The Legislature is not in session, but that doesn’t mean UUP’s outreach efforts are on hiatus.
UUP President Phil Smith said union activists must continue building coalitions with other labor and community groups to advance the union’s legislative goals.
“Now more than ever, we have to reach out to labor and community groups and the faculty senates to educate them about the harm that’s been done to SUNY from budget cuts,” he told Outreach Committee members during a joint retreat with chapter presidents.
How can chapters go about building such coalitions? Cortland Chapter President Jamie Dangler said her chapter has enhanced its influence with lawmakers by building a coalition with local labor councils. Buffalo State Chapter President Rick Stempniak said that attending legislative events for state lawmakers in his area has helped the union personally deliver its advocacy messages.
“The face time you can get with your lawmakers at these events is unbelievable,” Stempniak said.
Electing lawmakers who support UUP’s legislative priorities is also on the political action radar screen. Smith encouraged members and chapter leaders to participate in phone banks to help union-endorsed candidates win in November.
“It is critical that these candidates know UUP helped put them in office,” Smith said.
Phone banks are usually conducted at the regional offices of NYSUT, UUP’s statewide affiliate, but Smith suggested a novel idea for chapters whose campuses are not near a NYSUT office. He suggested such chapters hold cell phone parties. Chapter members could get together and use their cell phones to call fellow unionists.
UUP is also flexing its political muscle through its involvement in the SUNY Rock the Vote voter registration campaign.
Working with the SUNY Student Association and NYPIRG chapters on SUNY campuses, the goal of the campaign is to register as many students as possible to vote in the November election.
Yet another issue that UUP advocates expect to be dealing with is the impact of health care reform on SUNY’s three health science centers. HSC Concerns Committee Co-chair Ray Dannenhoffer of Buffalo HSC said there is concern about how reform might affect the hospital’s teaching mission by having teaching faculty devote less time to teaching and research.
“We must embrace and promote our mission, and as a union we must support the physicians and HSC staff that maintain this mission,” he said.
With the number of items on the plate of UUP’s activists, the union is looking for more members to participate in advocacy activities.
Chapter leaders want to recruit members to take part in regional advocacy training sessions to help the union reach its legislative goals.
Members looking to volunteer should contact their chapter office.
That old show business adage “on with the show” clearly applies to the New York State Theatre Institute.
Many theater programs would be crippled or possibly forced to shut down if they lost half of their funding and part of their staff through retirements and retrenchments, as NYSTI has.
But the institute is continuing, announcing a series of three productions for the fall season.
“It has been a real challenge,” said NYSTI Chapter President John Romeo, who explained NYSTI needed to re-examine and adjust its priorities with fewer funds to purchase scenic materials and costumes and to hire actors.
“We have tried to creatively simplify scenic elements, refurbish in-stock costuming and use whatever technology NYSTI already has to make the productions exciting,” Romeo added.
The fact that NYSTI is able to endure speaks volumes about the dedication of its members.
“I have never worked anywhere that people have put aside so much to do what needs to be done; to do the best work they can and go so far beyond the call of duty,” Romeo said. “The members have taken on all kinds of new responsibilities to make sure all areas of our program are covered. We are doing the work of more than 30 people with 15.”
An important part of NYSTI’s mission is to produce professional theater for school-age audiences, offering performances on weekdays for students. That form of cultural enrichment is even more valuable for teachers whose school districts are dealing with diminishing financial resources. Romeo says teachers are looking to use NYSTI’s educational programs to supplement their own dwindling arts programs.
NYSTI is working to put together its lineup for the spring season.
Stony Brook University’s action to virtually close its Southampton campus last April was illegal, according to a ruling from a state Supreme Court justice.
Judge Paul J. Baisley ruled that Stony Brook made its decision without first gaining approval from the Stony Brook Council. The judge ruled the closing constituted a “major plan” that required the council’s approval.
UUP President Phil Smith was not surprised by the judge’s decision.
“From the outset, we thought the move was very abrupt and premature, since the action was taken months before SUNY’s budget was finalized,” Smith said. “The lives of our 82 members and some 500 students were needlessly disrupted.”
