Please join the Fredonia University Senate Executive Committee in calling on New York State Governor Kathy Hochul to commit to funding SUNY Fredonia like the public good it is during her State of the State Address on January 9, 2024, and to act on that commitment in the Executive Budget she proposes for State Fiscal Year 2025.

Governor Hochul has the opportunity to make New York State the national leader in college affordability and in equitably and sustainably supporting and advancing the mission of public higher education.  New York is one of the wealthiest states in the nation, with enormous capacity to make the State University of New York (SUNY) and the City University of New York (CUNY) more affordable, more accessible, more inclusive, and better able to transform students' lives and future prospects.  Yet mainly due to the decisions of Governor Hochul's predecessors, SUNY Fredonia, like many other SUNY and CUNY institutions, is facing state-imposed fiscal headwinds and being forced into difficult and painful decisions, including President Kolison's announcement today of proposed discontinuations of thirteen degree programs.

Consider the depth of the hole previous NYS governors have dug for SUNY Fredonia:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SUNY Fredonia has been trying to climb out of this hole for many years.  The university has saved over $20M in the last decade alone through a variety of efficiency and cost saving initiatives.  And these efforts continue.  Fredonia is currently implementing its strategic plan, True Blue Transformation, with an eye toward further efficiencies and future growth.  Yet even after Governor Hochul's historic investments in public higher education in New York State in the most recent two fiscal years, she has thus far only slowed the pace of cuts in real-dollar direct state aid to Fredonia—thereby continuing rather than breaking with her predecessors' tradition of further deepening Fredonia's budget hole.  The Fredonia University Senate Executive Committee calls on Governor Hochul to throw away the shovel and start assembling a ladder in her next Executive Budget proposal.

By signing this petition, you'll be reminding Governor Hochul that SUNY Fredonia, like every SUNY and CUNY institution, serves New York State as an anchor of community, foundation for democracy, platform for civic engagement, engine of economic development, pathway to the middle class and beyond, magnet for population growth and private investment, generator of creativity and innovation, seedbed for human health and flourishing, and catalyst for sustainable communities and ecosystems.

By signing this petition, you'll be calling on Governor Hochul to 

• put an end to the era of annual real-dollar operating budget cuts to SUNY and CUNY;
• fully fund all negotiated contractual increases and other mandatory operating cost increases for all SUNY and CUNY institutions, including SUNY hospitals;
• begin to make each SUNY and CUNY institution whole from the cuts in direct state aid to their operating budgets since the Great Recession (including SUNY hospitals for the withdrawal of mission funding that predates the Great Recession);
• expand financial aid eligibility for New Yorkers;
• increase financial aid amounts for New Yorkers;
• ensure that state scholarships and grants can be used on any cost associated with attendance at any SUNY or CUNY campus;
• rethink the parameters of the Excelsior Scholarship;
• provide a multi-year capital plan to make each SUNY and CUNY institution a safer, healthier, greener, and more accessible and engaging place to teach, research, live, learn, and work.

Please join us in urging Governor Hochul to make New York State the national leader in college affordability and in equitably and sustainably supporting and advancing the mission of public higher education—and to start with SUNY Fredonia.  We'll know the results of our efforts in just over a month.  Thanks in advance for your support, and stay tuned for updates in the coming days and weeks.

Bruce Simon, Chairperson

Jennifer Wilkins, Vice Chairperson

Rob Deemer, Governance Officer/University Faculty Senator

Karen Lillie, University Senate Secretary