News & Events
City Tech Joins in Mourning the Passing of Dr. Israel Kugler
Dr. Israel Kugler, center, marches in a Labor Day Parade during the 1960s
The faculty and staff of New York City College of Technology join the family and friends of the late Dr. Israel Kugler in mourning his passing on October 1, 2007, at the age of 90.
Kugler, a graduate of City College and New York University, began his teaching career at City Tech – known at the time as the New York State Institute of Applied Arts and Sciences – on March 3, 1947, less than one month after it first opened its doors to students. He taught economics and labor/management relations over a career at the College that spanned 33 years. Prior to that he had served in the U.S. Navy during World War II and had been an instructor at the apprentice school of the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
“Professor Kugler was an extremely important person in the history of this College,” City Tech President Russell K. Hotzler wrote in a letter of condolence to the family. “One of our pioneers, he remained at the College until his retirement in 1980, using his enormous energy, his great passion and commitment, and his intellectual gifts to serve generations of City Tech students.”
In City Tech: The First 40 Years, published in 1986, author and former City Tech Professor Harvey Frommer, wrote extensively of Kugler as teacher and labor organizer. Kugler was instrumental, he noted, in creating an independent faculty organization at City Tech and served as its first president. It later became affiliated with the Teachers Guild, Local 2, a predecessor of the United Federation of Teachers (AFT).
In the book, Kugler is reported as once saying: “Conditions at the Institute were beyond belief. Beginning salary for an 11-month year was $2,564. Teaching loads were 21 hours a week. Either Christmas or Good Friday was given as a paid holiday. Never both. There was no job security or tenure.”
Frommer concludes his book with this tribute to his friend and colleague: “Unionism in higher education virtually owes its start to events at [City Tech] and to Dr. Israel Kugler and his early supporters who fought for collective bargaining and professional working conditions.”
In his letter to the Kugler family, President Hotzler echoed Harvey Frommer’s earlier tribute: “The exemplary teaching career of Professor Kugler is, of course, only a part of his story. I would also like to honor his role in founding the first teachers union in New York City. The strong commitments that made him such an excellent teacher also led him to his leading role in organizing the independent faculty organization from which subsequent faculty unions grew.”
Over the course of his career, Kugler went on to become president of the United Federation of College Teachers (UFCT), which had been granted a charter by the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) to organize in higher education and that later merged with the Legislative Conference of the City University of New York to become the Professional Staff Congress/CUNY (PSC/CUNY). While UFCT president, Kugler played an active role in helping organize locals at colleges throughout the New York City region, including the Fashion Institute of Technology, Nassau Community College and Westchester Community College. He also had been an active supporter of a faculty strike at St. John’s University in the mid-1960s that lasted for 18 months but failed to result in the establishment of a union.
Israel Kugler never forgot the school he had called home for more than three decades. His generosity of spirit and commitment to City Tech again was manifest as recently as 2005 through the gift of his library to the College.
In a moving article published in the November-December 2007 issue of Clarion, the PSC/CUNY newspaper, Irwin Yellowitz, who had been a UFCT member and served as both as vice president for senior colleges and treasurer of PSC/CUNY, had this to say: “Israel Kugler was a pioneer, a visionary and an activist. Iz, as he was known to everyone, believed in academic unionism when few others did. He argued that faculty and professional staff should be in one union to maximize their bargaining power.
“He believed that this union should be affiliated with the labor movement and should not only serve the needs and interests of its members through collective bargaining, but also work to achieve social justice in the nation at large. Iz was always an active leader who could rally support from many sources, and he had the intelligence and drive to carry through on his program.”
11/30/07
