average salary of $92,995. The recent proposal would bring the average salary of the faculty to over $100,000.
Multiple faculty members said they felt the college’s hiring practices felt like a “revolving door” of staff. Sides said that during her time at Wellesley, the college has favored hiring faculty with short contracts as a way to save money and acquire “smart, but cheap,” members.
Jessica said that it’s rare for students who are juniors and seniors to have faculty who taught their intro-level courses still work at the school.
Non-tenure track faculty tend to teach a lot of the introductory courses, which set the foundation for the rest of a student’s college studies.
Brubaker said that it has been a difficult time for the students, and they face the question of being prepared to move up in sequenced courses, alongside the uncertainty of an unresolved contract.
Eldrett, who teaches Spanish, said that the missed classes pose challenges for students looking to continue their studies in the languages.
Students at Wellesley are generally required to complete two years of a foreign language. Eldrett teaches fourth semester Spanish, the final semester students need to fulfill the requirement.
For students that have declared Spanish as their major, missing a month of the semester impacts their progress.
“How are they going to benefit by attending an economics lecture?” Eldrett said. “If they’re not learning the last month of Spanish, they can recover eventually, but the burden falls on them. It’s giving more work to the students. It’s not giving them the class they were promised.”
“Their learning is scaffolded and sequenced in a way that will hinder them down the road,” said Brubaker. “So if they want to go on in their major and they need that information that was concentrated in the last third of class, that is going to be a really hard thing to build on when they come back for the next semester.”
Although the strike has ended, WOAW has yet to reach a final agreement with Wellesley College.
Stacey Schmeidel, Wellesley’s director of public relations, wrote in an email that Wellesley College is continuing to bargain in good faith and that the college’s highest priority is preserving the continuity of the academic program for students.
Wellesley College, in a statement on April 16, said they reject the idea of a one-year contract with the union.
“We are unwilling to put our students, faculty, and community at risk of experiencing the same disruption a year from now,” the statement said. “Our community needs a multiyear contract so that we can move past this time of division and begin to heal.”
“Rather than address their unlawful practices and negotiate in order to end the strike, the College responded with anti-union rhetoric, delay tactics, and attempts to divide our community,” WOAW said in a statement announcing the strike’s end. “These choices are a disgrace to the College’s stated values of equity and justice. These tactics are not just disrespectful, they undermine Wellesley’s educational mission.”
