Press Release
Brooklyn College Faculty, Staff and
Students launch #RespectCUNY Postcard Drive
Thursday, October 15th
12:30-1:30 PM
Bedford Ave. gates to Brooklyn
College near Campus Road
Contact: Alex S. Vitale,
917-293-4862, avitale@brooklyn.cuny.edu
A coalition of Brooklyn College faculty, students, and staff
officially launched a postcard drive today calling for State elected officials
to fully support Brooklyn College and CUNY without relying on additional
tuition increases. Tuition has gone up every year for the last 5 years, but
state funding has not kept pace with growing enrollments. This year state
failed to fund $51 million in mandatory cost increases CUNY wide. This has
caused significant budget shortfall at Brooklyn College, leading to larger
class sizes, fewer available classes, and diminished student services. Employees
at the college from maintenance workers to painters to professors have been
without a contract for over 5 years and most employees have not had raises during
that time. Anselma Rodriguez a Higher
Education Officer (“HEO”) said that “every year expenses in New York are going
up, especially for housing, but our pay has stagnated. It’s time the state made
resources available to CUNY to pay for decent raises.”
The decline in public support is a national problem, so the Ethyl
Wolfe institute for the Humanities is hosting a day-long event today entitled “Austerity
and Its Discontents: The Fight to Reclaim Public Higher Education.” Speakers
from across the country will be discussing the reasons for the cut backs and
strategies for reversing this troubling trend. Speakers attending the press
conference include Rudy Fichtenbaum, President of the American Association of
University Professors (AAUP), and Eleni Schirmer and Michael Billeaux from the
University of Wisconsin.
The postcard being launched today is being distributed to
thousands of students, employees, alumni, and community supporters. It calls on
local elected officials to “work in Albany for full funding for CUNY, including
its employee contracts, and to increase financial aid without burdening
students with higher tuition.” A printed version of the card is addressed to
local Assemblymember Rodneyse Bichotte, and an on-line version is addressed to
both her and State Senator Kevin Parker. The online version can be found at here.
The postcard also uses the hashtag #RespectCUNY, which is
linked to a Twitter campaign to raise awareness about the need for better
funding for CUNY. We are using the Twitter handle @psccunybc.
During the event students and faculty will be circulating
postcards for students to sign during the lunch break between classes.
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