In an era of state budget deficits, UUP has fought against a series of spending reductions for SUNY. But union leaders found themselves switching roles when it came to spending millions in government funds on what they considered a questionable project.
The controversy erupted during a NYSUT Higher Education Council meeting in Albany. The council brings together leaders from higher education locals within NYSUT to discuss mutual areas of concern.
During its meeting in October, the council invited an official from the state Department of Education to talk about the development of a P-20 educational database to track student performance. The concept raised the ire of UUP President Phil Smith, who sharply questioned the wisdom of pursuing such a project, especially in light of the dramatic budget cuts SUNY has suffered during the past two years.
“I’m offended by the dollars being spent on such an endeavor that will come to naught when the money could be used to fill budget gaps at SUNY,” Smith said. “This is a huge example of government waste. To spend $115 million on this is outrageous.”
UUP Secretary Eileen Landy said such a database is not suited to higher education because it’s based on the mistaken assumption that all course offerings are the same.
“The system only works if the courses are homogenous. In order to do a standardized assessment, the curriculum all has to be the same,” she said.
AFT Higher Education Director Larry Gold said collection of such data is part of a national trend. Gold, borrowing a quote from AFT President Randi Weingarten, said, “We’re pouring money into the favorite idea of the moment.”
Council members also discussed the council’s mission. Smith suggested new efforts to help activate union members.
“There is a need for a very aggressive organizing campaign because the threats to us have never been greater,” he said.
System Administration Chapter members needed a boost in the wake of SUNY’s decision to shut down Nylink. They got it in the form of an award from Oracle, a worldwide technology corporation.
The chapter’s computer security department won the Oracle Fusion’s Middleware Innovations Award. They competed with more than 1,000 entries from organizations nationwide.
The computer security team worked with Oracle to enable SUNY employees to access New York State-Learn classes. The team worked to find a way for employees to access state resources, despite different security systems used by campuses and the state.
“This was done in a relatively seamless manner and was completely transparent to users of the SUNY interface,” said Ken Runyon, the program manager for identity management at SUNY’s Office of Information and Technology. “The best part is that users simply log into the SUNY gateway and automatically get access to New York State-Learn classes.”
NYS-Learn is a web-based learning management system offering courses and workshops sponsored by the Governor’s Office of Employee Relations.
“This award shows the true nature of System Administration employees,” said UUPer John Leirey. “They are hard-working, dedicated, and willing to go the extra mile.”
On SUNY state-operated campuses across the state, UUP Ad Hoc Advisory Committee members have come up with a variety of ways to gather member input on terms and conditions of employment.
The Ad Hoc Advisory Committee – which consists of one professional and one academic from every UUP chapter—was charged with compiling and presenting the concerns of the membership at their chapters for consideration as potential UUP proposals. Members of the Ad Hoc Advisory Committee will share the fruits of their labor when they present their reports to the Negotiations Committee and Negotiations Team. The one-day meeting was scheduled for early December as The Voice went to press.
“UUP is grateful for the hard work and dedication of our Ad Hoc Advisory Committee members, who have done everything in their power to engage members in conversations about the contract,” said UUP President Phil Smith. “Our members should feel confident that their voices have been heard.”
The current UUP contract expires July 1, 2011.
BY ALL MEANS
From the smallest campuses to the larger health science centers, Ad Hoc Advisory Committee members worked diligently to encourage their colleagues to share ideas, anecdotes and concerns regarding salary, benefits and other terms and conditions of employment.
At Farmingdale, Ad Hoc Advisory Committee member Solomon Ayo noted that his chapter used “three different fronts” to gather information and to encourage UUPers to fill out the online survey and member suggestion form. Advisory committee members scheduled special department rep meetings; asked for comments during general membership and Executive Board meetings; and had face-to-face meetings with as many members as possible. UUP Executive Board member Bob Reganse is the chapter’s other advisory committee member.
“The department representatives were very enthusiastic and helpful in bringing several members’ concerns to the Ad Hoc Advisory Committee’s attention,” Ayo said. “We have received much input.”
At Stony Brook HSC, advisory committee members Carol Gizzi and Bruce Zitkus sent out electronic questionnaires using Survey Monkey; more than 50 percent of those surveyed responded.
