• UPDATE: NYSUT encourages legislators to invest in public higher ed

Ziya Arnavut of SUNY Fredonia went up and down the stairs and elevators of the looming, white Legislative Office Building in Albany to talk to lawmakers about his concerns for higher ed funding.

In his 10th year of teaching at Fredonia, this was his first year attending NYSUT’s annual lobby day for higher education. As a computer science teacher, he had come up against too many blank walls in his quests for data.

"Faculty needs to have access to library resources," said Arnavut, who is a member of United University Professions. "We do not have access to enough databases."

Arnavut’s story is typical of what Alan Lubin, NYSUT executive vice president, encouraged members to speak about when making Albany rounds.

"You need to tell legislators how this budget affects your campus," Lubin told the activists. Gov. Spitzer’s first executive budget contains the potential of an increased level of support but, Lubin said, "We are also mindful of the chronic underfunding these institutions have endured over the last 15 years."

Arnavut asked Sen. Catharine Young, R-Olean, how he could do research and motivate students to research when there is not enough access to electronic databases.

That struck a chord with Young, who has three children in the SUNY system. One of them told mom the library at SUNY Geneseo lacked enough access to information. She had to go to the University of Rochester to look up material.

Many volunteer lobbyists — professors and myriad staff — took time to thank lawmakers for supporting the State University of New York, the City University of New York and the community colleges.

"We need a sustained push over a long period of time," said Darryl Wood, Binghamton chapter president for UUP.

Timing

In politics, timing is everything. Bolstered by early support for the funding of higher ed under new state leadership, NYSUT now seeks long-term commitment. The goal is to rebuild CUNY and SUNY. Both public institutions have been underfunded for years while enrollment has been rising.

NYSUT leaders Barbara Bowen, president of the Professional Staff Congress at CUNY; Ellen Schuler Mauk, president of the Faculty Association of Suffolk CC, who represents community college members on the NYSUT Board of Directors; and William Scheuerman, president of UUP, visited legislative leaders the day before the lobby day. They also chatted with Manny Rivera, Spitzer’s deputy secretary of education. They asked for:

• more budget lines for full-time faculty;

• increased operating aid;

• a larger base aid increase for community colleges;

• rejection of the privatization of SUNY’s teaching hospitals; and

• encouragement and support of enrollment growth.

Small meal

"We see this as a sort of signature time in the state with the change in leadership," said Bob Cermele of the PSC. "SUNY and CUNY are teetering. We’ve been starving. We had a small meal last year."

Speaking to Assemblywoman Audrey Pheffer, D-Queens — a graduate of Queens College — Cermele stressed how the economy will benefit when the state puts resources into higher ed.

"What better way to create wealth than by investment?" he asked.

This year, NYSUT has joined UUP to seek more investment in its teaching hospitals, which are threatened with closure and consolidation in last year’s Berger Commission report.

"We’ve got doctors we can’t retain," said Brian Tappan, a UUP member from Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse. "We had a doctor who was coming with a multi-year NIH (National Institute of Health) grant," he said. After hearing about state recommendations to close or merge, "He wouldn’t come," Tappan said.

Young told her visitors that western New York has lost almost 10 percent of doctors in the last five years. "We need top-notch facilities and we need to train people," she said.

But getting funding for full-time lines has been a challenge. At community colleges, the ratio of full-time faculty to part-timers used to be 3-to-1. At many of these colleges, the ratios have flipped.

NYSUT advocates for part-time faculty, while also pressing for a greater percentage of full-timers to ensure the university fulfills its mission in research and student access.

In terms of growth, "We’re about 10 years behind," said Steve Mezik of Herkimer Community College Faculty Association. "In the Mohawk Valley, we have a drain of our young, educated work force."

Speaking to both faculty and the Herkimer CC president, Sen. James Seward, R-Oneonta, said community colleges "play a tremendous role here. They prepare the work force and respond to the local needs of businesses. You’re a big plus and you ought to be recognized."

PSC activists asked Assemblywoman Joan Christensen, D-Syracuse, to support a NYSUT bill to help gain unemployment benefits for part-time faculty who are left dangling at semester’s end as to future prospects.

Administrators often have part-timers sign a document that leaves them unqualified for benefits. "They’re denying to adjuncts unemployment rights that construction workers and seasonal workers have," said Steve London, vice president of the PSC.

— Liza Frenette