At a time when most New Yorkers are watching the gas pump, what better way to send an attention-getting message about the money crunch at SUNY than the image of a car's fuel gauge with the red needle dropping toward "E"?

That was the theme of the United University Professions' advertising campaign this spring: The need for more faculty and funding for the State University system is so critical that SUNY is "running on fumes."

The campaign noted that "SUNY graduates are New York's engine of economic growth" — a status that is getting more difficult to maintain in the face of budget cutbacks.

"SUNY is still reeling from budget cuts that have resulted in a 15-year decline in full-time academic and professional faculty," said UUP President Phillip Smith. "The underfunding of SUNY has caused dramatic difficulties at a time when SUNY has more students than ever before — a record 427,000."

As New York Teacher went to press, NYSUT was working with lawmakers to restore state aid cut from SUNY, the City University of New York and community colleges in the proposed state budget. SUNY alone was facing an $80 million reduction in operating aid.

The NYSUT-affiliated UUP represents 34,000 academic and professional faculty at SUNY.

The union has consistently pressed the state to restore the 1,000 full-time faculty positions the university has lost since 1990 — and then continue adding enough additional faculty to lower class sizes and compensate for the enrollment increases.

The campaign, which featured actual students and UUP member faculty, ran March 24 to April 3. The 30-second TV ads appeared on 17 network-affiliated television stations and on more than two dozen cable television stations in New York City and on Long Island.

A print version appeared in Capital Region newspapers. The print ads carried an additional message stressing the need for more faculty, said Denyce Duncan Lacy, UUP's communications director.