“The issues of our 3,600 members at the hospital and HSC are not the same as on most campuses,” Gizzi said. “Our members are caregivers and educators who work in the hospital, in clinics, at nursing homes, in the classroom. In many cases, our members have issues that are unknown to staff working at other campuses. It is important that someone bring these issues to the Negotiations Team.”
Ad Hoc Advisory Committee members at Binghamton held two focus group discussions, during which the UUPers were urged to comment on what they’d like to see included in the successor agreement. At Buffalo HSC, advisory committee members used the chapter newsletter, bulletin boards and e-mail discussion list to alert UUPers to the online member suggestion form and survey.
Advisory committee members at each chapter will prepare an extensive written report on the major issues of their respective memberships. In January, the Negotiations Team and Committee will review all of the data collected through Ad Hoc Advisory Committee reports, the statewide survey, online member suggestion forms, Team visits to every UUP chapter, and the open hearing during the Fall Delegate Assembly.
University at Albany graduate student Olivia Barone figured it was a good time to go back to school for her Ph.D. after she lost her job teaching high school French due to budget cuts.
So the university’s October decision to drop French and four other humanities majors—Italian, Russian, classics and theater—to balance damaging state aid cuts honestly did more than surprise her.
She was shocked.
“We were floored, everyone was completely stunned,” said Barone. “I e-mailed many of my friends with news of the cuts and I must have gotten back 100 responses expressing shock over it,” she continued. “It’s just a bad joke.”
That “bad joke” has received much media coverage since UAlbany President George Philip’s Oct. 1 announcement; the move will help absorb $33.5 million in state aid cuts over the past three years, he said. The story made headlines regionally, nationally and in trade publications such as Inside Higher Ed and The Chronicle of Higher Education. It even got international play; France’s LeMonde newspaper printed a Nov. 2 story titled “American Campuses: French in Decline” (http://bit.ly/i3ZOOj).
“We realize the budget cuts are real, but we think a big mistake has been made,” said UUPer Jean-Francois Briere, a UAlbany French professor and chair of the university’s Languages, Literatures and Cultures department. “Too much has been asked of the College of Arts and Sciences. They are starting to destroy the programs.”
HUMANITIES IN CRISIS?
Are the humanities in trouble? Are they in danger of becoming obsolete for all but those studying at private liberal arts bastions such as Harvard, Yale and Princeton?
Certainly, the humanities are in crisis, with the economy recovering from recession and dwindling public funding for higher ed. But that’s nothing new. The humanities have been in something of a crisis for years; a quick Google search will turn up papers from the 1990s, 1980s and even the 1970s about the humanities facing turmoil.
And while New York Times columnist Stanley Fish, in an Oct. 11 editorial, opined that UAlbany’s decision officially marked “the crisis of the humanities,” the university is the latest in a string of public higher ed institutions that have targeted the humanities to help defray budget cuts.
Humanities majors have been clipped at a number of public institutions, including Arizona State University, Washington State University, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Michigan State, and the University of Southern California.
And at least one other SUNY school, Geneseo, will end several humanities programs. In November, the college announced it will phase out majors in art studio and speech language pathology. Also deactivated: majors in computer sciences, and communicative disorders and sciences, according a November budget update on Geneseo’s website (http://www.geneseo.edu/budget_update).
SUNY STABILITY
Despite the moves at UAlbany and Geneseo, it appears there is no plan for a wholesale slashing of humanities programs at SUNY.
No humanities cuts are currently planned at SUNY’s three other university centers—Binghamton University, the University at Buffalo and Stony Brook University. As The Voice went to press, the majority of four-year SUNY schools—including Purchase, Cortland and Buffalo State—weren’t contemplating cuts, according to a phone and e-mail survey by The Voice.
Binghamton has furthered its resolve to protect its humanities programs. In an Oct. 20 letter to faculty and staff, dean and professor of history Donald Neimen said he is “committed to maintain our strength in the humanities and the languages, which are integral to Harpur College.”
Still, humanities programs across the country seem to be wearing a target these days for a number of reasons.
DOLLARS, LITTLE SENSE
Not surprisingly, money is at the root of the evil.
Many schools are focused on offering career-oriented courses of study to attract students seeking marketable skills that quickly pay off come graduation, several academics said. Students and parents have also been pressuring for those courses, understandable considering that 2009 graduates, on average, left school $24,000 in debt, according to study by California-based The Project on Student Debt (http://projectonstudentdebt.org).
