By JONAS MILLER
Managing Editor
and
KATIE KILMACEK
Layout Editor
and
KYLE PRATT
Opinion Editor
Almost a year after the Saint Rose community learned it would lose 23 tenure or tenure track professors and 28 programs due to financial cuts at the institution, students and faculty who oppose the decision are still fighting for change.
“We want to make it clear that this is not a short-term problem,” said Kathleen Crowley, a psychology professor and Saint Rose AAUP chapter president.
Crowley was among the more than 40 students, faculty and community members who gathered outside of the Thelma P. Lally School of Education last Thursday evening to protest and demand the resignation of the College’s president, Carolyn J. Stefanco.
The group, wielding signs expressing their discontent with the president, marched in a circle for more than an hour, shouting “Hey Hey Ho Ho Stefanco must go,” and “Don’t be nuts, stop the cuts,” along with other chants opposing the president and the proposed financial cut-backs.
“We won’t stop until she does,” Crowley said in a speech she gave to the group through a megaphone. “That needs to be the message, loud and clear.”
The time and location of the protest was no coincidence. Stefanco was set to participate, along with several Hearst Corporation executives including George Hearst III, in a panel discussion titled “Navigating the Winding Road to Change.” The discussion focused on how women in leadership positions can work to assert themselves.
Chantelle DeRose, a senior at the College, said it’s “incredibly upsetting what Stefanco is doing.”
DeRose, attending her second protest regarding the matter, went on to explain that the cut programs were the reason people love Saint Rose. She came to the College with the intention of receiving a Masters degree in English, but can no longer fulfill that dream, as the program was one of the 28 that were cut.
Several community members joined the group to show solidarity for the faculty at the College, one of them being Andor Skotnes, a professor of History and Sociology at Sage College.
Scott, who has endured similar struggle at his own institution, admits that the crisis at Sage was not as deep, but that it made him “appreciate the struggle by students and faculty” at Saint Rose.
“I admire the example you (Saint Rose) have set for others,” Scott said. “It’s important for more than just here,” referring to the ever-worsening troubles facing private colleges across the nation.
As the protest continued, attendees of the panel discussions set to take place at 5:30 p.m. began to arrive. As they entered the building, they gave varying looks to the group of protesters, and were greeted with an increased security presence.
As two College security guards manned the doors to the School of Education, five more stood inside, ensuring that the intensity of the group outside did not make its way into the quiet and professional atmosphere of the Touhey Forum, where President Stefanco was set to speak.
As the event began, the demonstrators circled up and a string of short speeches by faculty and students commenced.
“Inside, the president is talking about effective leadership,” Crowley said to the group. As she motioned to those around her, she continued by asking, “does this look like effective leadership?”
Art Fleischner, a member of the group listening to Crowley, is not a face frequently seen on the Saint Rose campus. He is one of the founding members of the Solidarity Committee of the Capital District, as well as a member of the Troy Area Labor Council.
Fleischner attended to show solidarity for the faculty at the College. He compared the situation at Saint Rose to an on-going lockout at Honeywell Aerospace. The company manufactures braking systems for airplanes out of their Green Island facility, and the current employee lockout has been going strong for more than four months.
“I very much deplore the actions that the College and the president have taken toward the professors, both adjunct and full time,” Fleischner said.
Christina Romeo, a senior studying English at the College, has been at the forefront of the student fight since the cuts were handed down late last year.
“I personally feel like these cuts were unjust,” Romeo said. “I also feel like the administration hasn’t really heard us.”
As a fellow senior English student, Hannah Lee has lost her opportunity to expand her education at Saint Rose, as she planned on following her undergraduate career by attaining her MFA in English from the College.
“My program is dead,” Lee said.
She went on to say that the College shouldn’t be run like a business, a feeling shared by many who attended the protest.
The College originally advertised the cuts as a restructuring of academic allocation, citing that programs with very few, or in some cases zero students enrolled in them, would be cut in order to allocate funds elsewhere, allowing more popular programs to grow.
Even though original announcements about the cuts made headlines in May 2015, the on-campus opposition began to pick up steam last fall, as a group named “Save our Saint Rose” (SOSR) formed and quickly gathered a following. Few have publicly opposed the group, until Thursday.
Shortly after the group began picketing, approximately half a dozen students, some sporting “Make America Great Again” hats, marched down Madison Avenue and approached the disgruntled protestors. One student could be seen carrying a painting of a sad clown; others were heard chanting phrases from the popular children’s show “Spongebob Squarepants.”
“There were a lot of actions done by SOSR last year that did the cause more harm than good,” said Theodore Stabile, a sophomore and member of the counter protest. “Our protest was mostly a social experiment, a way to test the waters of student activism through high energy and parody.”
A video has been posted on The Chronicle’s Facebook page showing an interaction between the protestors and the student group.
The 23 faculty members who were chosen for termination may stay in their positions at the College until the end of the current semester, as the cuts do not become official until Dec. 31. All students who have been directly affected by the termination of programs have been promised they will be able to finish their degree, but no new students have been or will be accepted into the programs.
The College released a statement on Friday regarding the protest:
“Saint Rose is changing so that we can continue to provide our students with the academic programs they need and want to succeed in a changing world. This is a learning community whose great strength lies in offering students the opportunity to meet international business leaders and participate in a compelling presentation on leadership inside a building, or to take part in a protest against change or in support of change outside.”
Additional photos of Thursday’s protest can be found on The Chronicle Facebook page.
I work at the college I have also protested with the professors and students once the cuts had been announced. The cuts never made any sense and they did it without the advise of anyone. In fact, they were secretive about their plans until the announcement was made. It will be difficult to attract and retain new students with these cuts. The cuts will not solve any short-term or long-term problems the college still faces.
The College of Saint Rose will die if President Stefanco continues you at the helm. This is not about change. It is about a “leader” who has no understanding of liberal arts and St Rose. She has no intellectual imagination. She hides from her constituencies. She has a very weak record as a scholar. She was despised in her previous position. She has psychological problems. Poor St Rose.