Leaky bogs, lacking ceiling tiles, busted doorways.
These are just a few points plaguing the City University of New York’s getting older buildings that proponents of the varsity system hope might be repaired with further funds they’re calling for within the state finances.
CUNY college students and staffers rallied Wednesday at Lehman College to name for a “New Deal for CUNY” and a further $500 million within the state finances.
Speakers mentioned these funds, apart from serving to with much-need repairs, are additionally wanted to rent sufficient school and staff and cut back or work towards free tuition.
“Ceiling tiles falling on your head. Bathrooms and libraries that don’t work,” Penny Lewis, a CUNY Ph.D. graduate and school member, mentioned on the rally.
“Things that would be a crisis at any other university are things that we have been asked to just put up with, that we just are supposed to expect at CUNY. The time for that is done,” she mentioned.
Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposed finances appropriates $792.8 million in capital funding — a rise of some hundred million {dollars} from this 12 months.
But officers from CUNY, the place buildings common over 50 years outdated, have mentioned they want $1.247 billion to deal with the college’s capital wants.
A coalition of union school and staff, college students and neighborhood teams that’s dubbed itself CUNY Rising Alliance additionally launched #CrumblingCUNY to share photographs of the disrepair. The social media hashtag has been flooded with images of water harm, cabinets falling off the partitions, damaged thermostats, and out-of-order escalators and water stations — not less than one with plants growing out of it.
Wednesday’s rally was the most recent in a sequence together with the CUNY Rising Alliance, which has additionally lobbied elected officers and testified in Albany.
Sources mentioned the $500 million improve in working funds, discovered within the Senate and Assembly one-house budget resolutions, continues to be on the desk as legislators resolve closing priorities.
Went downstairs to fill my water bottle at work (bc the fountain on my flooring is busted) and never solely is it too not working, however there’s a P L A N T rising out of it. Doesn’t encourage confidence within the supposedly rigorous cleansing #CrumblingCunypic.twitter.com/RfI2rC7R1I
— ✨MagicAndMoonstones✨ (@MoonstoneSand) March 8, 2022
“Building repairs don’t get made on time, more than half the faculty — myself included — don’t get paid a living wage, and have no job security, and there’s not enough mental health counselors,” mentioned Ruth Wangerin, a school member at Lehman College, who sung the praises of her college students.
“Their teachers want the best for them,” she mentioned. “Now let the state government and Albany do its best for them.”