And liberal arts graduates have been in decline since the 1960s. Nearly 18 percent of college graduates majored in the humanities in 1966 compared to 8 percent in 2007, according to the Humanities Indicators Prototype, a research project of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. UAlbany’s Philip cited low enrollment for putting the humanities programs on the chopping block.
UUP President Phil Smith was quick to come to the defense of the humanities, which are an integral part of a college education.
“The difference between a university and a trade school in many ways is a liberal arts education,” he said. “In the long run, the humanities may be a student’s most valuable experience. They teach how to think and reason, and raise questions, which can be applied in every aspect of your life.”
“What we are seeing today is the vocationalization of higher education,” Ellen Schrecker, author of The Lost Soul of Higher Education: Corporatization, the Assault on Academic Freedom, and the End of the American University, said in an Oct. 20 article in Inside Higher Ed. “That’s what students and their parents supposedly want, especially at a time when they view college as an investment that should lead to an immediate economic pay-off. But that kind of short-term thinking is damaging—to students, to higher education, and to society as a whole.”
UUPer Bill Cook, a longtime Geneseo history professor, and veteran Albany Chapter Vice President for Academics Ivan Steen said a liberal arts degree can and often does pay off in the job market. Employees want workers who can think creatively, reason through problems and have an understanding of the world around them.
“You simply can’t equate degrees in something technical with being ready to get a job,” said Cook. “The skills they carry with them from job to job are that they can write and think, if they have a good mind and are able to learn. Those qualities are what the humanities bring to higher education.”
Yet, colleges are feeling pressure from many sides, and private sector grants and corporate funding for science and technology courses are hard to turn down these days. Humanities courses traditionally aren’t the funding draws that science and technology – and even athletics – are for a college, which can open them to potential budget cuts, academics said.
“It’s a trend in this country to look at universities as business corporations,” Steen said. “Our role as a university is to turn out educated people, and when you take basic humanities out of the mix, you’re turning out people who are narrowly trained.”
NEVER SAY NEVER
At UAlbany, UUPers, students, parents, alumni and staff continue to resist the cuts. A petition signed by more than 13,200 people— including signers from 37 countries—protesting the cuts was submitted to administrators Nov. 3. That was followed by an Oct. 7 campus rally that drew 200 students, faculty and staff in support of keeping the courses.
And in November, UAlbany’s faculty senate voted on three measures to condemn the program suspensions; Philip has said he will consider the vote before the suspensions are made final, Briere said.
“We will do everything in our power to preserve those important humanities courses,” said Albany Chapter President Candy Merbler.
HUMANITIES WILL SURVIVE
While the humanities at UAlbany have hit a rough patch, Briere, Steen and Cook said they don’t believe it’s the beginning of the end for liberal arts. The way the courses are delivered may change, but the humanities will always be at the core of higher education.
As proof, they pointed to Harvard’s commitment to use a $10 million donation for humanities, and Cornell University president David Skorton’s November announcement to launch a national campaign to advocate for the arts and humanities. The University of Pittsburgh opened its new humanities center this year, and the University of Connecticut recently broke ground on a new humanities center.
“I’m not worried that in the long run the humanities will be reduced to a footnote in the 21st century,” Cook said. “We have to realize that things are going to change in the way we present things. I mean, try to find someone who studied Islam 40 years ago.
“There have been great shifts and economic crises before and the humanities have always been resilient,” he continued. “After all, life is so much more interesting when you include the dead in your conversations.”
For UUP delegate Charlie McAteer, helping to make the first phase of the Setauket-Port Jefferson Station Greenway Trail a reality was one way to ensure that his young granddaughter and other kids will have a safe place to ride their bikes.
His longtime friend, fellow Stony Brook delegate Nick Koridis, lent a hand because the Greenway project was the perfect path for local Boy Scouts to accomplish required service projects to become Eagle scouts—a cause that’s near and dear to his heart. Both men have given their time on the project as a way to give back to their community.
“What we do in UUP is university and community service, and I think Nick and I take that to heart,” said McAteer, who serves as chairman of the Friends of the Greenway, a volunteer organization that coordinates construction and maintenance of the trail. “It’s not just another line on your performance program.”
“For me, it’s the million dollar smile when you see these scouts work hard and finish a project and the community is thanking them,” said Koridis, a regional Boy Scout leader whose two sons are Eagle scouts. “You’ve made a difference in their lives.”
