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5/7/08 CUNY @THE COUNCIL | 5/16/08 PRESS CONFERENCE
City Council Members Join PSC Budget Effort to Stop CUNY Cuts
CUNY students hold up 25,000 postcards to the City Council calling for budget restorations. PSC President Barbara Bowen (at podium) speaks about the effect cuts would have. CREDIT: Pat Arnow/PSC.
Posted 5/7/08
Fourteen City Council Members joined more than 150 City University of New York (CUNY) faculty, staff and students at a City Hall press conference on Wednesday, May 7th, calling on the Mayor and the City Council to restore budget cuts to CUNY that the Mayor proposed in his Executive Budget last week, and to provide additional, urgently needed funds for our city’s university.
“Enrollment at CUNY is higher than it has been in 35 years, and students are streaming into the colleges to prepare for difficult economic conditions. This is no time to cut the City University,” said Dr. Barbara Bowen, president of the Professional Staff Congress (PSC), which organized today’s event. “The proposed $28.3 million in operating funds should be restored, as should the $15.7 million proposed cut to student support. New York City is throwing away millions of dollars in State capital funds by not matching the capital funding for CUNY.”
At the event the PSC also delivered to the City Council 25,000 postcards signed by CUNY students, faculty and staff demanding budget restorations.
Council Members who attended the event included Miguel Martinez, Peter Vallone, Jr., Maria del Carmen Arroyo, John Liu, David Weprin, Robert Jackson, Letitia James, Melissa Mark-Viverito, Helen Sears, Larry Seabrook, Gail Brewer, Alan Gerson, Oliver Koppell and Leroy Comrie. Emphatically calling the proposed cuts misplaced and short-sighted, many of tem underscored the important and unique role that CUNY plays in the life of the City by reminding listeners that they are CUNY graduates. “New York would not be New York without CUNY,” Gerson said, “investing in CUNY is the best possible investment in our common future.”
Voicing the support of the 1.3 million-member New York City Central Labor Council was CLC Executive Director Ed Ott. Speaking on behalf of CUNY students were Curtis Brown, the student government president at the Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC), Mark Bradshaw from Hostos Community College and Maria Lopez from New York City College of Technology. Representing the faculty and staff were Donna Gill from Hunter College, James Blake from BMCC and Bowen. Students at the event chanted and held signs that said “Cuts to CUNY lead to holes in the future,” “BMCC bleeds when budgets are cuts” and others. Representing BMCC students organizing with their campus NYPIRG chapter, Kathleen Jordan presented the PSC with 2,000 student petition signatures calling for budget restorations.
For literally hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers CUNY means hope and opportunity. CUNY provides the skills and education New Yorkers need to be part of the 21st-century economy. It is one of the city’s best kept economic development secrets.
The Mayor’s proposed budget cuts would cut severely into the operating budgets of CUNY community colleges, where resources are already stretched to the breaking point. In addition, the budget axe is poised to fall on vital student support services, like the Vallone scholarships and programs for veterans.
Donna Gill, a PSC member who works in the Financial Aid Office at Hunter College, spoke about what she sees every day in her efforts to help student and how devastating the Vallone scholarship cuts in particular would be. “The financial aid and scholarships I and my co-workers are able to help students secure are a lifeline. Without them, they could not go to college. They would not have a future with economic security.” (Click here for Donna Gill's statement.)
In addition to urgently needed budget restorations, the PSC is pressing the City Council to add $2.5 million for a faculty counselor and mentoring program—a need that is frighteningly clear after last week’s hostage situation at City College. The program is part of a $7.8 million set of additions that the PSC is urging for this budget. Students need services to make it through college successfully and to manage the stresses they face, and at CUNY there are far too few resources for that.
The May 7th event was part of the union’s ongoing efforts to restore funding to CUNY, which has been chronically underfunded for decades. In addition to gathering the 25,000 postcards, hundreds of PSC members have sent letters to the Mayor and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, and PSC members are also meeting with individual Council Members.
Posted 5/12/08
PSC, CUNY AND NYPIRG TO HOLD PRESS CONFERENCE ON BUDGET CUTS
“CUNY at the Council” was just one part of the PSC’s effort to restore the proposed City budget cuts, however. Equally important are the letters PSC members are sending the the Council Speaker and the Mayor. If you haven’t sent yours, you can do so now by clicking here. Members are also visiting individual Council Members. This Friday (5/16), PSC officers and members will testify at the City Council budget hearing. The hearing is from 12 to 1:30, at City Hall, and the union encourages members to come and testify (there is no advance sign-up to testify, so just get there a little early to add your name to the list). We also encourage members to join NYPIRG, CUNY and the PSC at a press conference at 11am on the steps of City Hall. CUNY Chancellor Matthew Goldstein and PSC President Barbara Bowen will both be speaking, in addition to City Council Members.
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