It is time to take a stand.

SUNY is under attack. The University’s viability and its future as a world-class higher education institution are under attack. SUNY’s very mission of quality, accessibility and affordability is under attack.

The latest salvo came Oct. 6, when Gov. David Paterson ordered $90 million in midyear state aid cuts to SUNY. That huge cash grab from the University has knocked SUNY funding to its lowest levels since the 1990s. The implications of these cuts are many, and are all negative for SUNY. We cannot and will not let this happen without a fight.

It is time to take a stand.

For months, I have detailed the dire consequences continued cuts to SUNY would mean for the University, college-bound high school and transfer students and their parents, and New York’s economy.

Now, cuts to SUNY have become so drastic that the cost-cutting measures campuses put in place last year—everything from hiring freezes to cutting courses to increasing class sizes—may not be enough to see them through without considering other, much more unsavory, options.

Already, two departments at Morrisville are in active retrenchment. At Plattsburgh, the administration is threatening to cut 66 positions to help cover a nearly $4 million budget shortfall. And this just in: In just 12 months, more than 153 full-time positions and 468 part-time jobs have been chopped from SUNY.

Meanwhile, more and more financial pressure is being foisted on students and parents in the form of tuition and fees to make up for continued state aid decreases. In 1990, SUNY funded $915 million, or 75 percent of the University’s operating budget, with 25 percent financed by students and parents. Now, the state’s share of SUNY’s budget will be $907 million—$8 million less than it spent 19 years ago! As for the share students and parents will pay this year: a whopping $1.1 billion.

It’s time to take a stand.

Thankfully, many of you have heeded my call for action, joining with the UUP Outreach Committee or working to form and mobilize campus crisis outreach groups to rail against Paterson’s cuts and help spread the word that SUNY is the solution to the state’s economic woes.

In October, more than 100 of you boarded buses to Manhattan and stopped rush hour traffic as you waved signs, shouted chants and marched to protest cuts to SUNY and the City University of New York, which is facing cuts targeted by the state of $53 million.

Others, like UUPers in Plattsburgh, Buffalo, Oneonta, Oswego and Albany, took part in student-led rallies against SUNY cuts at campuses across the state.

That’s right, the students have also launched a battle for SUNY. Led by the SUNY Student Assembly, students on campuses statewide have staged rallies opposing Paterson’s cuts. They also gathered more than 10,000 signatures for their “Many Voices, One SUNY” campaign, which opposes SUNY cuts.

That’s not surprising considering that students are the ones who see and feel firsthand the impact of these cuts: a shortage of courses, fewer, more crowded classes and fewer instructors to teach them. All this after fighting to gain admission to a SUNY school, which has become increasingly tougher as applications and enrollments reach all-time highs.

Students, many of whom were blindsided by a tuition increase in the spring, have more to fear. The governor is proposing to cut $26 million—or about $120 per grant—from the state’s Tuition Assistance Program (TAP), which helps students pay for college. They are telling lawmakers and the governor they can’t afford these cuts.

I wholeheartedly encourage you to team up with students on your campus to fight these heinous cuts to the University. If you don’t know the student leaders on your campus, you can call the UUP Administrative Office for contact names and numbers.

Speaking of lawmakers, a few of our friends have publicly opposed the governor’s aid reductions. Most recently, Sen. Ken LaValle, ranking minority member of the Senate Higher Education Committee, went on the record saying that SUNY should not be subjected to the type of cuts proposed by the governor.

Sen. Toby Stavisky and Assemblywoman Deborah Glick previously came out against the cuts. Glick said it was “counterintuitive to heap more cuts” on SUNY and CUNY. Stavisky called the reductions “an unfair burden on New York’s students and the state’s economic future.”

Now it’s your turn. We need you to step up and advocate for SUNY. Reach out to the UUP Outreach Committee. Get involved on campus.

At the very least, go to the UUP Web site, www.uupinfo.org, and click on links to letters that will be faxed via computer to Gov. Paterson and state legislators.

We must keep up the fight to protect SUNY students, for quality higher education in New York, and for the state’s economic future. The state university is an engine that can help pull New York from its economic mire.

It’s time to take a stand.