The legal action against the closure was filed by six Southampton students and Save the College at Southampton, a group formed to fight the decision to close the campus in 2005, when it was owned by Long Island University. Several Stony Brook University students also joined more than a dozen UUP members in Albany to urge state lawmakers to keep the Southampton campus open.
Following the favorable ruling, the groups went back to the judge asking him to force Stony Brook to reopen the Southampton campus in time for the spring semester. A decision on that motion was pending as The Voice went to press. — Donald Feldstein
The winners of the 2010 Nina Mitchell Award for Distinguished Service have much in common: they are caring, active UUPers who believe in positive change and have dedicated their lives to working to protect the rights of their union sisters and brothers.
Vicki Janik of Farmingdale and Larry Wittner of Albany are the recipients of the Mitchell Award, the union’s highest honor.
“Vicki and Larry embody the ideals and principals of the labor movement,” said UUP President Phil Smith. “Their activism over the years has been an inspiration to all and an excellent example for younger members. Congratulations to these two dedicated UUP members.”
Vicki Janik’s UUP service began in 1988, when she became a member of Farmingdale’s executive board, a post she still holds. She served as chapter treasurer in the mid-1990s and as Farmingdale’s vice president for academics and labor/management committee chair from 1993-1999.
Janik rejoined the joint committee in 2006; she also serves as grievance chair for academics and is on the campus’ Labor/Management Part-Time Committee.
At the statewide level, she serves as co-chair of the Women’s Rights and Concerns Committee. While co-chair, she presented a Delegate Assembly resolution that resulted in UUP/NYSUT funding for UUP’s Gender Equity Study. Janik has also served on the Issues of Diversity Task Force, the Grievance Committee, the Wal-Mart Task Force and the Technology Issues Committee.
“Vicki Janik epitomizes the meaning of the Nina Mitchell award,” wrote Farmingdale Chapter President Yolanda Pauze. “She is dedicated, energetic and a committed union activist.”
Janik has shown care and compassion for the “most vulnerable” members over the years, wrote statewide Executive Board member Bob Reganse of Farmingdale, who recalled how Janik refused to back down when the college president became angry over a chapter newsletter article. In response, he sent a threatening letter to the chapter’s executive board and distributed the letter across the campus.
Some board members were intimidated by the letter, but Janik was one of the strongest voices calling for the chapter to stand up and fight. As a result, the president was forced to write an apology to the board and pass it around campus.
“I can think of no other person more worthy of the Nina Mitchell award than Vicki Janik,” wrote Reganse. “She has demonstrated again and again her caring, her strength and her intelligence in the service of our members.”
Larry Wittner’s UUP involvement began in 1979, when he joined the Albany Chapter executive board. He was chapter vice president for academics from 1983-1987, and has served on the statewide Solidarity Committee since 1988. Wittner represented the chapter in its campaign to unionize UAlbany’s dining hall workers.
He has been a delegate since 1979, and he was the first chair of UUP’s Solidarity Committee—a panel he still sits on as a member.
“Larry’s work with the union, both on the chapter and state level, has been instrumental in the growth and leadership role that UUP has taken in the broader labor movement,” wrote Albany Chapter President Candy Merbler.
Wittner’s involvement in social justice causes dates back to the 1960s, when he was a civil rights worker and picked fruit as a migratory farm worker. In the 1980s, he spoke out against apartheid in South Africa, and was arrested at a peaceful sit-in at Albany’s Federal Building in 1985, as part of the nationwide Free South Africa demonstrations. He raised $5,000 for the Congress of South African Trade Unions.
He initiated and distributed “Tax the Rich” bumper stickers to further the battle for progressive taxation in New York. Last year, Wittner played a key role in re-unionizing UAlbany dining hall workers, who pressured their employer to recognize HERE Local 471 as the collective bargaining group for campus dining hall employees. Most recently, he helped organize a UAlbany forum to publicize alternatives to the so-called Public Higher Education Empowerment and Innovation Act.
“His lifetime of work for the labor movement and for other social justice causes clearly makes him an ideal candidate for the Nina Mitchell award,” Merbler wrote.
Janik and Wittner will be honored Oct. 1 during the 2010 Fall Delegate Assembly in Buffalo.
UUP is honoring two retiree members with the 2010 Outstanding Active Retiree Award: Henry Geerken of Cobleskill and Dave Peckham of Upstate Medical University (UMU) in Syracuse.
