Staff Report
More rallies to protect state university campuses from further budget cuts are planned for this week.
The Many Voices, One SUNY campaign last week generated more than 10,000 signatures during rallies on public campuses, including the State University College at Oneonta, organizers with the SUNY Student Assembly said. The campaign is against Gov. David Paterson's budget cuts in his proposed budget Deficit Reduction Plan before legislators.
``We couldn't have asked for a better turnout,'' said Cariann Quick, director of governmental relations for the SUNY Student Assembly and a graduate student at SUNY Albany. The signatures indicate 10,000 students are aware of what's going on, she said.
``Albany cannot ignore this,'' Quick said in a media release.
Last month, the governor announced an executive order that cuts $90 million in funding to the SUNY system. More recently, in a two-year, $5 billion Deficit Reduction Plan, the governor proposed cutting another $62 million in funding to higher education.
On Wednesday and Thursday, 13 SUNY institutions participated in Many Voices, One SUNY rallies. Petitions are headed for the governor's office, and students also made telephone calls to lawmakers in Albany during the rallies.
By noon, students reported that when they called, they were told by staffers that hundreds of students were calling.
``Offices had to stop taking comments and just start taking names because the phone lines were being flooded,'' Kyle Hill, SUNY Student Assembly associate director of government relations and a junior at SUNY Oneonta, said in the release.
Students at the State University College of Agriculture and Technology at Cobleskill were among those at the 13 rallying institutions, the SUNY Student Assembly release said, and rallies are planned at seven other schools this week.
The first event of the campaign was held Oct. 26 at SUNY Oneonta.
