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United University Professions
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December 2000
It’s not all classwork and homework on SUNY campuses: It’s also footwork, artwork and drum work. It’s steppin’ out and steppin’ lively.
This month, The Voice takes its annual peek behind the stage curtains at some of the cultural events hosted at SUNY’s state-operated campuses. Each year, the magazine features different colleges and university centers to showcase the highlights of their arts and music programs. Noted musicians, magicians and mimes are part of the act. Authors and activists are brought to campuses to speak. Opera, ballet and storytelling are welcomed to the stage.
Some of the programs feature UUP members as performers; nearly all feature UUPers behind the scenes. Events are open to students, faculty and the community. You are invited to get out your calendars and mark your favorite upcoming events. Check out SUNY campus Web sites for a more complete list of events, show times and prices:
All performances are at Staller Center for the Arts, unless otherwise noted.
All performances are at Schacht Fine Arts Center, Russell Sage College, Troy, unless otherwise noted. Call (518) 274-3256.
Bad ‘Policies’: UUP members told to toss the trustees’ latest version
The August 2000 edition of the Policies of the Board of Trustees contains enough errors to make it dangerous, according to UUP President William Scheuerman.
“A member using the latest version of the Policies can be misled into making some damaging choices and decisions,” Scheuerman said. “This is shoddy work on SUNY’s part.”
UUP is urging members to discard the manual immediately and to await receipt of a revised version before referring to it for professional guidance. In the meantime, members can address questions and concerns about their employment to their chapter labor relations specialists.
“Some of the mistakes are minor, but others are significant and could cause serious — perhaps even permanent — harm to our members,” Scheuerman said.
The policies were reprinted in August to incorporate changes resulting from the new contract agreement between the state and UUP. The union was not given an opportunity to review the updates before the manual was distributed.
UUP has written to Vice Chancellor Richard Miller — who heads up administration at SUNY — informing him of the problem and demanding that all copies of the publication be recalled. UUP staff is working with SUNY to ensure the errors are fixed and that corrected reprints are made available soon.
At Voice press time, mistakes had been discovered in articles covering term appointment (Article XI, Title D) and sick leave (Article XIII, Title C). Officers and staff were continuing to review the policy manual for other errors. Scheuerman blamed the trustees for creating an atmosphere at SUNY System Administration that fosters a dismissive approach to the nuts-and-bolts of running the University:
“We’ve got trustees traipsing around the state promoting this ridiculous charter college concept. We’ve got trustees ignoring serious issues, like the financial crisis at the teaching hospitals. We’ve got trustees doing contortions patting themselves on the back for this and that. And still, they can’t ensure something as simple — yet as important — as the policy manual gets done right. Who’s minding the store?”
— Frank Maurizio
VOTE/COPE has an impact at the polls
How important is VOTE/COPE, NYSUT’s voluntary, non-partisan political action fund? One need only look to the results of last month’s elections for the answer.
NYSUT-endorsed candidates — supported by the VOTE/COPE contributions of UUPers and their K-12 colleagues — were big winners on Election Day:
While the year-end total from UUP’s 2000 VOTE/COPE campaign won’t be known until next month, Landy said she expects it to top last year’s record $103,000.
“When members make that level of commitment, UUP is taken seriously by lawmakers,” Landy said. “We have been steadily increasing our contribution to VOTE/COPE over the last few years and it has paid off in the form of a successful legislative agenda.”
UUP President William Scheuerman agreed: “UUP has been successful as an advocate for its 24,000 members and for SUNY because it is a respected player in the halls of the state Capitol. VOTE/COPE helps make that happen.”
Landy said the 2001 VOTE/COPE campaign will begin in January. Chapters will receive solicitation materials shortly.
— Frank Maurizio
“Our members know the importance of supporting candidates who support them,” said Eileen Landy of SUNY Old Westbury, UUP’s statewide VOTE/COPE coordinator.
Leading the way: UUP seeks better budget for SUNY; trains new leaders to carry message
Lawmakers will soon convene for the 2001 legislative session, and UUP is ready with its political message: Make SUNY — which plays a vital role in educating New Yorkers — a top priority in the state budget.
