Courage is doing something for others, no matter the consequences to oneself.
Such could be said for Morrisville UUPer Jan Tewes, this year’s recipient of the Fayez Samuel Award for Courageous Service by Part-time Academic and Professional Faculty (see page 16). Her relentless pursuit of fair and equitable treatment for her chapter’s part-time contingent is well documented—and came at personal risk.
When UUP?policy dictated part-time labor/management meetings, Tewes jumped at the chance to bring her concerns to campus administrators. That was 2005—more than 30 years since the chapter last held a labor/management meeting of any kind.
“It was Jan’s insistence that changed that,” said Chapter President Jim Engle. “Jan was prepared and relentless; management had no chance!”
The result: Tewes was instrumental in securing Discretionary Salary Increases, work schedules, seniority rights and pay increases for part-timers.
The “hard truth,” however, is that Tewes saw her course load drop from the required two courses to be eligible for UUP?benefits, to one and then to none. She opted for retirement to maintain health coverage, Engle said. She had been teaching psychology for more than 15 years, and earned high praise from students during that time.
“As she pushed harder and harder on part-time issues, she drew the enmity of some managers,” Engle said. “Some deans refused to meet with her since she was ‘only a part-timer.’ Jan took these slights in stride, concerned only with the plight of her fellow part-timers.”
Not to be deterred in retirement, Tewes continues to serve on the chapter executive board and as the elected part-time concerns rep. She is also a member of the statewide Part-time Concerns Committee.
“Jan is the ‘burr under my saddle’ making sure I never forget the part-time members of our chapter,”?Engle said. “I’m grateful to her for keeping me on task.”
(Before his retirement from SUNY Farmingdale in 2003, Fayez Samuel was an academic delegate and a pioneer in the fight for the fair and equitable treatment of part-timers at SUNY. He is a past chair of the union’s statewide Part-time Concerns Committee. In 2006, UUP recognized Samuel with an award in his honor for his dedication and commitment to raising the consciousness of the difficult working conditions of part-timers. He was one of the three inaugural recipients.)
— Karen L. Mattison

 
“The union’s work is time consuming and unending. You resolve one issue and another is right behind. But, oh, how rewarding the work is.”
When Lorna Arrington spoke those words, she wasn’t talking about personal praise or the rewards received for a good deed done. She was talking about the satisfaction that comes with righting a wrong or battling to improve the terms and conditions of employment for her fellow Buffalo Center Chapter members.
Of course, that doesn’t mean Arrington—an associate professor of mathematics who has worked at the University at Buffalo’s Educational Opportunity Center (EOC) for the last 40 years—hasn’t earned the recognition she so richly deserves. In 2005, she was named NYSUT Higher Education Member of the Year, and it was in her acceptance speech she spoke those memorable words.
But Arrington is more action than talk, and it’s the tenacious commitment behind her quiet reserve that UUP speaks of when awarding her the union’s highest honor—the Nina Mitchell Award for Distinguished Service (see page 16), which she was slated to receive during the union’s 2011 Fall Delegate Assembly in Albany in September.
“She is a trusted colleague and an able mentor (who) has the ability to be a stabilizing force in turbulent times,” her nominators wrote. “Lorna works outside the spotlight and in solidarity to better our union.”
One shining example: When Arrington first chaired the union’s EOC Concerns Committee in the 1990s, she set out to solve the issues that for many years had plagued the academic and professional faculty at the EOCs. Her efforts paid off, and the committee under her leadership successfully secured tenure, promotions and salary equity for EOC employees.
Arrington epitomizes the dedicated UUP?activist—and her colleagues know it. She is characterized as devoted and hard working, and for setting a remarkably high standard in quality union service.
Arrington has served as a delegate to UUP, NYSUT and AFT policymaking conventions, and on several statewide committees. She is a former member of the UUP?Executive Board and a four-time member of the Negotiations Team.
She continues to serve on her chapter executive board and on the statewide EOC Committee, the Task Force on Pay Equity Based on Race, and the Joint Labor/Management Committee on Employment.
(Nina Mitchell (1926-1988), a substance abuse counselor at Downstate Medical Center and a devoted academic unionist, used her quiet intelligence and her gift of forging genuine relationships to further the goals of UUP. Reflecting the spirit of the award’s namesake, recipients of the Mitchell award are members with a wide range of distinguished union service. Presentation of the annual award ensures that the memory of this dedicated unionist will live on.)
— Karen L. Mattison

