To Whom it May Concern;
I would first like to welcome everyone back, and to welcome our latest class of Freshman to College of Staten Island. For those of you who may not have read Third Rail before, my name is Michael Miley. I am the Non-Fiction Director of Third Rail Magazine. That job requires me to gather submissions and check them for factual accuracy. Sadly, I must admit that my last letter had a few inaccuracies in it. I would like to start out by correcting them.
As well as being the Non-Fiction Director of Third Rail, I am also employed by the Office of Student Life here at CSI. I claimed in the previous issue that my fellow workers and I had received a $1/hour pay cut. The truth of that statement was called into question. Student Life's employees are paid out of a grant that has not increased. However, we continue to hire more employees and hold more events that all must be paid from this unaltered grant. This has led to some employees barely working nine hours per week.
This leads to serious quality-of-life issues for those of us who have been unable to find a second job to supplement the meager income generated by working for Student Life. I have had to miss class because I could not afford a MetroCard. I was forced to choose between getting to class or getting to work. I urge the powers-that-be to increase the grant that funds the Office of Student Life, so we can live with dignity; so that we don't have to continue to make these choices.
Most likely, this is a pipe dream. Third Rail has documented how CUNY and CSI have a long "proud" history of employing non-union labor and under-paying staff. I wonder if the only solution is for the employees of Student Life to organize.
The next thing I would like to discuss involves my questioning of the procedure that reversed a Student Government vote. The vote in question would have left SG with the same level stipend they already received instead of increasing or decreasing it, but it was reversed at the next meeting. But, other votes at the same meeting did not need to be re-taken. This left me, and several other members of Third Rail, wondering why that was the only vote that needed to be recast.
Carol Brower, the Director of Student Life, was kind enough to explain the reasons why;
"At the Dec. 3, 2009 meeting of SG, student government approved maintaining of the stipends from the '08-'09 year. . . Between that meeting and the meeting of Jan. 28, 2010, I had several conversations with CUNY Legal Affairs. . . I was told clearly that SG must abide by both the Open Meetings Law and the General Construction Law. What this means is that quorum (a gathering of enough members to pass a legitimate vote) is half plus one of the total seats of the senate and that all motions can only pass if the majority of the senate seats vote in the affirmative. . . This. . . needed to [be] instituted from the day the new constitution was approved. . . Nov. 29, 2009, so the Dec. 3, 2010 meeting needed to conform. This is why we had to revisit the quorum vote. The other motions from the Dec. 3 meeting all passed by at least 11 votes, so they did not need to be revisited."
I'd like to thank Ms. Brower for her time in helping to set this matter straight. I would also like to apologize for the mistakes I have made. I will keep a stronger eye out in the future, as to avoid any further incidents like this. With this in mind, I would now like to move on to the current topics of this letter.
It might come as a shock to people that I do not have anything to complain about. We have a new Student Government, and my hopes are high that this session will be better than previous Student Governments.
Right now, the crises facing us are budget cuts and the tuition hikes facing all of CUNY again. The problem facing New York State is not a budget deficit, but in fact a revenue gap. If we reverse the tax cuts that upper income brackets have received, we would have more than enough to make up for the shortfalls New York is facing. Just to put this in perspective; the upper brackets have had their taxes cut from 16.4% to 6.5%. Meanwhile, the poorest New Yorkers (those earning $15,000/year or less) are paying a rate of 12.6%! So, while you hear people rant and rave about how they're "taxed enough already," we have a situation in New York State where those who fall under the poverty line, those people hardest pressed just to get by, are having a larger chunk of their income taken than the richest New Yorkers!
I'm sure many of you disagree with me. Let's face it; who likes paying taxes? No one! But it is important to remember that taxes are not "punishment from the government for being successful." They are the fee we pay to live in a civilized society. That is why we pay taxes; to enjoy the privileges that come from living in the modern world.
This has become a problem at the local, state, and federal levels of our government, and is a condemnation of the Laffer Curve. If one still wants to hide behind Neo-Liberal economic policy like a voodoo safety blanket, the Laffer Curve is an impractical source of revenue at the level of taxation Republicans and conservatives want to see.
We have seen our tuition balloon over the last decade. One of the targets of the "starve the beast" reactionaries is always education. This is to the detriment of every American, including the capital class who will eventually have to import an educated work force to make them rich. As always, the poor and working classes will be devastated by the lack of access to higher education.
Think of it this way; could you, or any of your friends at CSI, afford $30,000/semester for tuition? I remind everyone that CUNY schools used to be free. Yes, free to attend from its' inception in the 1840's up until 1975. There was only a modest registration fee. During the Great Depression, it was free to go to college. During the frequent depressions in the later half of the 19th century, it was free to go to CUNY. Today it is not. We should all wonder why that is.