As a result, the number of full-time faculty lines has waned and need reinstatement; SUNY’s three teaching hospitals face a chronic, state-imposed budget deficit that needs resolution; and new campus mandates need sufficient funding for implementation. UUP’s 2001 legislative program seeks to redress these issues by replenishing the state’s commitment to its public University.
“All these legislative initiatives require renewed resources, and UUP is leading the charge for the state’s financial reinvestment in the SUNY system,” said union President William Scheuerman.
“SUNY’s trustees do not serve as University stewards, so UUP has — out of necessity — become its advocate,” he said. “Our legislative agenda is set, and we’re ready to get to work with lawmakers to achieve our goals to rebuild the University.”
Once again, the union will bring its political agenda to lawmakers both in Albany and in their district offices. “Our district lobbying efforts are under way,” said Frederick Floss, chair of the union’s Political Action Committee. “UUP’s volunteer lobbyists are set to begin meeting with legislators at home to get out the union’s message of ‘top billing for SUNY.’”
Details of UUP’s message include continuing the trend the Legislature and governor began over the last two years of restoring some of the more than 1,000 full-time faculty lines lost since 1995-96.
“To remain competitive, SUNY must have a strong base of permanent full-time academic and professional faculty members,” Scheuerman said. “The University must stop relying so heavily on our part-timers, who now comprise about 40 percent of the academic faculty at state-operated campuses.”
UUP also calls for a resolution to the fiscal shortfall facing the three teaching hospitals that would stop “taxing” them to fund campuses’ operating budgets while safeguarding their mission to provide critical health care to New Yorkers. The union also seeks state financing for the implementation of campus budget initiatives such as the four-year programs at the University’s Colleges of Technology (UCT), the new teacher education requirements and general education mandates.
“The teaching hospitals and five UCTs are particularly under the gun,” Scheuerman said. “SUNY administrators have still not announced a plan to solve the hospital budget crisis, almost a year after their million-dollar consultants determined that the hospitals are well run but chronically underfunded.”
Likewise, SUNY’s imposition of new mandates, like UCTs offering four-year programs and a “core curriculum” without the funding needed to implement them, presents a case study in bad economics — a University system “filled with dictates but empty on support for their success,” Scheuerman added.
Last year, for example, the affiliate unions achieved a five-day notice requirement to lawmakers and other interested parties before SUNY makes budget disbursements to campuses.
This year, UUP and NYSUT will seek further restoration of an open and public dialogue at SUNY through a five-year operating budget plan and use of qualitative goals in RAM. The unions maintain that the trustees’ mechanistic method of funding the University currently rewards campuses with increased enrollments and research dollars while penalizing campuses — such as the UCTs — with innovative but costly programs.
“A five-year plan would prevent the trustees from getting away with their ‘backroom tricks,’” Scheuerman said. “RAM, which the trustees devised behind closed doors, hurts the whole University. All of SUNY is under attack; we need things done out in the open.”
UUP’s political program also seeks restoration of funds to the New York State Theatre Institute and passage of the Sweatshop Code of Conduct.
“Our legislative agenda for 2001 reflects a great deal of discussion and embraces fundamental issues of access and quality for the entire University,” said Patricia Bentley, Legislation Committee chair. “When the trustees abdicate their responsibilities of trust and advocacy, UUP and NYSUT are there to protect our members, students and the public.”
— Lisa Feldman Reich
UUP contends that the SUNY Board of Trustees has repeatedly failed to request sufficient public funding for SUNY and that, while other states have used the recent economic boon to rebuild their public university systems, SUNY has not reaped the benefits of New York’s budget surpluses.
Meanwhile, new UUP leaders were treated to a taste of the political process just hours after the legislative program — developed by the Legislation and Political Action committees — was adopted by the statewide Executive Board. Addressing the union’s newest leaders during a mid-October conference in Cooperstown, Neil Foley, NYSUT’s director of legislation, emphasized that the strong collaborative relationship between UUP and NYSUT resulted in recent gains for public higher education in New York.
AFL-CIO offers advice on what to buy and not to buy
Many of the goods and services Americans buy come with a hidden cost: abuse of the workers behind them.
