Theme: Higher ed advocacy

Joining forces for a stronger state university

Just days after the 2003-04 Executive Budget was unveiled, UUP took its battle for a better SUNY budget to the steps of the state Capitol.

Hundreds of UUP delegates put the business of their 2003 Winter Delegate Assembly on hold and traveled to downtown Albany to protest the proposed slash in state funding for SUNY. Joined by busloads of NYSUT colleagues and other local labor leaders, members sported signs, blew whistles and shouted slogans in support of the state university on a cold, damp, late-January day.

Their chants for “no more cuts” reverberated repeatedly off the South Mall marble.

“We have to get our message out loud and clear this year — 4,000 jobs are at stake,” UUP President William Scheuerman said.

Edward McElroy, above, secretary-treasurer of UUP’s national affiliate, the American Federation of Teachers, greeted the group and said: “The fight you’re taking on now is incredibly important, not only for you but for the future of this country.”

NYSUT Executive Vice President Alan Lubin also supported the ralliers. “We’ll go from ‘slash and burn’ to ‘learn and earn,’” he said.

Earlier that week, several dozen UUPers met indoors with about 250 state lawmakers and their staffs in the Well of the Legislative Office Building (LOB) for the union’s annual Legislative Luncheon.

Many legislators took the opportunity to address the unionists and their cause. “I remember last year when I stood here with your brochure and said I’d study it,” said state Sen. Toby Ann Stavisky (D-Flushing). “I see it hasn’t changed much — the issues are still the same.”

Stavisky, who is the ranking minority member on the Senate Higher Education Committee, told the UUPers: “I promise I will ask SUNY again [at the legislative budget hearings] if it has increased full-time faculty lines.” (See “Sound Bytes” below for other political pronouncements made during the Legislative Luncheon.)

Scheuerman returned to the LOB to deliver testimony at the joint hearing of the Senate Finance and Assembly Ways and Means committees about the “unacceptable cuts” in state funding for SUNY in the 2003-04 Executive Budget proposal.

“The state-operated campuses are in bad financial shape; there is nothing left to cut,” Scheuerman said, testifying about the “cycle of underfunding” and “years of declining state support” caused by several flat budgets and current mid-academic-year cuts.

UUP will continue its advocacy efforts all session, and is collaborating with groups including the University Faculty Senate and New York Public Interest Research Group for the state aid needed to bolster the University.

The faculty senate proposed 11 recommendations — such as increased funding for enrollment growth, supporting the SUNY mission of access and indexing tuition — which are all interdependent, according to its president, Joseph Hildreth.

“We’re calling for a rational fiscal policy to eliminate the instability at SUNY,” said Hildreth, who is also a UUP delegate from SUNY Potsdam.

“Public funds must fill the gap,” Scheuerman said. “If we all speak with one voice, we stand a chance of winning.”

Some UUP chapters will conduct cooperative advocacy activities in Albany with their campuses. UUP Binghamton, led by Chapter President Darryl Wood, will hold its second joint advocacy day with the Binghamton campus later this month. Some 100 people are expected at the LOB to promote the UUP agenda and campus programs.

In developing the event, Wood said he emulated the long-held Stony Brook Day, an annual joint advocacy day the UUP chapters at Stony Brook and Stony Brook HSC conduct with campus President Shirley Strum Kenny.

“The UUP legislative program is part of the advocacy packet with campus materials that we presented to lawmakers,” said UUPer John Schmidt, Stony Brook chapter president. This year’s Stony Brook Day was held Feb. 25.

“These are good models for other chapters,” Scheuerman said.

Other UUP advocates met that same day under the NYSUT umbrella, when they joined higher ed colleagues from the Professional Staff Congress/CUNY and SUNY community college locals for a NYSUT-sponsored Higher Education Lobby Day.

UUPers gathered the night before converging at the Capitol to plan their strategy. They then joined NYSUT members for a briefing by the state’s education union leaders.

“We cannot afford to take a hit of $183.5 million,” Scheuerman told the group. “Our job is to define the needs of the University.”

Scheuerman and NYSUT President Thomas Hobart were joined by NYSUT Director of Legislation Debra Nelson; United College Employees President Lou Stollar; Professional Staff Congress President Barbara Bowen; and Chris Black, NYSUT’s legislative representative for higher ed issues.

Legislation Chair Patricia Bentley of SUNY Plattsburgh met with fellow committee members earlier in the month. “We’ve begun our advocacy campaign; we need to focus on our agenda and get our message out there,” she said. “We need a budget that prevents layoffs and meets our legislative program.”

Bentley encouraged committee members to participate in the district advocacy efforts coordinated by Political Action Chair Thomas Tucker of SUNY Buffalo. “What we do in Albany we like to replicate on our campuses and in our districts,” Bentley said.

Perhaps Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s appointment of Assemblyman Ronald Canestrari (D-Cohoes) to head the house’s Higher Ed Committee will make UUP’s budget battle just a little bit easier.

— Lisa Feldman Reich