 Every day on SUNY campuses and in SUNY hospitals around the state, hundreds of UUP members work behind the scenes on behalf of their sisters and brothers. They mentor newer colleagues; they serve on union committees and in leadership roles; they demand justice and equity for the underrepresented within their ranks. They do it at personal risk, and year after year into retirement.
They don’t do it for the accolades or even a pat on the back. Their reward is knowing they have improved the working lives of their fellow unionists.
This fall, UUP is honoring three individuals for their tireless efforts: Lorna Arrington of Buffalo Center, Jan Tewes of Morrisville and Ed Alfonsin of Potsdam.
“These steadfast unionists have made UUP?what it is today—an organization dedicated to its members, and to the students and patients they teach and serve,” said UUP?President Phil Smith. “Without these hard-working unionists, SUNY?would not be able to preserve its mission of a quality, affordable education for all New Yorkers.”
UUP is also honoring the next generation of selfless leaders with College Scholarship Fund one-time awards of $2,000. And, for the first time, UUP awards the William E. Scheuerman Post Baccalaureate Scholarship to a full-time SUNY graduate or professional school student. The five standout young adults join a long list of SUNY?students who demonstrate a commitment to academic excellence, community service and labor ideals.
— Karen L. Mattison

 UUP’s Negotiations Team had extensive preliminary discussions with the state’s negotiators Thursday and Friday, Aug. 25 and 26. The official exchange of contract proposals took place Friday.
The state presented UUP with a one-page document that lists the contract articles to which its proposals relate.
The document lists Article 20-Compensation, Article 39-Health Insurance, and Article 55-Duration.
It also lists a proposed new article on Deficit Reduction Leave, a term used in other bargaining unit agreements to denote furloughs.
Upon receiving the state’s proposal document, UUP presented its full package of proposals (available at http://www.uupinfo.org/negotiations/ProposalPackage0829_1.pdf )
Additional meeting dates with the state have been scheduled through October.

Members of the UUP Outreach Committee met in Syracuse Aug. 10 to develop the union’s legislative action plan for the coming year.
A number of them were asked by The Voice to consider the political and economic challenges SUNY and UUP face, and what they can do as unionists to overcome the obstacles.
Here’s what some had to say:
Kiko Franco, Old Westbury—“Through political advocacy, we elect people to represent our interests. When they’re not doing the job to our satisfaction, we have the right to give our support to someone else who would.”
Josie Adamo, Buffalo State—“We need to work with all involved and not be so territorial. To reach solutions, all sides have to meet halfway, so we aren’t the ones who are always giving in.”
Tom Hogle, Morrisville—“We have to let people know we are hard working. If we let people know about our dedication and service to the community, they’ll be more likely to support us.”
Elizabeth Haremza, Buffalo HSC—“We need to work with all parties involved to try to bridge the gaps in order to achieve what’s best for our members, students and patients.”
Joe Westbrook, Cortland—“We have to be true to ourselves. If we don’t act as our own advocates, no one will ever understand who we are.”