Even shoppers who want to avoid buying sweatshop-made products and supporting union-busting employers find it difficult to locate good alternatives.
Here are two Web resources for worker-friendly shopping: The Worker-Friendly Marketplace (workingfamilies.com) and the AFL-CIO’s Union Label & Service Trades Department (www.aflcio.org).
The Marketplace is the only worker-friendly shopping site on the Internet that features great deals on gifts, tools, travel, appliances, sporting goods and more — all from worker-friendly companies. And the Union Label & Service Trades Department helps guide shoppers to quality products and services produced by union women and men.
The following is a sampling of AFL-CIO national boycotts, as well as some of the items supported by the federation.
Don’t buy
AFT organizing victories — The AFT’s health care division recently welcomed close to 1,500 nurses from Pennsylvania to its ranks. The group, which has eight bargaining units across Pennsylvania, will maintain its affiliation with the Pennsylvania State Education Association/NEA. It is chartered as an AFT local/regional council.
Meanwhile, the scales of justice were perfectly weighted for Illinois and Temple University graduate employees as legal decisions in two jurisdictions threw open the door for collective bargaining. The Illinois Supreme Court in early October declined to hear an appeal of a lower court decision that recognized the right of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign graduate employees to bargain. Later that month, the state’s Labor Relations Board ruled that a Public Employment Relations Board hearing officer erred when he found that Temple University graduate students were not eligible to bargain collectively.
Time to clean up their act — Mutual of New York (MONY) and its custodial contractor, Janitronics, recently fired 40 Service Employees Industrial Union (SEIU)/Local 200B members and replaced them with non-union workers. In January, the company put out to bid the janitorial services for its MONY Towers in Syracuse. Janitronics, which operates a union shop in Albany, won the contract and vowed to operate a non-union shop in Syracuse, where employees earn about $2 less per hour and have no health, dental or pension benefits.
The former MONY Towers janitors submitted applications for employment with Janitronics, but none of them was hired. SEIU Local 200B has filed unfair labor practice charges against both MONY and Janitronics, alleging that the former workers were discriminated against because of their union activity.
SEIU has also asked the AFL-CIO to add MONY products and services to its national boycott list.
Combined efforts: Professional, academics link to forecast student success
While no one can really foresee the future, thanks to some collaborative work by professional and academic faculty, SUNY Stony Brook’s political science department has come closer to predicting the likelihood of success of prospective doctoral students.
So, in an independent study toward her own master’s degree in liberal studies, Pfeiffer designed a research project in which she gathered statistical information about past departmental graduate students, compiled a database with their Graduate Record Examination (GRE) scores, grades and personal comments, and analyzed her findings.
The results are in: The mathematically oriented political science department has begun to use these composites to help admit students who are most likely to complete the rigorous, four-year doctoral program.
“Because of the great time and financial investment this department makes in its graduate students, the faculty was interested in looking at past data to determine what factors contributed to students’ successes,” Pfeiffer said. Pfeiffer discovered that the GRE analytic scores were the best predictors of success, rather than math. With its quantitatively oriented focus, Stony Brook’s poli-sci department had previously placed a strong emphasis on applicants’ mathematical scores.
“It made sense that having the ability to analyze would be an important factor in being able to proceed with the intensive research projects required of our graduate students,” Pfeiffer said. She also found that prior research experience was a significant factor in students’ successes.
Fortified with this solid evidence, the department incorporated Pfeiffer’s work in its admissions decisions this fall.
“It’s fitting that in a quantitative department, where we believe in the results of empirical studies based in real-world data, we should use the conclusions of a study that Linda did in our admissions work here,” said UUPer Paul Teske, a professor and director of graduate studies for the department.
Teske served as Pfeiffer’s advisor on her project, and other academic members of the department also got behind her with time, teamwork and some funding, in addition to collegial encouragement.
“It started with Paul, who allowed me to be a full partner in the functioning of this department,” Pfeiffer said. “This whole project came out of that support.”
Once Pfeiffer’s work was completed, the political science department, chaired by UUPer Mark Schneider, funded Pfeiffer’s attendance at the 2000 Midwest Political Science Association annual meeting in Chicago, where she presented her findings. Participation by a non-academic faculty member in such conferences — with financial support from the department — is unusual, but totally logical to Schneider.