This leads me to call out the many, many conservative Republicans; the Ron Pauls; the Randian Libertarians; and particularly the "Teabagger" population of CSI. If all of you are so opposed to any form of government assistance -- which you have idiotically mislabeled "socialism" -- then why are you coming to CSI? Are you secretly socialists? This also goes to any professors who espouse conservative ideology; if you want to shrink government so badly, why are you working on the public dole? Why are you benefitting from the same social spending programs that you profess to hate?
More to the point, do any of you realize that the end result of your push to privatization would be the end of CSI? The end of CUNY, and SUNY, and any other state-run university or public school? Do you even care, or would you rather just make your meal ticket, climb the ladder, and pull it up behind you? If confronted with this reality before you retire, will you suddenly rail against it? Will you spout some nonsense about education being "too entrenched" to get rid of?
It is downright hypocritical for someone to say the government is always wrong no matter what, then get their education provided by that government. If you really believe the government is never right, I would urge you to go to Columbia, or NYU, or Wagner, or any of the other fine private colleges in the area. If nothing else, the debt you accrue will be a sign of your principles.
While I'm on the subject of students I dislike, I'd like to point out that I am a bit of a misanthrope. More than one person has asked me if it's ironic for a socialist to be a misanthrope. As I enjoy telling them, being a socialist means recognizing that everyone has the right to be treated fairly and equally. That doesn't mean I actually have to like anybody. I bring this up because I have noticed lately that many of my fellow students, for lack of a better word, suck.
By this I mean that there are more and more people coming to CSI who don't care about their education. I haven't observed this alone, either. I've heard similar stories from other students as well, so I'm willing to suppose it may be a trend.
First off, night classes have become increasingly insufferable. This is the first semester of my academic career at CSI that I have not taken a night class. Generally, night students used to be older, more mature people who have returned to college to further their education. In my opinion they are being replaced by the worst kind of students; the kind who don't care enough about their education to get out of bed before 3:00 PM! The most disgusting thing I have ever heard a student say was during a night class last semester. He said that he didn't care how he did in the class because his parents were paying for it, and that he didn't care about his education at all. I was horrified! That, and I use the term loosely, person was quite literally wasting a seat in that class that would have been put to better use if it were left empty.
We will always have people like this in the CUNY system, especially as a college education becomes more necessary in the future. However, I have noticed a sharp increase in this kind of student since the economy bottomed out a few years ago. It's as if CSI were some sort of place for lazy people to hide from the real world for a while! College is an institution of higher learning, not a day care for 18-24 year olds. I'm convinced we need proper vocational schools in the U.S., akin to what is done in Germany. College isn't for everyone, but everyone does need job training. It would be in the best interests of our country to make more avenues to success available to the next generation.
As I come to a close, I'd like to focus on some of the problems at CSI. In previous letters I have asked Student Government to take positive action, and I'd like to continue that tradition now.
To our new Student Government; I congratulate you on your election, and look forward to the coming year. I'm sure that you are aware of many of the shared grievances of the student body.
Academic advisement is a sick joke. Many students have had their graduation set back a full semester or more by a failed interdepartmental communication system, and over-reliance on an imperfect technology.
Textbooks are still over-priced. The Book Store still holds a near-monopoly on the information we need to succeed.
The quality of food in the commissary has improved, but the prices are still quite high. Many students have to make a ~2 mile round trip to 7-Eleven to afford a slightly cheaper lunch.
Adequate night lighting on campus is a lovely idea, I hope we get some soon. As someone who frequently leaves this campus after dark, I can tell you that picking a path across the cracked, uneven sidewalks that lead to the front gate is tricky business.
The Campus Center leaks like a sieve whenever it rains. I have witnessed more than one person slip and fall on wet floors in that building.
There are many problems facing CSI, and that's ok. It's ok to admit that there are problems. As soon as we know something is wrong, we can work to fix it. I want to see our problems fixed. In the end, I do love CSI. It's given me many opportunities I wouldn't have had otherwise. But I'm also disappointed. The way we treat the students like a piggy bank to break open and fix our fiscal problems is wrong. The way that common-sense solutions, like fixing a leak in the ceiling, seem never to be made is wrong.
I do believe that we can be better. We don't have to be mocked as the "College of Stupid Idiots" forever. We can make CSI worthy of respect. We can be an institution that treats everyone, from the President to the incoming Freshman, with fairness and respect. If this is just the fever-dream of a madman, then I hope the fever doesn't break. I would not choose to dream of anything else and I do not know why any of you would either.
As ever,
Comrade Miley