MAKING INROADS
The first half of the Greenway, a 1.5-mile stretch which runs from Gnarled Hollow Road to east of Sheep Pasture Road in Setauket, opened with much fanfare in May 2009. Assemblyman Steve Englebright, who hatched the project in 2001, attended the event, along with Congressman Tim Bishop (D-Southampton), state Department of Transportation and Environmental Conservation officials, and local legislators.
The trail project has turned out to be a great door-opener for McAteer to approach Englebright and Bishop with UUP’s legislative concerns and initiatives, he said.
“It has given us such access to our local politicians,” said McAteer, Stony Brook’s vice president for professionals. “We need to talk to them about UUP and SUNY and these are the people who can help us out. It’s a great give and take.”
CLEARING THE WAY
McAteer has been a trail blazer for the trail; he began working on the project a decade ago when Englebright, then a Suffolk County legislator, asked him to chair a committee to create concepts to turn a state-owned, 3.5-mile strip of land from Port Jefferson Station to Setauket into an all-purpose trail.
The state bought the land in the 1960s with plans to build a highway that would have divided the two hamlets. Instead, the 13-foot-wide, blacktop trail is bringing walkers, bikers, joggers and rollerbladers together while preserving acres of old growth forest and farmland. The trail will link three county parks when it’s completed in 2013.
As Friends of the Greenway chair, McAteer helped schedule a series of public hearings on the trail; Englebright obtained $2.2 million in state funds to cover those costs. Plans were drawn and construction set when Bishop secured a $5 million federal grant to build the trail in 2006.
The trail, which winds through woods, farmland, a rhododendron grove and the communities it connects, has been a pleasant surprise to some residents, who worried it would attract rowdy teenagers on motor bikes. The trail is closed to motorized vehicles.
“The community is delighted,” said McAteer. “Things that we never expected are happening. Some of the local doctors are starting to refer patients to use the Greenway for exercise.”
The trail has also become a focal point for bringing together area civic organizations, such as the Boys and Girls Club, which have approval to build a community center and ball fields on land along the trail. Local groups such as the Cub Scouts, the Girl Scouts and the Port Jefferson Rotarians are also involved in keeping the trail clean and safe, said McAteer.
SCOUT SPIRIT
Boy Scout Troop 244 has been involved in the trail project since 2006. That’s when Koridis, a scoutmaster and assistant district commissioner for scouts in the Rocky Point and Sound Beach areas, saw the potential the trail held in providing prospective Eagle Scouts with service projects to help them earn the esteemed rank.
Since then, scouts have installed three green benches—each made of recycled plastic—along the trail. That’s a lot harder than it sounds; the benches had to meet state specs and be DOT-approved before they could be built, Koridis said.
The scouts then had to raise about $550 for materials, and line up and lead a crew to build the benches. So far, three scouts have earned their Eagle Scout badge by doing trail-related projects. At least one scout, Sean Anderson, probably wouldn’t have stayed in scouting, let alone earned his Eagle Scout badge, without the challenge, he said.
“Less than three percent of all scouts in the nation make it to Eagle Scout,” said Koridis. “The Eagle Scout’s final project requires them to spend between 110 and 120 hours to coordinate a service project and show their leadership skills.”
A LONG LEGACY
The trail will provide lots of future opportunities even after the remaining two-mile section is completed. The Greenway is set to be linked to a planned 12.5-mile running and walking trail along a former Long Island Rail Road line that will extend from Port Jefferson to Wading River.
Eventually, the Greenway could be connected to area bike paths and six miles of paths at Stony Brook University, he said.
“What I’m most proud of is that everyone who uses the trail is smiling,” said McAteer. “This is a great thing that happened in our community.”
When UUP President Phil Smith addressed members attending the union’s Fall New Leadership Workshops, he was quick to thank them for their participation.
Then he cut to the chase.
“We are going to ask a lot of you as union leaders,” Smith told the more than 50 UUPers enrolled in workshops at the Fort William Henry Resort in Lake George in late October. “We need your help to stop further cuts to SUNY. We need you to get your members involved and active in UUP. We need you to be the face of UUP at your chapters.”
Smith acknowledged that the union expects a lot from its leaders; the leaders, in turn, should expect that the union will provide them with the training needed to get the job done.
