SUNY Cuts Will Backfire, Faculty Union Head Warns; Hiring Freezes Spreading

The president of United University Professions has sounded the alarm over budget cuts to the State University of New York, saying that SUNY's Finance Committee had discussed possible hiring freezes, among other reductions, at a Board of Trustees meeting.

PHILLIP H. SMITH: 'Campuses are hurting.'

"SUNY campuses are hurting," said UUP President Phillip H. Smith in a statement. "The committee heard about plans to scale back on admissions, reduce the number of courses, freeze hiring and attrit staff. The net effect would be fewer students admitted and delays in graduation. Both of these outcomes will hurt New York's economy."

A 'Pause' on Hiring

In a phone interview, Mr. Smith elaborated that the UUP was "hearing from a number of campuses that they are putting [job] searches on hold ... I've been hearing from all 33 chapters about hiring freezes on quite a number of them." He specified SUNY centers at Albany, Stony Brook and Buffalo as campuses that were entering hiring freezes. At Albany, he said, "they have an ingenious term: they call it a 'pause.' They put all of their searches on pause."

Other campuses, such as Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, were "carefully reviewing all positions," according to Mr. Smith. He said that this meant the school was "only replacing essential personnel," and that if a professor moved on or retired, the school would then consider whether that position needed to be re-filled. At Upstate, Mr. Smith said that this could be a critical problem for its hospital, because "it's very hard to provide patient care if they don't have sufficient staff."

He criticized SUNY management for not "taking decisive action" after Governor Paterson announced a $96-million cut to the system's budget in August. "Since SUNY as a system has not really taken that bull by the horns, our campus presidents are left wondering what's going to happen," he said. "They're scrambling anticipating what those cuts are going to be ... they're in a holding pattern; they're as confused as we are."

Talking to Paterson's Staff

He said that UUP was working with the Governor's Office to try and address the cuts, and that they would "be working with the Legislature as soon as it returns, to try and make some sense of this."

Mr. Smith estimated that hiring freezes now would result in colleges being backed up for months or even years. "In order to replace faculty, we're going to need to have searches. The process could take up to a year ... if you cancel it, you don't have people to step in. Everything gets backed up," he said. "If we lose a Professor in an English or a Literature department, that might mean that those courses are not going to be available for a semester or two."

UUP spokesman Donald Feldstein added that the Governor's continuing budget concerns had the union worried. "The news doesn't sound very good ... the Governor came out [Oct. 3] saying there's another $1.2 billion hole in his budget," he said. Mr. Feldstein said he felt cutting SUNY would wind up costing the state and the city. "SUNY is the solution. It makes no sense to damage SUNY any further because we're an economic engine; we make money for the state," he said.