For CUNY and SUNY
Faculty Unions Ask For Makeup Funds

By MEREDITH KOLODNER

Higher-education unions asked the State Legislature on Feb. 8 for a significant increase in spending for the City and State University systems to make up for years of underfunding.

BARBARA BOWEN: 'Let us swim in cash.'

The presidents of the Professional Staff Congress and the United University Professions told a joint hearing of the Senate Finance and Assembly Ways and Means Committees that while they appreciated Governor Spitzer's request for more money, the proposal didn't go far enough. The PSC said CUNY needed $84.6 million more than Mr. Spitzer's budget allocated and UUP asked for an additional $25 million for SUNY.

'Right Year to Invest'

"This year, for the first time in 15 years, we start from an Executive Budget that does not propose cuts in higher education," said PSC President Barbara Bowen. "This year, when we don't start in deficit mode, is the year to invest in the true restoration in CUNY."

Ms. Bowen told the legislators that the money was needed to increase full-time faculty, strengthen diversity in hiring and improve support services for students. The number of full-time faculty has dropped from 11,300 in 1975 to 6,300 today, even though student enrollment is at a 30-year high. State funding for CUNY was 26% lower in the 2007 budget, adjusting for inflation, than it was in 1990.

The Governor proposed an increase of $71.8 million, a 4.6-percent increase over last year. CUNY Chancellor Matthew Goldstein asked the Legislature to add $24 million to Mr. Spitzer's budget proposal for CUNY.

UUP President William E. Scheuerman also said he appreciated the Governor's initial offering of a 4.6-percent increase in funding for SUNY, but said that more was needed.

"Because of long-term insufficient funding for enrollment growth and ongoing structural deficits, SUNY administrators cut full-time faculty," he said. "The lack of sufficient faculty threatens institutional quality and access."

Ms. Bowen told the legislators that a poem, written in 1957 by Stevie Smith, titled, "Not Waving But Drowning," expressed CUNY's condition. The poem is about a man stuck far out in the ocean and reads, "I was much further out than you thought/And not waving but drowning."

"The Executive Budget allows us to tread water," she said. "What we are asking is to swim."