Austerity Impacts
Adjunct David Komito On How PSU's Cuts Delete Institutional Expertise and Undermine Educational Goals
This is the second in a series of interviews with adjuncts at PSU who have been affected by the administration’s extreme budget cuts over the past year. The impacts of this austerity plan range from contract non-renewals to canceled courses, and affect the PSU community in ways that often contradict the university’s mandate to provide a high quality educational experience for all students. But figures and headlines don’t tell the whole story. In order to understand what is happening on the ground, PSUFA is interviewing adjunct instructors all term to learn about their experiences and paint a more detailed picture of how sweeping administrative actions affect educators and students firsthand.
For our second interview, we sat down with David Komito (Philosophy) to discuss the recent cancellation of one of his course on Asian Philosophy. Prof. Komito, who has been teaching the subject at PSU for nearly ten years, shared his story with PSUFA in order to shed light on what is being lost in the administration’s rush to slash budgets.
PSUFA: Can you tell us about the class you were teaching that got cut?
David Komito: For the last nine years I have been teaching PHL319U, An Introduction to Asian Philosophy, which is an overview of the major philosophical systems of India, Tibet, China and Japan. It is the only Asian Philosophy course taught in the Philosophy department. Four categories of students took the course: 1) students of Asian descent who wanted to know more about their heritage, 2) students majoring in an Asian studies degree of some sort who wanted to build their skills, 3) students with a general interest in the subject and 4) students with a Philosophy major or minor.
PSUFA: How did you find out your class was being cut?
DK: Like a number of adjuncts at PSU, I received an emailed notification from the department Chair that my two-year contract was being voided midway and the fall 2024/spring 2025 classes were being canceled. This, I was informed, was due to budget cuts. When I inquired further, I was informed that the department was committed to the course and wanted to offer it in the future, presumably by one of the remaining tenured faculty members. However, I don’t see PHL319 in this academic year’s schedule.
PSUFA: What do you see as the potential impact of losing this class on PSU?
DK: PSU’s Philosophy faculty are very talented and I imagine one of them could develop a course to replace mine, but it would be very different in significant ways. To the best of my knowledge, none of the faculty are actually trained in Asian philosophy, have the language skills or publications in the area, or have spent extensive time living in some part of Asia (as I have). From my point of view these limitations will make for a very different course and very different relationships with the students, particularly the students of Asian descent. In this respect, the loss of an Asian Studies expert undermines PSU’s stated goals of deeply serving minority students.
From what I have heard, mine is not the only case of deleted expertise aligned with the university’s mission to serve minority students. I understand the need of the university to balance its budget, but injudicious cuts to the faculty will leave the student body and the institution significantly poorer for such decisions.
Are you an adjunct whose classes have been canceled? How have PSU’s budget cuts affected you? Share your story with us by emailing psufa.martha (at) gmail (dot) com