UUP’s series of leadership training sessions do exactly that, Smith said.
“Our workshops are designed to give you the tools you need to tackle the issues, and to educate and activate your union colleagues,” he added.
Workshop topics ranged from communicating with members and UUP: The Organization, to collective bargaining, employment security, and creating workplace civility. The workshops were conducted by NYSUT labor relations specialists assigned to UUP and other NYSUT and UUP staff members.
The newest leaders enrolled in UUP: The Organization, which provided an overview of the organizational structure, functional relationships and activities of the union. Among the skills they learned were how to effectively engage in local political action and how to build campus/community coalitions.
Communicating Through Newsletters and Websites was an interactive, two-part workshop that included writing and design tips, as well as techniques for creating chapter-based websites.
Manners Please: Conquering Bullying and Creating Civility in the Workplace was a new session to help members identify bullying behaviors and use available approaches to resolve the problem.
Many of the leaders who attended the spring workshops enrolled this time around in Collective Bargaining and the Taylor Law, which provided an overview of the Public Employees Fair Employment Act.
“We are a union,” Smith stressed. “We have common goals, common aspirations and a common future. … We can accomplish anything if we do it together.”
Part-timers tutored on unemployment insurance benefits Part-timers at SUNY New Paltz recently got a chance to learn the ins and outs of applying for unemployment benefits—thanks to their union.
The UUP New Paltz Chapter Part-Time Concerns Committee organized a workshop designed to provide members with the information they need to successfully apply for unemployment benefits. Chapter Vice President for Academics Peter D.G. Brown and Vice President for Part-Timers Yvonne Aspengren conducted the workshop.
More than a dozen part-timers turned to the union for advice. Some of the participants were applying for unemployment insurance for the first time; others had regularly been receiving benefits during teaching breaks.
“There is widespread confusion and lack of knowledge about applying for unemployment benefits, as well as concern among adjuncts that they might be vulnerable to retaliation from their employer,” Brown said. UUP is committed to providing members with more information and to exploring ways to “assist our adjuncts as they negotiate the unemployment insurance maze,” he added.
This information is especially timely for part-timers who do not have a one-year contract covering the spring term, as they may be eligible for benefits over winter break.
Brown reported that, since the workshop, more than half of the group received unemployment insurance “without a hitch,” while others won benefits on appeal after first being denied. “The last person to win an appeal was notified in October, with benefits awarded retroactively to May,” Brown added.
The experience proved to be a positive one for participants.
“I followed your advice and I’m into my third week of receiving unemployment benefits,” said one New Paltz part-timer.
“Thank you for sharing your experience,” added another union member. “I was denied. … I sent an appeal and borrowed some of the language, like ‘non-enforceable contract.’ … I received my first unemployment insurance payment. … Don’t be discouraged, appeal!”
HOW TO FILE FOR BENEFITS
Information on filing for unemployment insurance is available online at www.labor.ny.gov/ui/how_to_file_claim.shtm.
Claims should be filed in the first week that a member has become totally or partially unemployed. It is important to file immediately.
Members should apply for unemployment insurance benefits by clicking on “Benefits Online Page” between the hours of 7:30 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday; Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.; all day Saturday; and Sunday until 7 p.m. Members may also file a claim by calling the Telephone Claims Center at 1-888-209-8124 for New York state residents (or 1-877-358-5306 for out-of-state residents) between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday.
Walter Soto never thought he’d attend a four-year school, let alone get a baccalaureate degree.
That changed in 2001, when Soto, a Dutchess Community College science student, heard about a new Purchase College program called Bridges to Baccalaureate. Soto, who moved to the U.S. from Costa Rica a few years before, was intrigued enough to become one of the fledgling program’s first six students. He graduated in 2003 and is now an air control specialist for Dynergy, Inc.
“The (Bridges) program was absolutely crucial for me in getting my degree,” said Soto, the first college graduate in his family. “I never had a four-year degree in mind for many reasons, one of them being I had no idea how to move from a two-year to a four-year school.”
SHARING SUCCESS
The Bridges program, established and led by Purchase UUPer Joe Skrivanek, has logged hundreds of similar success stories since opening its doors to underrepresented students nine years ago. Since then, 70 percent of the program’s nearly 300 students have earned bachelor’s degrees in the science fields—compared to 17 percent of transfer students nationally. One third of Bridges students are in or have completed graduate school, studying STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) specialties.