“Henry and Dave are exemplary UUP members who have served the union with distinction as active employees and as active retirees,” said UUP President Phil Smith. “They are truly an inspiration to our younger members and to the young at heart.”
Henry Geerken fought for members’ rights for more than 20 years as a former statewide UUP Executive Board member, chapter president and chapter vice president for professionals.
And he wasn’t about to stop fighting when he left SUNY service.
Since his retirement in 1994 as director of admissions, Geerken has actively participated in the workings of the Committee on Active Retired Membership (COARM). As an outspoken proponent for a strong union voice for retirees, Geerken helped to create a “white paper” that pushed for a Retiree Chapter in UUP and for a voting member on the statewide Executive Board.
But it’s his written word that has endeared Geerken to his colleagues, and which has earned several accolades from UUP and its national affiliate, the American Federation of Teachers, in their annual journalism competitions for labor communicators.
“Life as I see it” is a standing column by Geerken in The Active Retiree, which is published three times a year for the 3,500 retired members of UUP. Dubbed by professional judges in the AFT contest as “the Henny Youngman of UUP,” Geerken’s columns use humor to typify the pitfalls of growing older.
“Henry’s devotion to retiree issues and his wonderful sense of humor inspire other retirees to keep on trucking,” said Judy Wishnia of SUNY Stony Brook, COARM chair. COARM reviews nominations and recommends recipients for the annual retiree award.
Dave Peckham didn’t stop advocating for UUP and the University when he left Upstate Medical University in 2000 as a professor in the College of Health Related Professions.
Instead, he kicked it up a notch.
As a long-time member of the statewide UUP Outreach Committee and Retiree Legislative Action Group (RELAG), Peckham has spoken out on behalf of retiree issues in advocacy trips to Albany and in lawmakers’ home districts. COLA, elder abuse and retiree health benefits are just a few of the issues he has tackled on behalf of his fellow retired SUNY employees.
At the same time, Peckham has advocated alongside his UUP and K-12 in-service colleagues in face-to-face meetings with lawmakers, most recently to speak against legislation that would jeopardize the quality of a SUNY education, and in favor of more funding for the University.
“David represents the best of our active retirees who continue to advocate for the union and SUNY,” Wishnia said.
The awards will be handed out Oct. 1 during the 2010 Fall Delegate Assembly in Buffalo.
Farmingdale Chapter member Elena Eritta and Buffalo State Chapter member Stephen Street are this year’s recipients of the Fayez Samuel Award for Courageous Service by Part-Time Academic and Professional Faculty.
The award recognizes UUPers who have served their union with courage and distinction, and whose service reflects contributions to UUP at the state or chapter level.
“Congratulations to Elena and Stephen, who have tirelessly dedicated their time and energy to championing the causes of part-time employees on their campuses and across the state,” said UUP President Phil Smith. “It is devoted members like these who keep UUP strong.”
Elena Eritta has created positive change for part-timers during her decade-long tenure at Farmingdale, which has the highest percentage of part-timers of all SUNY state-operated campuses. She served on Farmingdale’s Individual Development Awards Committee, and successfully negotiated Presidential Committee Awards for professionals and academics. Eritta organized annual luncheons for adjuncts, and made sure that part-time professionals received discretionary salary increases.
She has fought for and gained a number of benefits for adjuncts, including office space, mailboxes, telephones, computers and business cards. Eritta has brought new adjuncts into the union and has informed part-timers of the process to register concerns about working conditions, job security, benefits and pay.
She has served as a member of the chapter executive board and as a member of the statewide Part-Time Concerns Committee.
“Elena has worked with conviction and enormous energy, never fearing the consequences in order to better serve that great number of bargaining unit members whose label is ‘temporary service,'” wrote Farmingdale UUP member Vicki Janik.
Stephen Street has been an active, energetic advocate for Buffalo State part-timers over the years. Last year, he convened a part-time concerns subcommittee to study part-time evaluation procedures on campus. Currently, he is working on a proposal for a feasibility study on establishing an evaluation/promotion step system at Buffalo State.