Pfeiffer’s research was “important to the discipline,” he said. “Supporting the dissemination of the results of her work was the natural and right thing to do.”
While Pfeiffer is “breaking new ground” as an administrative staff member who is an “integral part” of the department’s graduate training, she also “established a model of a professional faculty member being integrated into the intellectual life of the academic community,” Schneider said.
Pfeiffer appreciated the opportunity. “It was a privilege” to attend the conference, she said. “I was ... supported by my colleagues. It was very positive to be recognized in this way.”
UUPers and political science professors Jeffrey Segal and Stanley Feldman sit with Teske on the graduate committee that meets to make decisions about admissions to the program. They found Pfeiffer’s work to be invaluable.
“The most important thing we do as a committee is determine who gets admitted,” Segal said. “Having information about which sort of student is most likely to succeed is absolutely vital to what we do.”
— Lisa Feldman Reich
As the department’s coordinator of graduate programs, UUPer Linda Pfeiffer is the first person to review files of potential students. An administrative staff member with a background in public policy, Pfeiffer sought to broaden her perspective about the significance of particular characteristics in applicants’ profiles. This helps to prioritize the admissions process, she explained.
Food for thought — Chef Keith Buerker, an assistant professor in SUNY Cobleskill’s culinary arts, hospitality and tourism division, was recently appointed as a national program evaluator by the American Culinary Federation Educational Institute.
Buerker will assist the federation in evaluating culinary arts programs at schools nationwide and in accrediting those that fulfill specific educational requirements.
A certified culinary educator and a certified executive chef, Buerker has taught at the college since 1992.
Online design — Wassim Jabi, an assistant professor of architecture at SUNY Buffalo, has received a $120,000 U.S. Department of Education (DOE) subgrant through the Center for Universal Design at North Carolina State University.
The grant, funded by DOE’s National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research, will support a three-year collaborative project to develop and disseminate universal-design education materials. Universal design is the design of projects that can be used to the fullest extent possible, regardless of the user’s age or physical ability, without the need for adaptation.
Scholarship standards attract record gift
A $7,000 memorial donation to the Eugene P. Link College Scholarship Trust Fund, the largest contribution to the scholarship fund since its creation, has been made by Katherine Carter, the wife of former UUPer Robert Carter of SUNY Oswego.
Robert Carter, who died in 1996, taught 20th century American history at Oswego from 1965-1990.
“I decided I wanted to do something in Bob’s memory that would have some relevance to the field he was in and I was in, and that would help kids to attain at least some of what we did,” said Carter, a former elementary, junior high and high school teacher.
“He was a very popular man,” Carter said of her husband, noting how the couple often hosted hard-working students at their home for dinner at the end of the semester.
“He was very much into keeping students with their nose to the grindstone. He was very respected,” she said.
Carter said she chose to donate money to the Link scholarship fund because, “I am impressed with the standards set for the scholarships. I think that’s very important.”
Gertrude Butera, an honorary member of the fund’s board of trustees who is in charge of fund raising, said the board is “very grateful for Mrs. Carter’s most generous gift to the Link scholarship fund. Her contribution demonstrates her concern to have our SUNY scholars receive the education they deserve.”
Carter said that both she and her husband are products of SUNY schools. “When he finished his doctorate, he was very much into becoming a faculty member at a state college because that’s where he got his start,” she said.
Robert Carter earned his bachelor’s degree from New Paltz, his master’s degree from Albany, and his doctorate from the Syracuse Maxwell School of International Relations. He wrote his dissertation on Franklin D. Roosevelt, and his wife said he maintained a lifelong interest in the former president, regularly visiting FDR’s home in Hyde Park to do research at the Roosevelt Library on the site. Katherine is a SUNY Oswego graduate.
The Link fund provides scholarships of $650 per semester, up to two semesters a year, to outstanding students at SUNY’s state-operated colleges and universities.