More than 50 members of the UUP Outreach Committee gathered for their annual retreat Aug. 10 in Syracuse to look back at their performance over the last year and look ahead to the challenges they face.
UUP President Phil Smith introduced Gideon Dunkley of Downstate Medical Center as the new Outreach Committee chair. Dunkley has served on the committee for four years. Smith minced no words in saying the committee will have its hands full in the coming months.
“The last year has been tough. The next few years will be just as challenging, so we need your help,” Smith said.  
Tier VI, shared services loom
The proposed Tier VI pension plan is among the issues UUP faces. Smith said Tier VI is “something we have to fight,” coming after Tier V that was just adopted last year. Introduced by the governor in June, Tier VI would hike the minimum retirement age from 62 to 65, end early retirement, and raise from 10 years to 12 years the time it would take for new employees to be vested. The governor has listed Tier VI as among his top priorities, raising the prospect of the issue coming to a vote in the Legislature if lawmakers return to Albany before the end of the year.  
Smith said UUP also has to keep an eye on SUNY’s shared services initiative, which sparked controversy at the outset when the University initially tried to oust Joseph Kennedy as SUNY Canton president. SUNY later announced that Kennedy would be retiring after the 2011-12 academic year to serve as a special adviser to the chancellor. SUNY also said that Kennedy and SUNY Potsdam President John Schwaller would work on a plan to share services between the two campuses. The controversy sparked rumors of program mergers between Canton and Potsdam.
“SUNY must engage the union and faculty on such matters,” Smith said.
Two weeks later, SUNY announced it would recommend to the Board of Trustees that the president of SUNY Institute of Technology also serve as president of SUNY Morrisville, and that SUNY Delhi’s president also function as president of SUNY Cobleskill.
Convincing lawmakers to extend the progressive income tax is another issue for the committee to tackle, Smith said. Revenue from the tax, due to expire Dec. 31, could be used to offset some of the prior losses SUNY has suffered in its level of state support.
Despite the tremendous political obstacles UUP confronted earlier this year, Smith noted the union achieved a significant victory on NYSUNY 2020. He credited UUP’s outreach efforts and the persistence of its advocates for convincing lawmakers to exclude differential tuition and public/private partnerships from the bill eventually signed into law by the governor.
Smith also cited the inclusion of maintenance of effort language in the NYSUNY 2020 legislation, requiring that state support for SUNY cannot be cut from the previous year’s level. That precludes future budget cuts for SUNY, unless the governor declares a fiscal emergency.        
Smith and Dunkley stressed the necessity of building coalitions to maximize their influence when meeting with state lawmakers.
“It’s very important that we reach out to people and groups in our respective communities,” Smith said. “We need to have local citizens know the value of providing a quality public higher education for their children, and help us deliver that message in meetings with lawmakers.”
The new chair called for increased participation in outreach activities.
 “We need you to encourage more of your chapter’s members to become involved in advocacy, beginning this fall with visits with state legislators in their district offices,” Dunkley said.
— Donald Feldstein

NYSUNY 2020: UUP helps strike major negative provisions

The NYSUNY 2020 bill signed into law Aug. 9 stands as a monument to UUP’s successful and extensive advocacy efforts. The final legislation contained none of the significant provisions that UUP fought against, namely differential tuition, public/private partnerships and the sale or lease of campus property.  The legislation is also weakened by the fact that none of SUNY’s four University Centers will be receiving any funds from the state in the form of the so-called
$20 million “challenge grants” until the state’s next fiscal year that begins April 1.   
But UUP is not resting on its success with the final legislation. UAlbany and Binghamton—like Buffalo and Stony Brook before them—have presented their NYSUNY 2020 to a committee of the SUNY Board of Trustees. As The Voice went to press, UAlbany and Binghamton had not submitted their official plans to the governor, so details on them are still sketchy.
Like the earlier NYSUNY 2020 proposals, Binghamton’s plan suggests the prospect of new buildings combined with questionable financing. Binghamton is looking to construct a new health and natural sciences building. That’s only part of Binghamton’s plan, which would use $20 million from the state and $15 million in campus capital funds.
The $35 million total is only meant to be “seed money” for each campus’ plan. Where would the additional funds come from? According to a Binghamton University news release, “The remaining dollars would be raised through a variety of sources, including … University cash reserves.”
UUP President Phil Smith contends cash reserves are primarily derived from students and should be used to directly benefit students rather than being tapped to build new buildings.
“University cash reserves were never meant to be a source of capital funding,” Smith said. “Students should not be funding the cost of new buildings. That money should be coming from the state as it always has.”               
UAlbany’s 2020 plan also calls for a major building project—the construction of a $150 million Biomedical and Information Innovation Research Plaza. After applying $35 million in seed money, UAlbany’s administration plans to use $42 million in appropriations from 2008-09 and raise the remaining $73 million to pay for the building. Some of that money could potentially come from increased tuition revenue or SUNY cash reserves.
NYSUNY 2020 increases tuition on all state-operated SUNY campuses by $300 annually for the next five years. Students who received financial aid through the state’s Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) will pay the same percentage share of their tuition, but the additional funds will come from tuition revenues collected by the campuses rather than through TAP. Binghamton has pledged to commit 25 percent of its additional tuition revenue toward helping needy students.
“That’s a huge pool of money that’s being drained from funds that should be devoted to teaching students and hiring faculty,” Smith said. “The state should be taking on this responsibility by increasing TAP instead of watering down the benefits from the tuition increase.”
The NYSUNY 2020 plans coming from UAlbany and Binghamton are in stark contrast to recent budget-cutting measures taken in response to massive state budget cuts during the last three years. One year ago, UAlbany ordered a halt to new admissions in five programs: French, Italian, Russian, classics and theatre, and the campus would lose the equivalent of 160 positions by 2012. Binghamton announced some austerity measures that even included closing a number of bathrooms on campus.
 “It makes you wonder how campuses can gyrate from one extreme to the other, cutting programs and faculty one year, then promising to add facilities and faculty the next,” Smith mused. “The promises of NYSUNY 2020 just don’t add up.”
Smith suggested that SUNY would be better served applying its increased tuition revenue toward saving existing programs and faculty positions. Such an effort would help reverse the trend of delayed graduations by reducing the numbers of canceled classes and course offerings.
All of the NYSUNY 2020 plans will be reviewed by SUNY’s chancellor and require approval from the Empire State Development Corporation. When that review will be completed has not been determined.
— Donald Feldstein

