Guest Editorial: Mandatory staff furloughs prove unreasonable for faculty

How would you feel if your boss suddenly demanded that you work two days without pay? And how would you feel if your boss justified this demand by insinuating that your pay – which is modest by industry standards – is a significant contributor to the business’ budget problems? This is the situation that now confronts teaching and administrative faculty, Student and Campus Life Department members and other employees at Geneseo and across the State University of New York system. New York State imposed a “Deficit Reduction Program” that requires teaching and administrative faculty to take two days off without pay in the interest of solving the state’s budget problems.

This demand is unreasonable and unjust for several reasons. First, it implies that we are somehow responsible for the state’s budget problems. The reality, however, is quite different. According to a 2012 study by the Chronicle of Higher Education, Geneseo salaries are below the 60th percentile rank for masters’ level institutions, indicating that our compensation is reasonable and even modest given the prestige of our institution.

Second, the nature of our work makes it impossible for us to take unpaid days off. Even if we choose to stay home for two days, there is nothing in the state’s demands that reduces our workload or responsibilities. Teaching faculty must still conduct research, finish committee work on time and mentor students. Administrative professionals must still meet deadlines for budgets, reports, programs and other responsibilities.

Interim President Carol Long has worked diligently and conscientiously to mitigate the negative effects of the state’s unreasonable demands, but there is a limit to what she can do.

She cannot change the nature of our work – nor would we want her to – nor can she alone make the state government understand how unreasonable its demands are.

This forces us to make a very difficult choice. We can submit to the state’s demands and work without pay, thus acceding to the lack of professional respect paid to us by the state – perhaps encouraging them to use this tactic against us again in the future. Or, we can take some sort of symbolic action, such as cancelling a class, review session, office hours or other academic activity.

This course of action will not fully compensate us for the salary the state deducts because we will still have to meet other important responsibilities such as research and committee work. In addition, if we take this second option, students will be negatively affected. But many of us feel that this is the only way to fully publicize the injustice of the state’s demands.

If we go on with our work as usual, will anyone notice this injustice?  Will this lead to continued and even stronger attacks on SUNY funding, of which the assaults on our salary are an important component?

What would you do?

We invite you to discuss this issue with any Geneseo employee.

- College Faculty Affairs Committee

Letter to the Editor: New SUNY allocation model slippery slope to privatization

Jesse Goldberg, Class of 2012

I’ve read Maddy Smith’s news article, “SUNY releases enrollment-based Resource Allocation Model,” a few times now, and I am scared. I am frightened that a pattern and trajectory I began to notice when I reported on SUNY budgets in my tenure at Geneseo is more real and threatening than I let myself believe. Within the parameters set by the last half-decade of financial troubles and its “solutions,” is it still possible to envision SUNY as a public institution of truly “higher” education? 

I should start by saying that I see the logic and it seems fair that schools with more students should receive more funding. The analogy isn’t perfect, but if I heard that a public high school with 200 students was receiving the same exact public funding as a high school with 2,000 students, I’d be upset at the inequality between funding per student. 

There are many things that trouble me about this allocation model, though. Primarily, I am concerned by the sheer ratio between the number of schools that would see increased funding versus the number of schools that would see decreased funding from this pool of money. 

According to Smith’s article, 11 of the 13 comprehensive colleges, five of the eight technology colleges and one of the four university centers would see decreases in funding. That means that a majority of these schools would each see a loss in resources so that a minority would benefit. I know that actual enrollment figures should balance everything out, but remaining at the institutional level, this solution seems troubling. Why not allow the university centers to charge a rationally higher tuition? Students at Stony Brook, Buffalo, Binghamton and Albany may have to compete with more peers for access to resources, but the resources available at these research institutions are simply greater than the other SUNY schools; perhaps these students should pay a slightly higher tuition?

But to elaborate on what most troubles me: The context in which this allocation model has developed is unacceptable. SUNY students, past and present, should be complaining about this. I look at the aforementioned pattern, the path from the crisis of 2008 and the terrible cuts that followed, the program deactivations not only at Geneseo but at Albany and elsewhere as well, the consolidations of multiple campuses under single college presidents, and the recent reallocation of funding, and I see a trajectory toward the privatization of higher education. And that scares me beyond belief. 

State support cannot exist in a crippling, debilitating context in which public higher education should be forced to make these kinds of decisions. This is the projected loss of SUNY 2020: Since schools can raise their tuition to close budget gaps, the state doesn’t feel the same contractual obligation to fund them. And if resource allocation is 87 percent based on enrollment, then at a college like Geneseo where enrollment isn’t going to increase at a rate comparable to rising rational tuition, students will inevitably wind up paying more tuition while their school sees less resources from the state – based on SUNY’s own rules. 

If you want to kill a community but don’t want to dirty your own hands, sometimes it’s best to make conditions so unbearable that the community destroys itself.

- Jesse Goldberg, Class of 2012

Letter to the Editor: Political correctness reflects real inequalities

Emma Jean Liberman, Womyn's Action Coalition President

I wonder how Mr. Yager, a man, would feel if I referred exclusively to first year students as "freshwomen."

He would tell me I'm being "politically correct" but would he call me out for oppressive language if I call all first-year students "freshmen?"

Mr. Yager asks us to consider the Declaration of Independence, questioning what would happen if the founding fathers had included every single label. I ask him to consider the fact that at the time it was written the groups he mentions – women, African Americans, non-landowning white men – were not considered people in the eyes of the law. That was self-evident to Thomas Jefferson. They weren't "all" created equal and indeed the language reflected that. White men were people. The rest of us? Well, we weren't.

To Mr. Yager we're all just people. This is because, sir, you're not routinely seen as a subcategory or special group of human. After all, George Washington wasn't our first white male president, he was just our first president.

Mr. Yager, please don't ask me to give up my labels. I'm statistically likely to earn 78 cents to your $1 due to my femaleness. My marriage won't be federally acknowledged because of my queerness. When I ask you to call me a queer woman it's because I don't want to be lumped into groups that are assumed to have certain privileges that I don't. When I ask you to remember my differences it is because those differences make my life significantly more difficult. I'm terribly sorry you have to adjust your language.

How about this: I won't ask you to refer to humanity as "humankind" instead of "mankind" when you make sure that one in four women won't be sexually assaulted, when you make sure that Black men are not put on death row at nearly four times the rate of white men accused of similar crimes. Fair deal?

Sincerely,

Emma Jean Liberman

Womyn's Action Coalition President

College mourns loss of Jay Choi, 22

Dean of Students Leonard Sancilio sent the following email to students on April 20:

It is with profound sadness that I inform you of the passing of one of our students, Jay Young Choi, of Johnson City, N.Y., this past Friday, April 15.

A graduate of Johnson City Sr. High School, Jay entered Geneseo in the fall of 2007 and was a philosophy major.  To those who knew him, Jay was a talented athlete and musician, a disciplined student, a deep thinker and conversationalist, a loyal friend, and a "truly amazing person."

A representative of the college has spoken with Jay's family to convey our condolences.  In keeping with his religious beliefs, services have already been completed.

We are family at Geneseo, and the loss of one affects us all.  Now is the time to come together to support one another and those who cared for Jay.    

Members of the College Counseling staff will be made available as needed to support the College community during this time of loss. Anyone who would like to speak individually with a counselor should contact Counseling Services at 585-245-5716.

Please join me in keeping Jay, his family, and his friends in your thoughts and prayers during this sorrowful time.