Anyone interested in making a donation to the scholarship fund may send a check or money order to the Eugene P. Link College Scholarship Trust Fund, c/o United University Professions, 159 Wolf Road, Albany, N.Y. 12205-1177 or fill out the card inserted in this issue.
— Liza Frenette
UUP women’s rights committee seeks family-leave experiences
UUP would like to hear from members who have had to take time off from work to care for a newborn child or seriously ill family member.
The Women’s Rights and Concerns Committee is collecting anecdotal evidence about union members who have used family leave.
“We would like to hear stories of personal experience, about a time when members could have used a ‘paid’ family leave,” said UUPer Vicki Janik, chair of the statewide committee. “We are looking for information to assess this need.”
UUP members are currently eligible for the federal Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, which allows most workers to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave in a year to be with a newborn or newly adopted child, to take care of a seriously ill child, spouse or parent, or to care for themselves if they are seriously ill.
In addition, SUNY is required to grant “parenting leave” of up to seven months for the birth or adoption of a child. This leave is unpaid, except that employees are entitled to use paid sick leave for any portion of the time they are unable to work (for example, immediately before or after giving birth.)
Under the Agreement between UUP and the state, bargaining unit members are also entitled to use up to 15 days per year of their own sick leave for an illness or death in their immediate family.
Janik, of Farmingdale, said the idea behind paid family leave is that workers would not have to worry about losing salary or job security at a time of acute illness within their family. It is part of the AFL-CIO’s Family Bill of Rights.
“The key thing is, this is not just parental leave,” said John Marino, UUP statewide vice president for professionals. “Family leave can be for a variety of circumstances.”
Members willing to share personal family-leave experiences are asked to write them down and send them to: Women’s Rights and Concerns Committee, c/o United University Professions, 159 Wolf Road, Albany N.Y. 12205-1177.
Legislative intern hard at work
Judeen Byrne, a graduate student at SUNY Albany’s Rockefeller College of Public Administration and Policy, is on board as UUP’s newest John M. Reilly legislative intern.
Byrne most recently worked as a fellow at the Center for Women in Government in Albany, where she conducted research on the feasibility of establishing a New York state caregiver registry. At the center, she also researched and drafted a study for the state Legislature on child care utilization patterns.
She graduated summa cum laude from the City University of New York’s College of Staten Island in 1999, earning bachelor’s of arts degrees in psychology and sociology/anthropology, as well as a minor in public administration. She earned her associate’s degree from Inter American University in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Byrne, of Albany, is working 20-plus hours a week. Her duties include tracking bills, helping to organize legislative meetings, researching and analyzing issues for potential legislation, and other responsibilities associated with the union’s 2001 legislative program.
The internship is named after former UUP President John M. Reilly of SUNY Albany, who served from 1987-1993.
Brockport UUPer reaches out to family of rabies victim
A memorial fund has been started by a SUNY Brockport faculty member to help the widow of a colleague, Kwasi Opoku-Fianko of Ghana, who died from rabies just after arriving for a year’s sabbatical to study Brockport’s graduate programs.
UUPer Reginald Ocansey, an associate professor of physical education at Brockport, said it was in his role as coordinator of an exchange program at the University College of Education of Winneba, in Ghana, that he met Opoku-Fianko.
Opoku-Fianko, who was head of the Winneba university’s physical education department, hoped to bring back to his own university the information he gathered during meetings with Brockport deans and department heads.
Ocansey said Opoku-Fianko arrived Sept. 23 and the pair began touring schools throughout the state to see how Brock-port conducts its student teaching program. On Sept. 28, Opoku-Fianko became gravely ill; he died Oct. 9 from rabies, presumably from a dog bite or scratch he had gotten in Ghana some months earlier, Ocansey reported.
Opoku-Fianko, 55, is survived by his wife, Alice, and their children, Nora, Kwabena and Ankomah.
Donations to assist the widow to return to Ghana may be mailed to Ocansey at 69 Maynard St., Rochester, N.Y. 14615. Make checks payable to the Kwasi Opoku-Fianko Fund.
— Liza Frenette
Music to his ears: Antique treasures sooth Buffalo dentist’s nerves
You might remember the sound from when you were a child, the tiny sound of sweet music somehow coming from a small box or figurine. You might have heard whispers of a harp being plucked or a piano being gently played, while a ballerina or a teddy bear turned slowly on a base.