1. Higher Education in the 21st century must be inclusive; it should be available to and affordable for all who can benefit from and want a college education. 
2. The curriculum for a quality 21st century higher education must be broad and diverse. 

3. Quality higher education in the 21st century will require a sufficient investment in excellent faculty who have the academic freedom, terms of employment, and institutional support needed   to do state-of-the-art professional work.
4. Quality higher education in the 21st century should incorporate technology in ways that expand opportunity and maintain quality.
5. Quality education in the 21st century will require the pursuit of real efficiencies and the avoidance of false economies.
6. Quality higher education in the 21st century will require substantially more public investment over current levels.
7. Quality higher education in the 21st century cannot be measured by a standardized, simplistic set of metrics.

If higher education had a back, it would be up against the wall.
From devastating funding cuts and climbing tuition costs that threaten educational quality and access for low-income students to the specter of business models to measure student success, higher ed is under siege.
There hasn’t been a unified, nationwide voice to speak up for issues like student access and affordability and speak out against so-called educational reforms being pushed by well-funded, private philanthropic foundations (read: The Gates Foundation and The Lumina Foundation, among others) with their own agendas.
That changed in May with the launch of the Campaign for the Future of Higher Education (CFHE). Backed by the California Federation of Teachers (CFA), UUP and education organizations across America and Canada, CFHE’s mission is straightforward: to ensure that affordable, quality higher education is accessible to all sectors of society in the coming decades.
More than 35 unions, student groups, and black and Hispanic associations from 26 states and Canada—including the AFT, the NEA, Professional Staff Congress, the Canadian Association of University Teachers and the Institute for Higher Education Policy—have pledged their support for the campaign.
The CFHE’s May 17 kickoff, at a Washington, D.C., press conference, was webcast live to faculty on more than 40 campuses in states including New York, Wisconsin, California, Florida and Massachusetts.
 “This is a question of access and affordability,” said UUP statewide Secretary Eileen Landy, the union’s CFHE representative who helped form the campaign. “People are being shut out of public higher education, which has always been the step up to economic and social mobility. And the doors are closing.”
“This campaign is about tearing down the walls of isolation among faculty but, more importantly, bringing together faculty and other groups who are passionate about higher education and deeply distressed about its current direction,” said CFA President Lillian Taiz. “We need to talk and work together and too often that has not been happening.”
To help accomplish that, a virtual think tank—which includes higher ed luminaries like Gary Rhoades, former general secretary for the American Association of University Professors—has been formed to produce policy-oriented research that CFHE organizers hope will lead to new federal and state laws and campus policies to promote the campaign’s seven principles.
Supporters believe those tenets will recast the current debate over educational reforms into one that focuses on higher ed as an essential right for students. The principles include: a broad and diverse curriculum; investing in faculty that have academic freedom and support to do their jobs; more public funding; and far less emphasis on measuring quality with standardized, simplistic metrics.
“As those principles detail, this campaign is about change,” said Steve Hicks, president of the Association of Pennsylvania State Colleges and University Faculties. “But we need change that is good for our students and for the quality of higher education that they deserve.”
UUP was one of the first unions to sign on to CFHE after Taiz approached President Phil Smith about the initiative. Smith embraced the plan and sent Landy as UUP’s representative to a January meeting in Los Angeles to help set up the campaign. More than 70 unionists, students and representatives from black and Hispanic groups from across the country worked together on the campaign and how to proceed.
“Well-funded foundations with no real higher ed experience are driving initiatives that haven’t been researched carefully nor fully thought out, and they’re using an entire generation of students as test subjects to see what works and what doesn’t,” Smith said. “We need to respond and that’s what CFHE is all about.”
The campaign swings into gear this fall; organizers will be urging locals to become involved with Campus Equity Week (Oct. 24-28) events at their colleges and universities. A national day of action—tentatively slated for April 2012—to promote the importance of access to quality education is being talked about, as is formulating the campaign’s legislative approach.
Those and other issues will be discussed at a CFHE national conference, scheduled for Nov. 1-2 in Boston.
“We have to push back against these attacks on public higher education, which are very well organized and very well funded,” Landy said. “No one has spoken with a coherent voice on behalf of public higher education until now.”
For more information about the CFHE, click on the campaign’s website at http://futureofhighered.org.
— Michael Lisi