Statewide, Street is a member of the Part-Time Concerns Committee and is a UUP delegate. He has represented UUP at conferences, including the Coalition of Contingent Academic Labor Conference. He has published a number of reports and papers about part-time concerns in several national journals, including The Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed, the National Educational Association’s Thought and Action, and the American Association of University Professors’ Academe.
“In our view, Stephen Street has met all the criteria (for the Samuel award) year after year, especially the decisive one: ‘Special consideration shall be given to those part-time academic and professional faculty members whose displays of courage have placed them at risk of personal and/or professional sacrifices,'” wrote Cortland member Ross Borden.
Eritta and Street will be honored Oct. 1 during the 2010 Fall Delegate Assembly in Buffalo.
Each year, hundreds of UUPers publish books and articles, and are recognized for accomplishments on campus and in their communities.
The Voice is pleased to recognize three members in this issue.
• David Berger, Girish Bhat and Louis Larson, all of Cortland, were recently honored with Chancellor’s Awards for Excellence.
Berger, a professor in the psychology department, was awarded for excellence in faculty service. He is the seventh SUNY Cortland faculty member to be recognized for his extensive service and leadership in the area of faculty governance.
Berger has chaired several campus and Faculty Senate committees, and he helped to initiate Cortland’s Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee.
Bhat, an associate professor and chair of the history department, was awarded for excellence in teaching.
He is the 52nd Cortland faculty member to be recognized for excellence in the classroom, which was determined through student comments, letters from former students, statements from colleagues, students’ teacher evaluations and class visits by committee members.
Bhat has developed and offered 13 courses for the college. He has published four journal articles, a book chapter on the Russian justice system and five book reviews.
Larson, associate director of career services, was awarded for excellence in professional service. He is the 22nd Cortland staff member to be recognized for his extensive record of professional service to the institution and beyond.
Characterized as an “ambassador for SUNY Cortland,” Larson each year conducts approximately 75 student workshops and schedules at least 500 one-on-one sessions with students.
Sabel Bong knows what it’s like to have nothing and be given a chance to have everything.
That’s why Bong, a Canton UUP member, gives back.
Bong, the child of Cambodian parents, was born in a Thailand refugee camp filled with Cambodians who fled their country to escape the Khmer Rouge, Cambodia’s brutal ruling party in the 1970s.
His future uncertain, Bong was thrown a lifeline by caring strangers, thousands of miles away. An Ithaca Baptist church sponsored Bong’s family and brought them to America.
Bong, a UAlbany graduate, never forgot the selfless gesture that changed every aspect of his life, and he’s been paying it forward ever since he was old enough to lend a helping hand. He volunteered with Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Capital Region in Albany as a UAlbany student in the 1990s.
Realizing how much he enjoyed working with kids, he began donating his time to a new organization, Children of Our Community Open to Achievement, or COCOA House, in 2003. The Schenectady-based non-profit group offers homework help and snacks, and teaches computer and life skills to more than two dozen elementary school students from the city’s Hamilton Hill area. And it’s all free.
Bong, who lives in the Canton area, has worked with COCOA House since his college days, cutting lawns, planting flowers and doing yard work. His then-girlfriend, Marvenia, who is now his wife, introduced him to the program, started by Marvenia’s sister, Rachel.
His involvement progressed; recently, he stepped in as the organization’s executive director and drives to Schenectady—which is about a four-hour ride—as many as three weekends a month to take care of COCOA House business. He does it because he cares.
“I want to give those kids as much opportunity as I was given coming to this country,” Bong said. “I want to open doors for them. I want to look them in the eye, shake hands firmly and know they can succeed. It’s about inspiration and hope, that they can do anything they set their minds to.”
That’s a big reason Bong found himself behind a grill on a muggy Saturday afternoon in August, flipping burgers and serving up bowls of spicy Cambodian curry chicken and Jamaican jerk chicken to some of the 60 or so kids, volunteers and local politicians who came out for COCOA House’s community award ceremony and fundraiser.
When he wasn’t grilling, he was running between the kitchen and a computer, from which he printed certificates of appreciation for COCOA House volunteers. And that doesn’t count the hours he spent before the event, obtaining a stage, booking entertainment and getting a city permit to close off roads near the house for the party.
“It’s hectic but it’s fun,” he said.
