Higher education leaders and members found legislators committed and concerned as NYSUT grass-roots advocates made their case during the annual lobbying day for New York's colleges and universities.

"They've been very responsive," said Ellen Schuler Mauk, president of the Faculty Association of Suffolk Community College, as a delegation of community college colleagues prepared to meet with Long Island Assemblyman Robert Sweeney, D-Suffolk. "There's a real engagement with the legislators. They're very concerned about higher education."

In addition to the community colleges, participants in the Higher Ed Lobby Day included NYSUT members from the Professional Staff Congress, representing more than 20,000 faculty and staff at the City University of New York; and United University Professions, representing more than 34,000 academic faculty and staff at the State University of New York.

The theme was restoring funding and faculty to adequate levels at all public colleges and universities.

At community colleges, for instance, state aid would be cut by $50 per full-time equivalent student, bringing it even further below the statutory funding obligation of 40 percent of their net operating costs.

NYSUT President Dick Iannuzzi reminded the higher ed activists that they would be speaking with one voice, out of NYSUT's belief that success in public education must start in kindergarten and continue through college.

It works

NYSUT Executive Vice President Alan Lubin also greeted the advocates. "This is an extremely important process for us," Lubin said. "It works, and it's worked for us for a number of years."

Gov. Spitzer's budget proposal calls for a $34.2 million cut in operating aid to SUNY and a $16.7 million cut for CUNY. Advocates for UUP and the PSC delivered a pointed plea to lawmakers to restore those funds to the budget.

By day's end, NYSUT members said, the lawmakers listened.

"They were thoroughly attentive to us, encouraging conversation - I had some of the most positive responses I've ever had on visits to the Legislature," said Glenn McNitt, president of the SUNY New Paltz chapter of UUP.

PSC Vice President Steven London led a delegation of colleagues into the office of Sen. Eric Adams, a Brooklyn Democrat.

The meeting also included Alex Vitale from Brooklyn College and PSC communications coordinator Dorothee Benz.

'Never recovered'

"CUNY got hit in the New York City fiscal crisis of the '70s, and we never recovered," London said. "We've seen 30 years of disinvestment in CUNY."

Adams jotted down a list of facts and figures he plans to take to colleagues to make a case for CUNY.

The work to revise the governor's budget continues past the Lobby Day.

Lubin encouraged the gathering to also contact lawmakers in their home districts, because some lawmakers were in committee hearings, leaving the NYSUT lobbyists-for-a-day to meet with their staff.

Nothing can replace the value of a face-to-face appeal, Lubin noted.

"We don't want a legislator to say, 'Nobody came to talk to me,'" Lubin reminded the group.

- Darryl McGrath