For years, public higher ed has been a punching bag for the likes of more than a few politicians, who trumpet budget cuts and efficiency over quality education, student access and affordability.
Lately, philanthropic organizations such as the Gates Foundation and Lumina Foundation have joined in, waving dollars and pushing their business model approach to education (promoted as educational “reforms”), an intoxicating combination for cash-strapped colleges looking to lessen the blow of reduced state dollars.
Higher education has hit back in the past, but not with a unified, nationwide blow to air concerns and sound warnings about where higher ed is headed.
Things are different now—and in a good way. The Campaign for the Future of Higher Education (CFHE) made its debut in May with strong support from UUP, the AFT, the California Federation of Teachers, and more than 30 other unions, student groups, and black and Hispanic associations from 26 states and Canada.
Mission: possible
The CFHE’s mission is to the point: to ensure that affordable, quality higher education is accessible to all sectors of society in the future. The campaign’s seven principles elaborate on its mission; they include a diverse curriculum; investing in faculty and giving them the support to do their jobs; more public funding and less focus on measuring quality with standardized metrics.
Already, the campaign has formed a virtual think tank—with fine higher ed minds like Gary Rhoades, former general secretary for the American Association of University Professors—producing policy-oriented research to spur new federal and state laws and reform campus policies.
Campaign supporters, including a representative from UUP, will get together in Boston in November to set the CFHE’s spring 2012 slate of activities.
But, as UUP Secretary Eileen Landy—who helped shape CFHE’s course as a Steering Committee member at the group’s first meeting in January—says, the campaign’s strength is its solidarity. Higher ed can and must push back and the CFHE is an excellent vehicle to make our issues known.
You can read more about the CFHE’s beginnings and its plans for positive change on page 12 of this issue.
Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are the three biggest social media outlets and UUP has used each of them at times to get the union’s message out to the masses. Granted, our social media presence has been tentative since plunging in over the last year or so, but that’s set to change.
Look for UUP to have more of a presence on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube over the next few months. You can see what we’re saying on Facebook at http://on.fb.me/oqR7K8, on Twitter at twitter.com/uupinfo and YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/ user/uupcomm.
Speaking of the web, UUP’s 2011 Annual Report to the Membership is available on the union’s website at www.uupinfo.org.
A link to the document (http://www.uupinfo.org/reports/reports.html) will take you to Reports and Guides; click on the 2011 UUP Annual Report to the Membership link under the Other Reports/Guides section of the page to access it.
The report contains a synopsis of union activities during the 2010-11 academic year, focusing on academics and professionals, membership, legislation and political action, communications, finances and benefits. It’s a great way to learn about how your union has been working for you.
UUP’s website is also where you’ll find the latest about our contract negotiations with the state. News and information will be posted on our home page; look for the red-lettered 2011 Negotiations Information link at the top of the right-hand column. Chapter leaders may also be able to answer some of your questions as they receive regular negotiations updates.
Rest assured that no matter the issue, UUP is working for you.