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Be there May 5 and bring a colleague
We need you on Thursday, May 5. May 5 is the day the mayor announces his planned budget for the city, and the day the City Council begins negotiating to restore money the mayor has cut. To win a budget (and a contract!) that offers more than austerity for our students and ourselves, we need to be visible and audible that day.
We will meet on the steps of City Hall at 4:00 PM for a demonstration, then at 4:30 we will march to Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC) on Chambers Street for a 5:00 rally. Please join us in standing up for the principle that this generation of working New Yorkers is entitled to an opportunity for college education just as past generations were. Join us also in standing for the principle that the people who serve these students are entitled to salaries and conditions that allow us to do our best work. As faculty and staff we are scattered over 23 campuses and five boroughs; on May 5 we need to stand up together to demonstrate visibly how powerful we are.
Email Alex Reusing to let us know that you’ll be there and share a flyer about the event with your colleagues.
Sign up for CUNY at the Council—Wednesday, May 11; lobby with CUNY students
Together, the PSC, New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG) and the University Student Senate (USS) are advocating a city budget platform that calls for full restoration of the $63.1 million in funding for CUNY community colleges that was left out of the mayor’s proposed budget. We are also urging for the full restoration of city funds for Vallone Scholarships, Black Male Initiative, Murphy Institute for Worker Education, Center for Puerto Rican Studies, the Dominican Studies Institutes and Creative Arts Team.
Amanda Magalhaes (212-354-1252 ext 221) can register you to take part in Wednesday, May 11 lobby visits, which will be attended by students, faculty and staff from CUNY. You can sign up for meetings scheduled in the morning and/or the afternoon. All meetings will take place at 250 Broadway.
On May 12, make banks and millionaires pay
A growing coalition of community, labor, and progressive groups are joining forces for a major mobilization in Lower Manhattan on Thursday, May 12. The action is being organized to highlight the relationship between the growing inequality of wealth, taxation and the city’s revenue/budget issues. Visit OnMay12.org for more information.
The mobilization will begin at 4:00 p.m. with rallies and orientations at eight different assembly sites throughout lower Manhattan. (PSC members will assemble at City Hall with the Education group.) After gathering at assembly sites, the various groups will march and converge on Wall Street where participants will take part in any of 100+ teach-ins.
A number of PSC members are already signed up to lead teach-ins at the event. Many others plan to attend. Please email Rob Murray to confirm your interest in participating on May 12th, and indicate if you’d like to run a teach-in too.
Academic freedom forum-May 10
PSC’s Academic Freedom Committee is hosting a forum entitled The Ongoing Attack on Academic Freedom: Which Way Forward on Tuesday, May 10.
Keynote speaker Frances Fox Piven, professor of political science and sociology at The Graduate Center, will be joined at the event by a panel of experts that will include Anita Levy, Associate Secretary of Academic Freedom for the American Association of University Professors (AAUP); Blanche Wiesen Cook, professor of history at John Jay; Clarence Taylor, professor of history and Black and Hispanic studies at Baruch; and Kristofer Petersen-Overton, doctoral student at The Graduate Center and adjunct professor at Brooklyn College. Academic freedom Committee Chair Stephen Leberstein will moderate.
The event will run from 6:00-9:00 PM. It will take place at the PSC office in the Union Hall on the 16th floor of 61 Broadway. Refreshments will be available.
PSC member honored for workplace health and safety work
The New York State Network of Occupational Health Clinics, Legislators, Labor and Community Leaders (OCHN) has chosen to honor Hunter College Professor Emeritus David Kotelchuck with their 2011 “4ever CHAMPION” award. A delegate for the PSC Retirees chapter and a PSC health and safety coordinator, Dr. Kotelchuck is being honored for his role in founding the OCHN network and his service on the Mount Sinai and Bellevue occupational health centers advisory boards.