And well worth the effort for Bong, who has seen firsthand how tough it is for COCOA House kids, many of who come from low-income families and live in a neighborhood that has been plagued by crime and violence. COCOA House’s digs used to be a dilapidated den for crack users, he said.
“I was tutoring last December and we asked students what they wanted for Christmas,” Bong said. “One of the students said that the only thing she wants is her dad back. One kid, he didn’t have enough money for a portable (PlayStation Portable) video game, so he took a piece of paper and drew a game and pretended to play that.”
“It’s people like Sabel, who give back to their community and help make Schenectady a great city,” said Mayor Bryan Stratton, after being handed a certificate by Bong at the fundraiser. “COCOA House has made a tremendous impact on our community and it’s due to the dedication of people like Sabel.”
And COCOA House continues to grow. Recently, a family whose son was killed by a gunshot in 1995 donated a nearby house to COCOA House. It will cost about $90,000 to renovate the house for the program’s use; Bong said the group’s directors are seeking donations and companies who will do the work for free or at little cost.
“I feel honored to be here,” said Bong. “When I look in the eyes of those kids,
I give them my very best. If it were anything less than that, I’d feel like I’d be letting them down.”
There aren’t many smiles on Syracuse’s impoverished south side these days, but UUPer Dawn Leadley wore one as she supervised volunteers early on an August Saturday, hours before Mary Nelson’s annual Youth Day barbecue was set to begin.
There would be lots of smiles that day.
Leadley was one of more than 400 volunteers who grilled hot dogs, packed snow cones and handed out free school supplies for thousands of neighborhood students and parents who attended the yearly Saturday giveaway, held Aug. 21. This was her sixth year volunteering for Youth Day.
“You hear testimonials from parents and teachers about the kids who register (for school supplies), that they barely have a shirt on or they have holes in their shoes, let alone their school supplies,” said Leadley, a member of the Upstate Medical University (UMU) Chapter. “This is a great cause.”
More than 15,000 students in pre-kindergarten through college registered to receive backpacks, computers and other supplies donated by area businesses and organizations this year; that’s 6,000 more students than last year. The ninth-annual party included a parade, a barbecue, dancing, carnival games and more—all of it at no charge to participants.
“I do whatever I can each year, including serving cotton candy and supervising the moonwalk (contest),” said Leadley, who works with Nelson at UMU and got involved after hearing about Youth Day.
Over the years, Leadley has helped to secure donations for the event, and has handled everything from registration to handing out the supplies.
Still, it’s not difficult for Leadley to see past the sticky, cotton-candy smiles and recognize the stark reality that is life for more than a few of these kids.
“One year, an eight-year-old boy showed up alone to pre-register for (supplies),” said Leadley. “He had walked from the city’s north side to the south side because he couldn’t wake up his mother and he was afraid that he wouldn’t get his backpack.”
Without the barbecue, many of these students would go to school without notebooks, pencils and backpacks. That’s one of the reasons why Leadley has made a point to stay involved, she said.
For more than 20 years, UUP members have selflessly put money into the union’s scholarship program—a program that awards $2,000 to SUNY undergrads who demonstrate a commitment to academic excellence, community service and labor ideals.
Donations to the UUP College Scholarship Fund, which first began awarding students in 1988, have topped $400,000, and another $300,000 has been bequeathed for scholarships. In all, more than 70 students have benefited from the scholarship program.
“Our members give for a reason: They understand that, for many students, the UUP scholarship makes it financially possible for them to continue their education,” said UUP Secretary Eileen Landy, the officer liaison to the UUP committees charged with selecting students and raising money. “Our members—full time and part time, academic and professional—understand the value of a higher education and won’t sit idly by and watch qualified students drop out because they couldn’t pay their tuition.”
This year, three SUNY students will receive UUP scholarships during the union’s 2010 Fall Delegate Assembly in October. They are: Christine Kirkpatrick, a sophomore at Geneseo majoring in chemistry; Stan McKay, a junior at Geneseo majoring in history/adolescent education; and Katherine Raymond, a senior at Oswego majoring in journalism/global studies.
Christine Kirkpatrick is grateful for what she has, and has spent a great deal of her young life lending a hand to the less fortunate. From two mission trips to communities in impoverished U.S. cities, to volunteering at Geneseo’s Teresa House for terminally ill patients, Kirkpatrick is ready, willing and able to help others.
