UUP Press Releases
CONTACT: Denyce Duncan Lacy or Don Feldstein at (518) 640-6600
Lacy’s cell number is (518) 265-3114
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
January 30, 2007
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Support for SUNY's hospitals tops UUP's legislative agenda
- Funding for more full-time professional faculty;
- Giving part-time faculty the opportunity for full-time employment;
- Funding infrastructure improvements on SUNY campuses;
- Support equity for UUP member and retirees;
- Restore public employee rights;
- Reform the public university trustee selection process; and
- Solve the fiscal uncertainties at the New York State Theatre Institute
The president of the nation’s largest higher education union today appealed to New York state lawmakers to reverse the long-term funding shortage at the State University of New York’s three public hospitals.
William E. Scheuerman, President of United University Professions, unveiled the union’s 2007 legislative agenda during UUP’s annual Legislative Luncheon in Albany. Supported by dozens of UUP members from SUNY campuses across the state, Scheuerman urged lawmakers to come up with a long-term solution to prevent a fiscal crisis at the teaching hospitals in Brooklyn, Stony Brook and Syracuse and protect the hospitals’ vital public health mission.
“The SUNY hospitals are already under the gun, thanks to the Berger Commission which puts the public status of the hospitals at risk, endangering patient care and medical education,” Scheuerman said. “Instead of weakening the SUNY hospitals, the state should be boosting funding to them so that they can continue their mission of serving the indigent and the uninsured and teaching the state’s next generation of physicians.”
UUP is also calling for the establishment of a new SUNY hospital in Buffalo to help train medical students attending the SUNY Buffalo Health Science Center.
UUP’s legislative agenda also seeks funding for the hiring of additional full-time faculty so that at least 70 percent are full-time at each state-operated campus.
Scheuerman thanked the Legislature for providing funds for the hiring of about 350 more full-time faculty in its 2006-07 budget. However, he added that the additional funding helps accommodate enrollment growth but does not address chronic underfunding.
“We thank the Legislature for taking a positive step forward, but we’re not done yet,” Scheuerman said. “The state still has a long way to go to make up for a decade of underfunding SUNY as well as to have enough full-time faculty to teach the additional thousands of students that SUNY admits every year. Adding funding for faculty this year will help us continue making SUNY a great university system,” Scheuerman said.
Other major legislative and budget agenda items include:
UUP represents more then 34,000 academic and professional faculty on 29 New York state-operated campuses, and is an affiliate of New York State United Teachers and the American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO.
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