UUP’s first Advocacy Day of the decade was a record-breaking success.

The union brought its largest-ever contingent of members and supporters – 65 in all – to Albany on Jan. 26 to urge lawmakers to turn away the massive cuts to SUNY in Gov. David Paterson’s proposed 2010-11 budget. UUPer John Schumacher, left, brings the union’s message to Assemblyman Joel M. Miller (R-Poughkeepsie), right. Also pictured are John Delate, Sarah Howes, and New York Theater Institute (NYSTI) intern John Scala, right.

UUP’s first Advocacy Day of the decade was a record-breaking success.

The union brought its largest-ever contingent of members and supporters – 65 in all– to Albany on Jan. 26 to urge lawmakers to turn away the massive cuts to SUNY in Gov. David Paterson’s proposed 2010-11 budget.

UUPer John Schumacher, far left, along with a contingent of UUPers that included Purchase chapter president John Delate, second from left, and NYSTI chapter member Sarah Howes, third from left, met with Assemblyman Joel M. Miller (R-Poughkeepsie), right, and passionately spoke out against the governor’s $118 million cut to SUNY and his proposed Public Education Empowerment and Innovation Act – which would allow campuses to set their own tuition rates without legislative approve and let them enter into leases, contracts and joint ventures with far less legislative oversight than currently required.

During the 20-minute session, Miller questioned the proposed budget cuts and raised strong concerns about much of the Empowerment and Innovation Act, including differential tuition.

UUPers from Brooklyn HSC, Buffalo HSC, Plattsburgh, Albany, Farmingdale, Old Westbury, Stony Brook HSC, SUNY Administration, Cobleskill, New Paltz, Oneonta, Buffalo State, UMU, Morrisville, Purchase and the New York State Theatre Institute (NYSTI) hit the halls of the Legislative Office Building and the state Capitol, visiting the offices of legislators from both sides of the aisle to push for their support to keep the University whole.

A half-dozen NYSTI interns – most of them high school students – also took part in the Advocacy Day. They explained NYSTI’s importance and significance to legislators and their staffers and pushed them to rescind the governor’s plan to cut state funding from NYSTI over the next two years.

“It was NYSTI that inspired me to go to college and they are helping me achieve that goal,” said Kellyrose Fluty, a Troy High School senior who is spending the year at NYSTI as an intern. “There’s no other program like NYSTI.”

For the most part, legislators and their staffers were receptive to UUP’s messages, particularly when it came to differential tuition and keeping state funding for NYSTI.