Throughout the SUNY system, there's an unsettled feeling of waiting for the other shoe to drop, as members of NYSUT's higher ed locals await the final word on the state's forthcoming budget cuts.

A number of hiring freezes are in place. Part-time faculty are waiting to see if they will have a job next year. Midyear cuts to community colleges have been averted, but faculty at those campuses still face burgeoning enrollment and more budget cuts in the 2009-10 Executive Budget. Faculty and staff are doing more with fewer people and facing more crowded classes.

Everyone knows this could be just the beginning of some very tough times — at the SUNY teaching hospitals, at the four-year colleges and universities, and at the community colleges.

Through it all, NYSUT members are doing their jobs, trying to keep their morale high — and bundling up in sweaters and jackets as campuses institute cost-cutting measures by turning down thermostats.

"I think there's a tenuous feeling on campus," said Candace Merbler, president of the United University Professions chapter at the University at Albany.

Positions not renewed

A handful of professional positions will not be renewed next year, and some professionals on track for permanent appointments are receiving no more than one-year renewals, Merbler said.

The UAlbany administration announced last week that it had saved more than $250,000 during the break between the fall and spring semesters by turning down lights and thermostats and closing the campus swimming pool.

But with Gov. Paterson proposing a $201 million cut to the SUNY four-year colleges, NYSUT members realize such measures may not be enough.

"I think people are nervous," Merbler said.

Enrollment up

Lawmakers refused to go along with the governor's proposal to impose midyear cuts to community college budgets of $11 million at SUNY and $4.2 million at the City University of New York.

But with enrollments going up at both locations as displaced workers seek training, degrees and skills, the outlook is uncertain.

"Looking forward, our concern would be to address funding issus for the fall, because we anticipate that our enrollment will be even higher than it was in the spring," said Ellen Schuler Mauk, president of the Faculty Association of Suffolk Community College. A NYSUT Board member, she also chairs the NYSUT Higher Education Council and speaks regularly on community college issues in the SUNY system.

"This kind of uncertainty is disruptive to the good work that NYSUT members are doing throughout the four-year colleges and community colleges," said NYSUT Executive Vice President Alan Lubin.

"Looming job cuts, the possibilty of seeing programs and services reduced or eliminated — all of this cuts into the main focus of the faculty and staff at SUNY and CUNY, which is to prepare thousands of students to be contributing members of New York's economy," he said.

"We have a simple solution to this, which we are telling the governor and our lawmakers daily: Don't cut the higher education budget. In the end, it will cost the state more than it will save."

NYSUT, UUP and the Professional Staff Congress at CUNY are still calling on members to contact their local lawmakers and urge them to support higher education funding in the state. Links to letters can be found on the Web sites of all three unions: www.nysut.org; www.uupinfo.org; and www.psc-cuny.org.

Saving on energy

SUNY Canton, a four-year college, also expects to cut energy costs by $250,000 this year, through its recent switch to a four-day week, and turning down thermostats, said UUP Chapter President David Butler.

The campus administration recently announced plans to cut 40 jobs. Originally those cuts were to take place through retrenchments during the school year; now, the plan is to eliminate the jobs through attrition in the next two years, Butler said.

"We took a $1.5 million cut to a $20 million budget for the current academic year," said Butler. "I think enrollment right now is at 2,800, and that's the highest it's ever been."

In his own department, Butler said, enrollment caps in expository writing are expected to increase from 25 to 28 or 29; literature courses could see an increase from 35 students to 40.

On a more immediate note, Butler said, "Everyone is freezing."

"Everybody talks about how dire the situation is, but morale hasn't taken a hit because we haven't seen the full consequences yet," Butler said. "People are coping with it."

At SUNY Binghamton, another of the SUNY system's four university centers (Albany, Buffalo and Stony Brook are the others), part-time faculty are waiting to find out who will still have a job in the fall, said UUP Chapter President Darryl Wood.

"The administration has said they are going to start rolling out the cuts within a week to 10 days, so people will start finding out," Wood said last week.

"We have 180 part-time academics. If jobs are cut, they will go first."

— Darryl McGrath