Lots to say about today’s rally, too tired to say any of it right now except a very, very serious thanks to everybody who came to the event, spoke, listened, talked, chanted, waved a sign, read a sign, filled out a postcard, or took a factsheet.
I wanted to get this video from the event, produced by Dr. Mike Boyle in Communication Studies, out ASAP.
Excellent work! More to come as we get links to press coverage. WCU-TV was also there, as was somebody from the state APSCUF office.
Filed under APSCUF, Budget, PASSHE, Rally, Student activism, Tom Corbett, Uncategorized, West Chester University
I hope you all know about this already, but by way of reminder (!), or in case you missed it–
Please spread as far and wide as you can! [Feel free to forward and/or print and post the attached flyer.]
West Chester University APSCUF will be hosting a rally on Tuesday, March 22, to encourage the PA legislature to reject Governor Corbett’s Budget and adequately fund the PA State System of Higher Education next year and in the future. This is part of a statewide effort to hold rallies at all 14 campuses the day before Senate hearings on the Budget begin.
When: Tues, March 22 from 1:15-2;30.
Where: The lawn by the Ehinger Gym, at the corner of Church St and University Ave, behind the bus stop.
All students, faculty and staff are encouraged to participate. [NEW: We’ll be asking people to sign and complete postcards letting the Legislators who represent the WC district know how the cuts would impact us. Please come by and fill one out!]
We are expecting media to be there, so it’s important that the turnout is strong. We need to make a showing to the Governor and the whole state that our universities matter!
Because of the media presence, however, and the presence on campus of a team from the organization responsible for WCU’s academic accreditation, we (respectfully but firmly) ask that you PLEASE be judicious and respectful in your tone and style if you make signs or banners. The Governor and his supporters don’t need any more fodder to convince voters and legislators of the wrong message.
In Solidarity,
Seth
Filed under Advocacy, APSCUF, Budget, Communities, PASSHE, Rally, Student activism, Tom Corbett, Tuition increase, West Chester University
I’ll do the usual links page later today, but I wanted to get this column from today’s West Chester Daily Local News out as soon as possible.
It’s an opinion piece contributed by WCU faculty member Dr. Ed Lordan. Dr. Lordan reminds legislators that cutting the WCU/PASSHE budget as a short-term economic fix has serious and dire long-term consequences, while not proving especially helpful in the short-term either.
Some highlights:
Current and future students of the Pennsylvania state schools like West Chester University — those that are part of the PASSHE system — will be particularly hard hit given the sheer amount of funding being cut. There is a direct connection between the health of the university and the health of the local economy — fewer students means fewer dollars for local businesses…
For instance, WCU has been rated a top 100 best value in American public higher education by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance four years in a row. WCU students contributed a record 233,513 hours of volunteer service in the community for the 2009-2010 school year. Cutting funding for them is a short-sighted decision that will ultimately cost more than it saves and have a direct negative impact of current and future students…
Nice work, Dr. Lordan. And thanks for taking the time to write it.
Via the State APSCUF blog:
“We’d like to believe that we have enough influence with 120,000 [PASSHE] students to convince legislators that the governor’s sense of the importance of public higher education is wrong,” he said. “We’re not just going to roll over.” – Slippery Rock President Robert Smith
I’m not especially surprised by the wide variety of responses issuing from PASSHE presidents, but I have to say I’m especially heartened to hear one who sounds a little feistier than the others I’ve seen/heard so far.
All I can really hope is that, if the PASSHE presidents collaborate on their responses to this nightmare, the energy that President Smith displays here diffuses (not defuses) to the others. Under the kind of threat Governor Corbett has thrown down at us, a little anger seems entirely appropriate, doesn’t it?
That’s yet another reason it’s important for everybody, at WCU and system-wide, to attend a rally on your campus this Tuesday, Mar 22. And to write, call, fax, smoke signal, messenger pigeon, whatever it takes–get word to your legislators that you want them to fight for a budget that will keep our system healthy.
Filed under Budget, PASSHE, Rally, Student activism, Tom Corbett
This morning, a WCU faculty member with a child in the West Chester Area School District sent me this link, with a letter issued last week by the district’s Superintendent.
I’m posting it on the blog for a couple of reasons.
First, I’m concerned that some members of the WCU community aren’t yet convinced of the gravity of the situation, and I hope that seeing yet another example (with concrete, and large and scary, numbers included) of what this budget will do to education will light the fire under your toes (or wherever it needs to get lit).
