Professional Staff Association at Rhode Island College

Its members are non-faculty administrative and technical staff employees of the public college, which serves roughly 6,000 undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral students. ^{3  4}

Background

The Professional Staff Association at Rhode Island College, commonly known as “PSA@RIC,” represents roughly 130 non-faculty staff members at Rhode Island College (RIC).  ^{1  4}  Formerly known as Rhode Island Teachers College, RIC is one of two public four-year higher education institutions in the state, along with the University of Rhode Island. ³

As of 2025, PSA@RIC president Dennis Sousa was also a technology and systems administrator at the college. ⁵

Free Tuition Controversy

In 2017, the Professional Staff Association at Rhode Island College was involved in a controversy regarding potential special treatment given to a union member who was a Democratic Party operative and the son of the long-time president of the state’s AFL-CIO.  ^{6  7}

In 2017, investigative journalists at WPRI-TV in Providence reported that former Rhode Island State Rep. Frank Montanaro, Jr. (D) had improperly received $49,787 in free tuition from Rhode Island College while he was on a three-year leave of absence from his role at the college to work as a staffer for then-State House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello (D-Cranston).  ⁷

Montanaro was an employee of the college in a role covered by the PSA@RIC union contract.  ⁷ He was also the son of former Rhode Island AFL-CIO president, Democratic National Committee member, and 2016 Democratic National Convention superdelegate Frank Montanaro, Sr. ⁶

College administrators had originally approved Montanaro’s leave of absence to take the $156,000 per year job in the state legislature “without pay and without benefits,” but PSA@RIC president Dennis Sousa reportedly threatened to file a formal grievance if Montanaro was not allowed to continue to receive his employee tuition waiver. ⁷ The college disagreed with the union’s reading of the contract but agreed to give Montanaro the waiver, saying it wanted to “resolve this dispute without the necessity, expense and inherent uncertainty in the formal Grievance process.” ⁷

While Montanaro and the union claimed that his free tuition was “a benefit that is afforded to everybody” on leaves of absence under the PSA@RIC union contract, WPRI-TV reported that its review of college records showed that Montanaro was in fact the only member of the union to receive free tuition while on leave over the previous decade, and that he had only received the tuition waiver as the result of a special “administrative authorization” by school leadership. ⁸

Montanaro ultimately agreed to repay the college $41,083 in tuition in monthly payments of $342 over the next decade.  ⁷ Then-Speaker Mattiello told a local radio station that Montanaro made that repayment decision “at my request.” ⁹

Financials

In 2024, PSA@RIC collected $80,987 in dues from its members and paid $39,321 in dues to the national American Federation of Teachers (AFT). ¹⁰