And it’s a far cry from the sound of a dentist’s drill. Perhaps that’s why UUPer Sebastian Ciancio, a professor and chair of the department of periodontics and endodontics in SUNY Buffalo’s School of Medicine, is so enthralled with music boxes.
His story starts at a flea market, where he saw a very old, piano-shaped music box from Switzerland. When he lifted the lid, it played music. Shortly after, he spent a sabbatical in Switzerland teaching at the University of Zurich and writing a dental textbook. While there, he started looking at music boxes — a signature creation of the Swiss. He purchased a column music box that had four little doors, each of which opened to show dancing ballerinas.
“I became more interested,” Ciancio said, “and decided I wanted to collect antiques. So, I met with a dealer in Buffalo.”
The dentist had read about large music boxes that played discs, and he set his sights on obtaining one. The antiques dealer finally located one, and it was exactly what the doctor ordered. This prize music box is a large Regina made in 1896 that plays 15-and-a-half-inch discs. It came with 200 discs.
“When I bought it my kids said, ‘Why didn’t you buy a stereo instead?’” Ciancio recalls with a laugh. He and his wife, Marilyn, have a daughter, Michelle, and a son, Sebastian. Their son-in-law, Peter Bessinger, is helping Ciancio market a CD comprised of songs recorded from the various Regina discs. The profits go to charity; there is a link to the Regina CDs on the Web at westernnytoday.com.
The princess of the collection is indisputably the Regina, which perpetually catches the eyes of visitors.
“When we have people over, they see the music box and they always want us to play it,” Ciancio said. “People are fascinated by it.”
Last year, a Victorian Christmas was held as a fund-raiser at the Wilcox Mansion in Buffalo, where Theodore Roosevelt was inaugurated after President McKinley was killed. The Regina music box, now growing in local lore, was used as a centerpiece in the mansion’s parlor.
Ciancio continues to collect antique music boxes because of the pleasure and challenge he finds in the quest.
It is, he said, a necessary diversion from conducting clinical trials and teaching.
“I think it’s important that everyone has something not related to his or her field,” Ciancio said.
— Liza Frenette
It’s the sound of music boxes that seem to miraculously produce songs from compartments hidden inside porcelain, wooden or ceramic figures and boxes. Sometimes, while the music plays, figurines move, doors open, lids lift, clowns juggle and skaters twirl. All the while, the small sound of the music calls the listener to pay close attention, for the melody is a delicate one.
The Ciancios’ grandson, Tyler, loves music boxes, particularly the one his grandfather owns of a European St. Nicholas who raises a Christmas tree in one hand and a bell in the other as the box plays “Oh Christmas Tree.”
Other boxes Ciancio owns include an organ grinder that plays one of five wood cylinders when it is hand cranked, and 30 smaller boxes, nearly all of them made of wood. He also has a reproduction of a Faberge egg that opens to show a swan that circles as the music plays. Another music box features a crystal flower that opens as the base turns, revealing a hummingbird whose wings flutter.
Benefits: New year brings changes
With the New Year comes even more health benefit changes.
We are now in the option-transfer period, where you have the opportunity to change your health insurance carrier. While, at Voice press time, the premium rates had not been announced, I am certain that, with the increasing cost of prescription drugs, there will be some increased costs. So, I strongly recommend you review your choices carefully.
Some Empire Plan benefits have changed. Among the changes are an increase in the deductible and an increase in the out-of-pocket maximum. These increases are tied to the consumer price index, which increased by 4.1 percent. The new deductible, effective Jan. 1, will go from $249 to $259. The new out-of-pocket maximum will go from $1,604 to $1,670.
The Empire Plan deductible is applied when you use a non-participating provider. If you use a participating provider, you are charged a copayment. In 2001, that copayment will increase from $8 to $10 a visit. This change was negotiated in the current contract and is reflected in the health insurance article.
Through the Joint Committee on Health, UUP has some input on which HMOs are approved. However, UUP does not negotiate directly with the HMOs. As a result, HMO benefits may change each Jan. 1. To help you identify those changes, a Choices Guide has been created. Contact your campus benefits office for a copy of this comparison of plans.
