Effective AY 2026, Pace University removed administrative release time from mission-critical, university-wide roles—including the core writing program and the Writing-Enhanced Course (WEC) program, which is Pace’s equivalent of writing-across-the-curriculum (WAC) and which I direct—without altering the expectations and labor associated with these roles.
This is bad enough, but for me personally, it’s life-threatening exploitation.
I’ve had a documented disability for decades that’s been on file with Pace since I was hired and for which I have specific ADA accommodations that I renew yearly: remote work since the COVID-19 pandemic; an extension of 2 weeks on all university work on an as-needed basis; and advance notice by a minimum of 2 weeks on all university work on an as-needed basis.
Because my directorial role has been historically compensated with a course release to allow for time to effectively do the job—the WEC Director’s responsibilities being equivalent to the duties of a department chair—I didn’t previously need to request ADA accommodations for the role or rely on my “as-needed basis” accommodations.
With the removal of release time, I do. Thus, when I renewed my accommodations for AY 2026, I requested the reinstatement of release time, since my temporal access needs had already been recognized by Pace.
When I renewed my accommodations for AY 2026, I also requested a reduction in workplace stressors—because toxic literary studies faculty in NYC English (Stephanie, Sid, Sarah, reinforced by then-curriculum committee chair Luke, all the usual suspects) had been exploiting and exacerbating my chronic illnesses through constant workplace destabilization since January, and because stress intolerance has put me increasingly at risk of fatal complications as evaluated by my healthcare professionals.
The result: Dean Tresmaine Grimes, Associate Dean Rich Schlesinger, Associate Provost of Academic Programs and Strategy Kelley Kreitz, everyone in the HR and Accessibility Appeals offices, and Provost Ali Carr-Chellman all decided it was okay if I died in the line of duty.
But wait! They did first offer me an obviously inequitable restructuring of my job responsibilities! One that would further disadvantage me as a disabled faculty member, preclude me from ever going up for promotion in academia, and prevent me from doing my job and participating in faculty governance in a manner equivalent to my nondisabled colleagues. Essentially, a pretty clear violation of the ADA, which they put in writing (thanks, HR, SAS, and Kelley; I owe y’all for that one for my pending ADA complaint).
As is my right, I refused that restructuring, leaving with me with one employer-recommended option (I shit you not): “I think it’s reasonable if you don’t really do your job.” (Again, thanks Kelley, and thanks Ali for co-signing it as a silent witness.)
So to both minimize my labor around informing faculty across the university about how I’d have to run the WEC program until administrative release time is reinstated, and to make visible the detrimental impacts of our administration’s decisions, I created this auto-reply:
Thank you for your email. If you are a faculty or staff member writing about Writing-Enhanced Course (WEC) program business, please expect a 2-week turnaround for all responses and be advised that I can no longer offer ad-hoc one-on-one WEC trainings, meaning that WE attributes will be removed from courses that are not staffed by instructors who are already WEC-approved.
Dr. Vyshali Manivannan, Associate Professor of English, Writing, and Cultural Studies, PLV WEC Director, Pace University
These compromises have been approved by upper administration in place of restoring the administrative release time that both supported this program and my ability to equitably perform my directorial role as an openly disabled faculty member. Given that the WEC program offers approximately 250 writing-enhanced courses taught by approximately 180 instructors per year to students from all schools and colleges at Pace, it is an understatement to say that administrative release time was key to the smooth operation of this program.
For more information, please contact the Dyson Dean’s Office.
I’ve currently set this auto-reply for internal correspondence only, but because some of my Pace colleagues have reached out privately to thank me for making the material impacts of the upper administration’s decisions visible across the university, I thought I’d share it publicly as well. If any of this describes your situation at your university, and if it would be useful for you, feel free to adapt my language for your own auto-reply.
As a final point: To add insult to injury, of course, after wearing down my health with her feigned commitment to and interest in rhetoric and writing across the curriculum initiatives, Sarah decided she wanted nothing to do with WEC once she lost the incentive of administrative release time. Not that she even bothered to communicate with me about it.