Second, I’m concerned that some members of the community believe, for whatever bizarre reason, that the faculty’s (and staff’s, and students’) responses to the proposal are somehow aimed at selfish faculty interests–that somehow the faculty are insidiously pushing a selfish agenda on everyone else as we fight to protect a university system to which we’re deeply committed, and learning conditions for students without which you can’t flourish. Seeing this letter from the WCASD Superintendent, therefore, is intended to demonstrate that the loud and angry reaction and call for response isn’t ideologically or selfishly motivated.
Go take a good look at what the Governor’s budget will do to our local schools. And then think about what that means for you–as faculty at WCU, as parents of K-12 students, as WCU students preparing for teaching careers, as anybody who actually cares about the well-being of our state and not just the elite economic interests that paid for your term in the Governor’s mansion.
Filed under Budget, K-12 Education, Student activism, Tom Corbett
[This post takes up a thread I’ve been writing about on my personal blog since the January APSCUF Legislative Assembly in Harrisburg. To see the original post, click here; to see the letter I wrote to Governor Corbett and posted as an Open Letter, click here.]
On March 8, I wrote the above referenced letter to Governor Corbett, asking him to answer a simple question. If his proposed attacks on, I mean cuts from the PASSHE budget were to pass the Legislature and take effect, who do they actually help? To date, ten days later, I’ve received no reply and am not the least bit surprised.
I’m raising that here, on the new APSCUF-WCU blog, because I think it’s a question we should all be asking the Governor, his staff, his office, and any legislator who supports even one penny in cuts to the PASSHE budget–who does it help? How does it benefit students? How does it benefit employees? How does it benefit the communities in which our universities operate? How does it benefit the schools systems for which we train a sizeable chunk of teachers? How does it benefit employers in PA if fewer people can go to college? How does it benefit anybody’s ability to participate in civic/political life, to make informed decisions, to think carefully and talk well, to understand math and science?
Who benefits from tuition that might have to go up as much as 30% to cover the barebones cost of operating the system?
How does it benefit taxpayers across the state to see the public university system gutted, which will ultimately lead either to more expenses for all of us, or a shattered economy around the state? Who benefits from that?
Who benefits from the Governor’s insistence that he won’t tax gas extractions or corporations that do business in PA? Not the taxpayers who not only continue to pay our own taxes, but to cover for those who don’t pay at all (and I’m not talking about poor people whose incomes don’t produce tax revenues)?
Who’s benefitting here, Mr. Governor? The answer to that seems really, really clear to me, and I’m waiting for you to make even a vague attempt to dissuade me.
We’re waiting…
Filed under Budget, PASSHE, Tom Corbett, Uncategorized
Links for today! And perhaps a bit more editorializing than usual :).
Poll: Most in PA Oppose Corbett Education Cuts
Thanks to Bill Lalicker for bringing this to my attention; for PASSHE faculty member and APSCUF leader Terry Madonna reports on the results of a poll indicating that huge majorities of Pennsylvanians, including most members of the Assembly, do NOT support Corbett’s proposal.
That, however, does NOT alleviate the need to keep pushing and fighting. Until our budget is protected, we must keep after it.
*********************
Via Jana Nestlerode:
Tom Corbett’s Proposed Higher Education Cuts Draw Protests
Good coverage including student responses from Penn State and Pitt. By the way, PASSHE students, this ups the stakes for you. Gotta get the same kind of press, right?
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Corbett Defends Higher Education Cuts
The Governor points to Penn State’s tuition increases as the explanation for his draconian budget cuts. It doesn’t seem to occur to him that PASSHE and Penn State are different. And this guy has the guts to talk about anybody, ever, making an informed decision about anything?
*********************
Budget Proposal Targets the Wrong Special Interests
Editorial from The Mercury (Potttown/Tri-County) does a nice job laying out the social class issues involved in the Governor’s proposal.
Filed under Budget, Links, PASSHE, Penn State University, Poll numbers, Tom Corbett, University of Pittsburgh
With apologies to those you who have already seen this posted on Facebook…
If you can’t get this version to print well (blurriness, wrong size, what have you), e-mail me and I’ll send it to you in another format.
Filed under Budget, PASSHE, Rally, Student activism, Tom Corbett, Tuition increase
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