Such success has not gone unnoticed by SUNY’s Office of Diversity & Educational Equity, which chose Purchase’s Bridges program as a model for a new SUNY-wide program to attract underrepresented students to the sciences; it’s set to launch in 2013.
There is interest in taking Bridges statewide. More than 100 people, including SUNY officials and representatives from 12 four-year SUNY schools and 11 community colleges, met in Albany in November to discuss the initiative. The new program would be funded by grants; a second meeting is set for spring 2011, according to Skrivanek.
“This makes sense for SUNY and for Maritime,” said UUPer Tardis Johnson, associate dean of students at Maritime. “Community colleges are our feeder schools and we have to work with them and SUNY so we can say `if you want to succeed academically, this is how we can do it.’”
“Our society needs to educate students in science, math and engineering and we have fallen behind,” said UUPer Maria Pacheco, a Buffalo State associate chemistry professor. “A program like this makes sense.”
REACHING OUT
Skrivanek’s concern about Purchase’s falling science enrollment spurred his interest in Bridges, a program created by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 1992. Skrivanek, Purchase’s dean of natural sciences at the time, wanted to boost the college’s science enrollment and attract more African American, Latino and other underrepresented students to the STEM fields, he said.
He fostered relationships with science programs at several area community colleges, which helped him obtain a $600,000 grant through NIH to set up a Purchase’s Bridges program. Purchase has partnerships with six regional community colleges: Dutchess, Nassau, Orange, Rockland, Sullivan and Westchester, Skrivanek said.
The NIH has 38 Bridges programs in the U.S., including at Binghamton and Stony Brook universities. SUNY chose to emulate Purchase’s program because it’s one of the most successful Bridges programs nationwide, SUNY officials said.
“A lot of what prevents community college students from moving ahead is not having the confidence to think they can make it and understanding that education is as important as work,” said UUPer Erin Ott, who works with Bridges students as coordinator of Purchase’s Office of Student Support Services. “I think this program has a great chance of working,”
OTHER BRIDGES
The Stony Brook and Binghamton Bridges programs have also been successful.
Since its start in 1999, the Binghamton program has attracted 211 community college students to study biomedical and behavioral sciences at public and private four-year schools. Bridges students at Binghamton account for almost all of the underrepresented transfer students at the university studying biology and science; 94 percent of those students earn their baccalaureate degree, said Binghamton UUPer and program director Anna Tan-Wilson.
Nearly 400 underrepresented students have taken part in Stony Brook’s Bridges program since its start 18 years ago, said UUPer and program director Dan Moloney.
The program, called BioPREP (Biology Participation in Research and Education Program) has helped about 75 percent of those students get their bachelor’s degree in a science discipline. Of those, 30 percent go on to graduate school to earn advanced science and biomedical degrees, he said.
EARNING DEGREES, CHANGING LIVES
To be accepted into Purchase’s Bridges program, students must have a minimum 2.8 grade point average and write an essay about their aspirations for a career in the natural sciences.
There are no income restrictions; often, Bridges students receive part or full scholarships to pay for school. Last year, 50 students participated in the program.
Said Skrivanek: “The students who come into the (Bridges) program aren’t sure if they want to go on after getting their two-year degree, but we turn around about 90 percent of those students.”
Much of that is due to Bridges’ summer research program, where community college students work eight hours a day, five days a week on a research project with a professor from Purchase or one of the community colleges. The students, who get a stipend for their research, learn about the sciences, and often realize that a four-year degree is within reach, he said.
Bridges also walks them through the college application process and keeps in touch with them over the next two years—whether they attend Purchase or another school, Ott said.
More than 40 percent of Bridges students earn their baccalaureate degrees at Purchase. Others transfer to SUNY schools such as Stony Brook, Binghamton and New Paltz, which is where Soto earned his degree; he attended Purchase but transferred to New Paltz because the commute was shorter, he said.
It doesn’t matter where Bridges students go to college. What’s important is that they earn their degree, which for people like Soto, can be a life-changing event.
“I realized that my goal could be extended from a two-year degree to a four-year degree, that I could look forward to a different dimension in my life goals,” Soto said. “Because of Bridges, it didn’t have to be about getting a two-year degree and finding a job.”
