Defending Public Education: Organizing for the Fall and Beyond
by Doug Singsen
The committee that organized the March 4th protests against budget cuts and tuition hikes has put together a planning and strategy meeting on Sunday, August 1 to kick off the fall organizing against cuts and hikes. March 4th was a success in New York and nationally, but we are still far from where we need to be in […]
Horace Webster and the Mission of CUNY
by Doug Singsen
In discussions of CUNY, the school’s mission is often cited as being to serve “the children of the whole people.” These words were spoken by Horace Webster (1794 – 1871), the first director of the Free Academy, CUNY’s predecessor, at the academy’s opening ceremony in 1849. This phrase is used to demonstrate that CUNY’s mission since its […]
PHEEIA: A Near Miss, But For How Long?
by Doug Singsen
If you’ve been following the torturous progression of this year’s state budget through the legislature, you probably already know about PHEEIA, the Orwellian-named Public Higher Education Empowerment and Innovation Act. (You can find the Advocate’s previous coverage of PHEEIA here and here.) In reality, the only “empowerment” PHEEIA offers is the power of CUNY and […]
Open Letter to Chancellor Goldstein Regarding the Higher Education Empowerment and Innovation Act
by Advocate Staff
Chancellor Goldstein, Although it comes as no surprise to those of us who are familiar with the machinations of the CUNY hierarchy, your recent and very public support for Governor David Paterson’s proposed and cynically titled Higher Education Empowerment and Innovation Act, does not serve the needs or ease the burdens of the students and […]
Breaking News: Professional Staff Congress Rallies Members in Opposition to Paterson’s Higher Education Bill
by Advocate Staff
The Professional Staff Congress of the City University of New York is vigorously campaigning against Governor Paterson’s proposed Higher Education Innovation and Empowerment Act, which the Governor has threatened to include as a rider in his upcoming budget proposal. The proposed legislation would allow the SUNY and CUNY university systems to annually raise tuition as much […]
The Ph.D. Glut, the Adjunct Crisis and the Budget Deficit
by Doug Singsen
I want to kick off the first post of this blog by talking about an issue that every graduate student is probably concerned about, the dearth of job openings for tenure-track faculty, and how it’s connected to CUNY’s widespread use of adjuncts and the state’s budget deficit. We’ve all heard the horror stories about how […]
CUNY News In Brief (May, 2010)
by Advocate Staff
While we applaud John Jay’s commitment to ending discrimination, we are less impressed by its commitment to education. A few weeks ago, adjunct faculty members in the departments of sociology and computer science were put on notice that letters of reappointment would not be forthcoming from the college for fall 2010 for any adjunct faculty, and that indeed all adjuncts would be receiving letters of non-reappointment, a crass violation of the spirit animating CUNY’s contract with the PSC.
Time for CUNY to Divest from Israel
by The Editor
“It always seems impossible until it’s done.“ –Nelson Mandela Israel’s unwarranted and outrageous attack upon the flotilla of ships carrying humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip is another sad reminder that the leaders of Israel are determined to indefinitely continue and defend the punishing and illegal blockade of the Gaza Strip and the continued isolation […]
Burma’s Neverending War
by Michael Busch
Nearly fifty years after Burma’s last democratically-elected government was overthrown by a military-led coup, the Southeast Asian country has suffered some of the world’s most egregious human rights abuses. For activists, Burma has become synonymous with institutionalized rape, torture, forced labor, and ethnic cleansing. In the popular imagination, however, the enormity of Burma’s crisis remains obscured by indifference […]
Faculty Equality Now
by From the Editor
Faculty Equality Now In a recent article, the New York Daily News reported that, although the great majority of CUNY’s more than 450,000 students are of black, Latino, or Asian origins, a predominant amount (about two-thirds) of the faculty members who teach those students are, not surprisingly, white. This lack of faculty representation is appalling, and all CUNY […]