“My ultimate goal in life is to make a difference in as many people’s lives as I can,” Kirkpatrick said. “I know that whatever career I choose will help people in some way.”
She’s off to a good start. In 2006, she spent a week in an area of Pennsylvania that was devastated by flood waters. Her encounters there had a lasting effect, prompting her to sign up for another church mission, to a low-income neighborhood in Chicago. Though vastly different experiences, Kirkpatrick learned that people—whether overcome by flood or poverty—welcome a helping hand.
“Seeing how much our seemingly little efforts affected these people’s lives really moved me,” she said. “These two experiences made a significant difference in my life, as I realized my desire to help others.”
UUPer Donald Fox, preparation laboratory specialist at Geneseo, recognizes Kirkpatrick’s innate talent and commitment. In a letter of recommendation, Fox praised Kirkpatrick’s tact, teamwork, precision, reliability and overall good humor.
“She has proven to be an asset to the chemistry department and, by extension, our university,” wrote Fox, who supervises Kirkpatrick in the lab. “There are certain things I look for and notice in employees and I must say that Christine exhibits the outstanding end of the spectrum in each case: She has a positive attitude about her work; she is responsible and shows initiative; and she is reliable.”
Kirkpatrick has a grade-point average of 3.94.
Stan McKay isn’t your typical undergraduate. At 48 years old, he’s got a lifetime of experiences under his belt.
For nearly 30 years, he was a unionized worker with the U.S. Postal Service, accepting a voluntary retirement offer in February 2009. While some might take the pension and live a comfortable life of retirement, McKay had other plans.
What he wants above all is to teach inner-city students.
Just a couple of weeks after he retired, McKay flew to Los Angeles to visit his oldest daughter. A conversation he had with one of her friends troubled him.
It seems the Ivy League graduate and TEACH America recipient didn’t understand the kids in LA’s inner-city schools.
“I heard him complain about the students,” McKay said. “I disagreed with his assessment of them. He could not reach them, and probably never would. When I returned from LA, I enrolled in SUNY Geneseo.”
McKay grew up in the South Bronx and “saw poverty up close every day,” an experience he believes many “isolated suburbanites” never feel firsthand.
“I will finish my degree and I will become a teacher,” McKay said. “I want to teach in the inner city because I understand. I believe I can make a difference.”
Geneseo’s Vice President for Academics Meg Stolee shares his confidence.
“Frankly, Stan confounds all expectations and, by doing so, has become a model of what an adult, non-traditional student can achieve,” Stolee wrote in a letter of recommendation. “I am sure he will be a successful teacher. I also know that he will be a model to all who come in contact with him that learning is both important and enriching. Surely this is the message that our UUP scholars should inspire!”
McKay has a grade-point average of 3.94.
Katherine Raymond
Growing up as a minister’s daughter, Katherine Raymond has lived all across the U.S. and has traveled to Ghana as part of an international justice campaign. Throughout her travels, Raymond came to realize the crippling effects of poverty, environmental destruction and human rights violations.
She has made it her life’s mission to spread the word against global and environmental injustices, as a journalist and social activist.
“People will heed my voice because I talk about social justice issues that affect us all, and I have the experiences to back it up,” Raymond said. “To influence change, we need to stand up and do something, and not allow ourselves to become caught up in armchair speculation.”
A simple question about turning off lights overnight in residence hall bathrooms turned into a 20 percent energy savings for the campus. Raymond brought the notion of light sensors to the campus facilities director, and helped him conduct a pilot study in two bathrooms.
As a result, plans are under way to install motion-sensor lights in all residence halls.
“I believe in the power of action,” she said. “My experience has taught me that people are more persuaded by what you do than by what you say, and I’ve tried to live my life in a way that reflects that sentiment.”
Helping Oswego “go green” may be long-lasting, but one faculty member knows that Raymond’s college career is drawing to a close.
“She has done so well as a student/researcher/organization leader that I must say I will be very sad to see her graduate,” wrote UUP member Rebecca Burch, an associate professor of psychology. “Katherine is one of those students that, as a professor, you are always impressed with, know will be successful, and are grateful for having known.”
Raymond has a grade-point average of 3.92.
— Karen L. Mattison
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