Mayor Eric Adams’ budget cuts are hitting nine City University of New York colleges, including Queens College, where several full-time faculty members have been let go, and some classes cancelled.

Malcolm MacDougall has creative control in his art studio.

“When this gets hot enough. The material moves like clay or play-doh,” he said, referring to a steel rod he was working with.

The artist and sculptor said it’s a side hustle, but he doesn’t have control over what was his full-time job.

MacDougall is one of 26 full-time substitute faculty members at Queens College who were laid off two weeks before the start of the spring semester.

“I have two children, a wife and a mortgage,” he said.

The job and benefits that went with it, including health insurance, were stripped away. His real love teaching was not completely taken away.

CUNY hired him back as a part-time professor. He said he makes one-third of his full-time teaching salary.

“A lot of us came back as part-time faculty, because we needed health insurance, or we needed the income, but I think at the core of it people came back because they love their students and they want to support their programs,” he said.

Mayor Eric Adams cut CUNY’S budget by $23 million in his revised municipal budget in November.

Because Adams is giving less money, CUNY said it had to make cuts at nine of its college, including Queens College.

According to CUNY, part-time faculty teach more than half of CUNY classes and it gave all nine CUNY colleges instructions to figure out where to find the budget savings.

In a statement, CUNY said: “This request was designed to give these colleges flexibility and discretion to alleviate budget shortfalls in a manner consistent with their distinct needs and circumstances.”

David Gerwin, who chairs the Secondary Education Department at Queens College, said the recent budget cuts are also affecting students, some of whom are juggling jobs and families.

“We start registering our courses in November, we put out the schedule and they plan in advance,” said Gerwin. “When we cancel classes at the last minute, it means that they drop registration and they will be delayed in graduation.”

Meanwhile, MacDougall said he’s grateful he can still be a mentor for his students, to help them grow.

“I love teaching as much as making art because they’re both about building bridges from a thought to a thing, from an experience to a person,” he said.

MacDougall just wishes the lifestyle he built for his family by teaching for 11 years now, five of them at Queens College, wasn’t now dependent upon his art too.