Stony Brook RA Union

Students hit the ceiling over fees

By Elana Glowatz

Village Times Herald

March 10, 2011 | 10:04 AM

The Student Activities Center plaza at Stony Brook University became a stage for airing grievances March 2 when research assistants along with graduate and undergraduate students gathered to protest budget cuts to public education proposed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo as well as fee increases proposed by Stony Brook.

Sarah Campbell, a research assistant in the physics department, took the bullhorn and said to the crowd, “We know it’s a tough time … we’re not asking for much.” Campbell said some student fees have doubled since she started working: “It’s basically a pay cut for us.”

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Stony Brook students protest cuts, fee hikes

by Claude Solnik

Published: March 4, 2011

About 175 graduate student employees and undergraduates on Wednesday protested against the state for cutting funds to Stony Brook University and against the school itself for hiking fees.

The employees and students rallied outside the school’s Student Activities Center and then marched inside to deliver their message to administrators at a forum organized by the school to gather feedback on the fee increases.

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Students Protest Proposed Fee Increase

By Christine Sampson | March 4, 2011

Several dozen undergraduate and graduate students angry over a proposed increase in comprehensive fees gathered in protest Wednesday outside the Student Activities Center, where a panel of administrators were conducting a panel discussion on that very issue.

The university is proposing an increase in fees, including the technology fee, transportation fee, infirmary fee, and athletics fee, which could amount to $121 per semester to support those areas of service. Administrators described those services as self-supporting programs on campus and said the fee increase is not set in stone.

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To sir, with love

by LIBN Staff
Published: February 18, 2011

Samuel Stanley got hundreds of valentines Monday from a single suitor. But it had nothing to do with love.  The Research Assistants Union hand delivered the cards to the president of Stony Brook University, thanking him for waiving annual transportation fees for RAs. But buried in the gooey good feeling was a union demand, uh, request, to waive a technology fee.

Talk about strange bedfellows. The RAs have loudly condemned Stony Brook for union busting, violating school policy and locking them out of events. But then, love-hate relationships are tempestuous.

Stanley told Confidential he’d never received so many valentines. But his lips were sealed about waiving the second fee.

“It was very cordial, lots of smiling,” said union official Jim McAsey on the delivery. “He was feeling the love, I guess.”

The union, which is still negotiating its first contract, is genuinely grateful, but wants more, McAsey said.

Still, he sounded weary of pursuing someone playing hard-to-get: “President Stanley has been flirting with us a little, by waiving the transportation fee. But the technology fee is really breaking our hearts.”

Union Lobbies to Eliminate Technology Fee

February 17, 2011

Members of the Research Assistants Union called on university president Samuel Stanley Jr. this week to eliminate the technology fee for research assistants – just one day before the university announced it is considering raising general student fees.

About 25 RAs dropped by Stanley’s office unannounced around noon on Monday to deliver handwritten valentines thanking him for his recent decision to waive their transportation fee and asking him to axe their technology fee, which members of the union have called redundant.

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SUNY perks get a trim

By JAMES M. ODATO Capitol Bureau
Published: 12:46 a.m., Saturday, September 25, 2010

ALBANY — Citing a rock ‘n’ roll ballad, the State University of New York’s chancellor on Friday said she is forfeiting her $90,000 housing allowance to pay for three $30,000 raises she arranged for three top lieutenants.

“As the Rolling Stones said: You can’t always get what you want,” Nancy Zimpher told a Senate panel that called her to explain compensation and expenses that some lawmakers had said were out of step with layoffs, cutbacks and a general fiscal austerity sweeping state government.

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