A $50,000 gift from the widow of an Oswego UUPer provided the seed money to start a new scholarship program open to SUNY graduate students.
Honoring the wishes of the late Katherine Carter, the union’s College Scholarship Fund trustees established the William E. Scheuerman Labor and Social Justice Scholarship. Scheuerman is a former UUP president and a long-time Oswego colleague of the late Robert Carter.
The scholarship is worth $2,000 and is available on a one-time-only basis. The first post baccalaureate scholarship will be awarded in fall 2011.
“Members of the UUP Scholarship Selection Committee did a fabulous job in developing the new post baccalaureate scholarship program,” said statewide Secretary Eileen Landy. “Their hard work made it possible to get this scholarship program up and running.”
HOW TO APPLY
The eligibility guidelines for the post baccalaureate scholarship are similar to those of the union’s college scholarship program for undergraduate SUNY students. Among the criteria, applicants must:
• Be registered, full-time graduate or professional school students carrying at least nine credits at a SUNY state-operated campus;
• Possess the qualities and values represented by UUP: a dedication to the goals of the trade- and labor-union movements; integrity; a quest for academic and personal excellence; and service to the community;
• Have completed at least nine credits and hold a cumulative grade-point average of 4.0; and
• Applicants for law and health sciences programs must have completed at least one semester.
The deadline to apply is March 1.
Guidelines and applications are available on the UUP website at www.uupinfo.org. Click on Scholarships in the left-hand toolbar.
HOW TO DONATE
There are a number of ways for UUP members to give to the scholarship fund.
The easiest way to donate is to mail a check or money order to: UUP Director of Finance, c/o United University Professions, PO Box 15143, Albany, NY 12212. Make checks payable to the UUP College Scholarship Fund and write “Post Baccalaureate Scholarship” in the memo line.
Members can make memorial contributions in honor of family members, friends or colleagues, as well as in celebration of birthdays, anniversaries, retirements and other commemorative events. The names of honorees will be added to either the Eugene and Beulah Link Memorial Journal or the Robert and Katherine Carter Celebratory Journal.
For more information, contact UUP Scholarship Development Committee Co-chairs Deb Zinser of Plattsburgh at dazrn@verizon.net or Pat Ghee of Buffalo State at pghee429@gmail.com.
“Graduate and professional school students at SUNY who apply for and receive a scholarship will benefit greatly from the generosity of the Carter family and the selfless UUPers who give to this fund,” Landy said. “I am proud to be part of an education union that looks out for its students, both academically and financially.”
AT UUPINFO.ORG; Guide helps members balance work, family
To support members’ efforts to balance their family and work needs, UUP has compiled a guide that outlines options to address family leave needs and identifies programs and services that can assist professionals and academics as they attempt to balance work and family life.
UUP’s goal was to bring together information members need to know to explore possibilities and identify the services available to them.
The Family Leave/Work- Life Services Guide is not intended to address all circumstances or individual issues. It does, however, provide a comprehensive picture of possible options and benefits UUP members can access. Members are advised to seek additional information from their UUP chapter officers and/or campus Human Resources departments.
To read the guide online, click on it from the UUP home page or under Reports/Guides in the left-hand toolbar.
NLRB RULING; Decision may boost grad employee organizing
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) recently took favorable action on a petition from the New York University Graduate Student Organizing Committee/United Auto Workers seeking a vote on union representation for graduate teaching and research assistants at NYU.
In October, the NLRB overruled a decision by a regional director, stating that it was not possible to judge the accuracy of representations made by the union and the university without holding a hearing on the petition.
Also, the NLRB found “compelling reasons” to reconsider a 2004 board precedent that graduate students at Brown University were students and not employees under the National Labor Relations Act.
“The NLRB’s direction here gives the board the opportunity to get it right and correct the obvious flaws in the Brown decision,” said David Strom, general counsel for the American Federation of Teachers.
The NYU case has been returned to the NLRB regional director, who is charged with holding a full hearing and issuing a new decision based on the evidence.
AT UUPINFO.ORG; Booklet available to help organize vital records
Having personal information in one place can make it easier for UUP members and their families to deal with the unexpected.
That’s why UUP’s Committee on Active Retired Membership compiled a new booklet—Organizing Your Vital Records—to help members more easily navigate moments of change.
The booklet is available for download at www.uupinfo.org. Click on Reports/Guides.
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