If you currently participate in an HMO, you will receive a letter outlining any benefit changes that will take place Jan. 1. Review these changes carefully to determine if this is still the best plan for you.
On an unrelated topic, the time is fast approaching to submit fall semester applications for the UUP scholarship program. Dependent children enrolled in the UUP Benefit Trust Fund — who attend a state-operated SUNY school, take at least 12 undergraduate credits and achieve at least a 2.0 grade-point average — are eligible to receive a $500 scholarship per semester, up to eight semesters. Scholarship applications are available on the UUP Web site at www.uupinfo.org or by calling UUP at (800) 887-3863. An official transcript with final grades must be submitted with the scholarship application.
If you have any questions about these or other benefits, don’t hesitate to contact UUP Member Benefits at (800) 887-3863 or check out the new-and-improved benefits section on the union’s Web site.
— Gail Maloy
Roadside help is there if it’s needed
Help is just a toll-free call away. That’s the assurance received by bargaining unit members who insure their cars with METPAY, the NYSUT Benefit Trust-endorsed auto and home insurance program.
This service, called Road-side Assistance, provides access to a network of service professionals 24 hours a day, seven days a week. There’s no need to enroll or pay membership fees; the service is automatically available to METPAY auto policyholders.
Whether a member is out of gas, stuck with a flat tire or has a more serious problem, Roadside Assistance can help with its network of qualified service professionals — 30,000 tow trucks at 7,600 U.S. locations.
Those who insure their cars with towing and labor coverage as part of their auto policies (MetLife Auto & Home’s comprehensive coverage) will be covered for services up to the tow coverage limit for each vehicle. In most cases, if the car is insured with towing and labor coverage when calling for assistance, there will be no out-of-pocket expenses up to the coverage limit for service at the scene and/or towing to a service station. Costs incurred after the initial service will be the member’s responsibility.
Policyholders who do not have towing and labor coverage can use this roadside service, but are responsible for all costs.
For details about METPAY auto policies or to receive a no-obligation rate quotation, call 800-GET-MET-1 (800-438-6381); those members with METPAY auto policies should call Roadside Assistance at 800-2-MET-TOW (800-263-8869).
Members calling from areas without a service provider — or when a provider is on a priority police call — will be given an authorization number to submit to Met-Life for reimbursement for towing- and labor-service charges from another source.
Time to speak up: Union offers disabled members a ‘channel of communication’
Why should disabled UUPers be active union members? Because, in large measure, our disability issues are work-related issues. Disabled members’ concerns are UUP concerns. So, having a disability is a particularly important reason to be active in our union. Disability isn’t just an individual matter. We join forces — as do all minorities — not because of our individual conditions, but because ignorance, stigma, political circumstances and physical barriers deprive us all of rights and opportunities.
Last year, before it reached the general radar screen, UUP’s Disability Rights and Concerns Committee learned of a profoundly disturbing use of the 11th Amendment by an activist U.S. Supreme Court. Incredibly, federal district courts and the U.S. Supreme Court are returning us to the pre-civil rights era by increasing states’ rights and decreasing individual rights and federal obligation. This extends well beyond disability to include the rights of labor, women and the aging. The Disability Rights and Concerns Committee brought this issue to UUP, and we are proud that our union has shown leadership in a struggle for civil rights. We are committed to join with other UUP members in promoting justice and nondiscrimination for all.
When you have questions about compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), or accommodations that involve policies or campuswide changes, your campus Disability Committee gives you access to the experience of other disabled people. If the committee cannot help, your concerns may be forwarded, with your permission, to your chapter president for possible discussion with management. It is important to note that, while committee members may give their opinions, the committee does not give legal advice. As a member of the chapter executive board, the chapter Disability Committee chair may have early notice of issues affecting disabled members and can communicate disability perspectives.
