In this time of economic crisis, we need to think about the future…of the nation and the Commonwealth. Education is a way out of this crisis, because we all know we need educated workers. And we can give them those workers.
It makes no sense to have budget surpluses for years and again in the future and be talking about eliminating jobs.
Paul Quinn, professor of Physics and Kutztown APSCUF chapter president, spoke to the Board after his class adjourned [a transcription]–
I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak given our schedules.
Since I became chapter president, we have worked with the administration here to accomplish some things. And we have. We have passed the first general education changes since before I was born [laughter], which was a very big deal.
But this last year has been a problem. We now are talking retrenchment. And that hurts these students. And they are why we are here.
We started in March talking about 52 jobs and now its down to maybe 7. But it’s still 7 jobs. And that’s too many. Because it hurts the people and it hurts most of all these students.
In this time of economic crisis, we need to think about the future…of the nation and the Commonwealth. Education is a way out of this crisis, because we all know we need educated workers. And we can give them those workers. We do a good job here and in state system schools.
Let me give you an example about how these retrenchment cuts hurt. One of the programs still ready to be retrenched is the Nursing program. We live in a time when health care is important. Both the state and Federal governments continue to work on health care. We need more health care providers.
But here, we’ve decided we can no longer afford a nursing program. It’s hard to imagine how that’s not short-sighted.
What we need is for you all to make sure we have funding — to go to the state and lobby to do better. And we need higher tuition.
Because we need to be careful with retrenchment — no matter what, even if we don’t end up retrenching, we can ruin programs. Like nursing — even if there aren’t any lost jobs, we’ve lost the confidence of people and we’ll probably have to rebuild.
So, let’s be careful.
And you look at the budget you are about to pass — Kutztown is page 33 — and you see black for 2011-12 (see kuxchange for comments on this)! With those numbers, how can we be talking retrenchment? Dr. Cevallos has been good about sharing numbers, but what they have proposed here has been draconian, and now…
It makes no sense to have budget surpluses for years and again in the future and be talking about eliminating jobs.
Let’s be careful, because these students deserve those programs and those opportunities.#