Recognizing the importance of this year’s elections, UUPers from across the state volunteered to participate in phone banks in the weeks prior to Election Day.

Close to two dozen UUPers staffed NYSUT’s regional office in Syracuse to get out the vote in Central New York for NYSUT-endorsed candidates. Members from four chapters—Upstate Medical University (UMU), Cortland, Morrisville and Environmental Science and Forestry – reached out to urge their union brothers and sisters to vote.

“Our people were motivated to support candidates who are pro-public higher education,” said statewide Executive Board member Brian Tappen of UMU, who organized the Syracuse phone bank operation. “This was a turnout election, so we called fellow union members to express the need for them to vote for endorsed candidates.”

With key election races taking place on Long Island, close to a dozen Stony Brook UUPers turned out to make calls on four different evenings. Western New York, also a major electoral battleground, set the stage for 15 UUPers from the Buffalo Center, Buffalo State and Buffalo HSC chapters to take part in a phone bank.

Covering the Southern Tier, a group of UUP members from the Oneonta Chapter traveled nearly 70 miles to staff the phone bank at NYSUT’s regional office in Vestal. New Paltz Chapter members traveled to NYSUT’s Kingston office to participate in a phone bank.

Smith commended the efforts.

“I’d like to thank our members for setting aside time from their busy schedules to work the regional phone banks,” he said. “I am proud of the work our members did to help carve out these victories.”

— Donald Feldstein

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.

— Karen L. Mattison

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.”

— Michael Lisi

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.”

— Michael Lisi

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.”

— Karen L. Mattison