Although disability concerns have particular forms, they can be characterized as “human” concerns. We share with our UUP brothers and sisters a desire to improve our work environment and the quality of education provided by SUNY. Education means much less if those of us who are entrusted with it are treated with a lack of respect. When disabled people are treated as children, our “rights” become merely favors bestowed on the “deserving” at the pleasure of others. What we need, want and should do cannot be decided by others without our input. UUP gives us a voice and a channel of communication. The union isn’t perfect; it’s an organization of human beings, and disability concerns compete with other important issues. We aren’t always understood, but there is support for our concerns, just as there is for the concerns of other minority groups.
Coming together in the context of a powerful union reveals to us what we can do for ourselves and for others. UUP gives us a strong voice and is a just expression of our power. We trust its leaders to negotiate for our wages, health benefits, a healthy work environment and more. UUP policies and negotiations can complement the ADA in protecting our rights.
How can you be active in UUP? Become a departmental representative, run for office or for delegate to the Delegate Assembly, assist with projects or join a committee.
Form or join a chapter Disability Rights and Concerns Committee. Bring your concerns to the statewide Disability Committee. Become an active member of UUP.
(Bill Roth is a professor in the School of Social Welfare, SUNY Albany, and Sally Knapp is a librarian in the University Library, SUNY Albany. Both are members of the union’s Civil Rights and the 11th Amendment Committee and of the Disability Rights and Concerns Committee.)
By William E. Scheuerman Imagination is at the heart of critical thinking because it allows us to posit alternatives to reality. Maybe the imaginary alternatives are better than reality; maybe they’re worse. Let’s see which is the case as you join me in a short game called “Imagine My Campus.”
Close your eyes and imagine that you’re working at a college within a large university system that’s developing new degree programs. Imagine that it’s a two-year college that will now offer four-year degree programs. Pretty exciting, isn’t it? It’s always nice to create something new. Or is it?
Now imagine that the college lacks the resources to pay for the new programs. Is it still possible to offer them? How? Will your college have to drop existing programs? If so, which ones? Will students get hurt? How many and how badly? Or will the college avoid this scenario by asking you to work even harder?
Imagine that you’re already teaching five courses and some labs. You mentor students and are active in campus governance. Can you physically and mentally do any more? Will new obligations impact the quality of your work? Will students benefit from new programs brought in under these circumstances?
Now imagine, on top of all this, you’re among the lowest-paid employees in SUNY.
And we’re not done yet.
Imagine that a new budget process cuts real funding to your college at the very same time that the college is introducing the new programs. The rationale behind the cuts is that your college offers expensive technical courses that are not in great demand. Not a pretty picture, is it? But relax, there is a way out of this mess. If you use your imagination and find ways to recruit hundreds of new students, you’ll get more money. Where would the students come from? Would you end up “stealing” them from a sibling institution? Suppose that institution did the same to you? Where would that leave your enrollments? If somehow you manage to increase enrollments, wouldn’t you need more faculty, equipment and other expenditures, bringing you right back to where you started?
Do you feel like a dog chasing its tail? Hey, it’s just your imagination.
But it’s not — it’s all too real.
It’s a real description of life these days at SUNY’s University Colleges of Technology (UCT). These institutions, so crucial to SUNY’s mission and so unique in their function, are punished annually by the mechanistic RAM formula that has taken millions of dollars away from them over the last three years. If that’s not bad enough, these unique jewels in the University’s crown must now offer new four-year degree programs without any additional funds to cover the costs. Despite this madness, the faculty continues to give body and soul to their work. But how much longer can this continue?
New York prides itself on being able to offer employers a highly skilled workforce. In fact, the availability of such talent is absolutely essential to attracting new businesses to the state. So, who is expected to train this workforce? The 64 campuses of the SUNY system. The Colleges of Tech-nology, with their special focus on technology, are crucial in this scheme. But staying on the cutting edge of technology takes money, lots of it. The entire University is underfunded. It’s no secret. SUNY’s trustees just don’t seek adequate public resources to run the country’s largest state university system. But their treatment of the UCTs is especially harsh.
It’s time for the trustees to cut out their surrealistic treatment of these first-rate institutions — institutions essential to the state’s economic growth — and work with lawmakers to provide sufficient funding in the Executive Budget to make them whole again. It’s a figment of the trustees’ imaginations if they think they can do otherwise.
UUP President