The Advocate

State Assembly Member Ron Canestrari Visits GC

Paul McBreen
The Chair of the Higher Education Committee of the New York State Assembly, Ron Canestrari, paid a visit to the Graduate Center on Friday, January 14. This was Canestrari’s second visit to the GC as head of the Higher Education Committee. His hosts were GC administrators Frances Horowitz, Bill Kelly, Steve Gorelick and students Moira Egan, David Golland, Stephanie Domenici Cabonargi, and Paul McBreen.

During Mr. Canestrari’s introduction to 365 Fifth Avenue last year, a student representative presented him with a stack of hundreds of letters signed by students, faculty, and staff regarding the lack of tuition remission for GC students. At that meeting, Mr. Canestrari was relatively new to the unique set of problems that we at CUNY face. This time, however, his answers showed familiarity with the plight of CUNY—especially the funding inequity between CUNY and the State University of New York (SUNY).

Mr. Canestrari fielded extremely specific questions about how funding of CUNY graduate students can be improved. For instance, he was asked how the budgeting processes might be altered so that CUNY’s annual allocation from Albany would include an amount specifically earmarked for graduate student support. He did not have an answer to that question, but did turn our attention to the Assembly’s Ways and Means Committee. According to Canestrari, the Ways and Means Committee has the power to effect an annual allocation specifically for graduate student support. He offered to arrange meetings with members of this committee in Albany; we need to take advantage of this offer.

We now have the benefit of name-recognition with the chair of an important committee. The Graduate Center, CUNY is a prestigious institution of higher learning located in midtown Manhattan. People are familiar with us and we need to shed our insecurity regarding our supposed obscurity. We must stop chasing our fair share of the state budget after the fact, looking for handouts from CUNY’s Board of Trustees and the PSC. Canestrari appears impressed with our institution, and expressed understanding of our situation as it was explained to him. He understands that we are not looking for handouts but for simple funding parity with SUNY.

The GC community must organize now to keep alive the issue of the lack of tuition remission for our students who teach at CUNY campuses. We must make visits to local offices of state legislators and follow up with visits to those same legislators in Albany. The DSC has met with GC administrator Steve Gorelick making preliminary plans for these activities, and will keep students informed on how they can be an active part of this lobbying effort. Visit the valuable website of NYPIRG (www.nypirg.org) to see exactly which legislators represent you. Becoming informed is the first step to making a change.