Special Edition: February's Budget Rally in Harrisburg

APSCUF-KU Newsletter Special Edition M 15 February

The Spirit of Activism Ignites in Harrisburg 3

#FundOrFail: Pennsylvania State System Students Demand Full Funding Kevin Mahoney Raging Chicken Press

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Students speak of the consequences of legislator’s indifference.

Shelby Slifer Antaneyah Johnson Russell C. Brown

Standing at the base of the rotunda steps, watching hundreds of state system students advocating for themselves, my activist heart swelled with pride. Our Kutztown students were in a group high up on the steps, extending onto the second level, but I could see their signs – the signs they had hand-drawn and colored and glittered at the two sign-making parties we held on Feb. 4 in preparation for this important funding rally in Harrisburg. Our KU students now stood with hundreds of their peers from the 13 other state system schools chanting and cheering and demanding the state do its job and fully fund its own higher education system.

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We went to Harrisburg to be heard and I do believe we succeeded.

“Fund our schools” was the longest and loudest chant before the speeches began and it gave me a chill – this was the spirit of activism that I’d been longing to see reignite on Kutztown’s campus. Here it was and there were our students participating.

“You don’t have to be a D or a R to fund an A.

I was especially impressed when Ken Mash, state APSCUF president, opened the floor for any student to speak, and I locked eyes with Russell Brown, the student chair of KU’s Political Science Club. We shared a look, he pointed to the podium, I nodded and motioned for him to come down. He picked his way through the tightly packed steps of fellow PASSHE students, who readily made way for him.

And when he spoke, he was eloquent, firm, and landed one of the best final lines of the day as he encouraged everyone to dismiss partisanship when funding PASSHE: “It doesn’t matter if you are a D or an R to fund our A’s.”

seeking out their representatives, wandered around photographing the impressive state house (because many have never been there), and were flush with the energy of the day.

They took the time to stand up for themselves and their fellow KU students who couldn’t attend, and earned the respect of everyone in attendance, watching on Twitter and Facebook, and the press who actively pulled the speaker students aside to interview them after they walked away from the podium.

I have never been more proud of our Kutztown and PASSHE students and participating faculty than I was today. We went to Harrisburg to be heard and I do believe we succeeded.

In solidarity, Dr. Amanda Morris KU Point Person for the #fundorfail rally and member of Rep Council At-Large Senator, University Senate Associate Professor of Multiethnic Rhetorics

After the rally, our students walked the Capitol halls

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Special Edition: February's Budget Rally in Harrisburg

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#FundOrFail: Pennsylvania State System Students Demand Full Funding Kevin Mahoney Raging Chicken Press

“Fund Our Schools!” “Fund Or Fail!”

Those were among the chants that filled the Capitol rotunda today as about 450 students from all of the 14 universities of the PA State System of Higher Education converged in Harrisburg to demand full funding for their schools. After experiencing the deepest cuts in the history of the state-owned university system favored by the state’s former Republican governor, Tom Corbett.

Four years of austerity and attacks on public education at all levels, students have felt the impacts on their local campuses and seem ready to stand up and say, “enough!”

“Everybody needs to know that the reason we are having the rally is because we were approached by students who asked us what they could do to make their voices heard,” Mash said in his opening remarks.

Today’s rally was sponsored by the faculty union, APSCUF. However, APSCUF President Ken Mash wanted everyone in attendance to know that it was the students

approached by students who asked us what they could

You can listen to Kevin Mahoney’s interview on the Rick Smith Show for his reactions to the rally right here:

do to make their voices heard,” Mash said in his opening

The Rick Smith Show

that pushed for action. “Everybody needs to know that the reason we are having the rally is because we were

remarks.

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Special Edition: February's Budget Rally in Harrisburg

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Students clearly came to the Capitol to be heard. Their chants echoed loudly throughout the building:

Several students told their stories about why funding for PASSHE schools is so critical for working families and especially first-generation college students. Following the official rally, students, faculty, staff took their signs with them as they marched off to visit their state legislators personally. If today’s rally is any sign of what’s to come, change may finally be coming to the Keystone state.

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both.

Frederick Douglass, 1857

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Special Edition: February's Budget Rally in Harrisburg

Students speak of the consequences of legislator’s indifference.

Shelby Slifer B.A. English w/ Cultural and Media Studies Lambda Delta Xi Official Member LGBTQ Resource Center Undergraduate Assistant

Before learning about the rally, I was ignorant as to what was happening with the budget.

No matter where life takes me and what career I land in, education is always a top priority.

For me, school and secondary education have helped me break out and helped me become the person I am today. I have met wonderful friends and have had experiences that I would not have had the opportunity to otherwise. Without the funds, it is a scary feeling to wonder where state-funded schools will wind up at.

Over the course of my college career, I have seen the effects of these budget cuts, first hand. Going in to grad school, there is an underlying anxiety over whether or not the class I want will be there. And this is why I went to the rally. A day away with peers is always nice, but the trip was so much more valuable. Standing on those steps, joined with other schools by our side was momentous and powerful.

Am I worried that our voices weren’t heard? Who wouldn’t be. But the fact that there were a handful or so of legislators that stopped breeds hope of the rewards. Our chants were heard, even by a few and the smallest steps, as I’ve heard, lead to bigger events.

Without schools, we are unable to progress in this world. This means that the funding is too; without the funding, there are no supplies and the snowball effect continues to barrel in a vicious cycle.

Antaneyah Johnson Editor-in-Chief, The Keystone Newspaper

I wanted to go to the rally, because it was my duty to be there on behalf of the students who couldn’t join. I wanted to know why the budget hasn’t been passed and how many more people had to suffer without receiving any funds. I am happy that I went because this opened my mind to a once in a lifetime experience. It made me realize that little by little, we can do something during these hard times. Regardless of our backgrounds, we all want to receive the best education possible. I became excited knowing that I was going to be a part of a movement for us to get fair funding. It made me happy that our school wasn’t alone in this matter. I didn’t even know that there were students that were in worse shape than myself. Especially when it came to the funds being cut—I believe—a couple of years back. I knew that in order for me to receive my education, I had to pay. So, I did whatever it took from applying to scholarships to taking out student loans. I accepted that the moment I graduate, I would pay off these loans possibly for the rest of my life. However, I didn’t suspect my mother to take out loans herself just for me to continue my education. I didn’t suspect that as with each year passes, the payments for me to pay out of pocket increases. I especially didn’t suspect the funds to be cut, forcing me to take out more loans. If my family had more than enough money to live a comfortable lifestyle, I am sure that I wouldn’t have the right to complain. Unfortunately, I am not. I am just a hardworking student who wants to graduate, to get a book publish someday, and to make a better life for my family.

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Special Edition: February's Budget Rally in Harrisburg

Russell C. Brown President, Kutztown Political Science Club

You don’t have to be a D or a R to fund an A. These are the words that I spoke state legislatures on Monday at the Harrisburg budget rally, reflecting on those words, I truly believe and stand by them. Over the past two semesters I have seen countless students (some of which were my friends) have to leave school because of the budget impasse at the state level of government. I have witness firsthand the hardships students have gone through. Because of the inaction form the state legislatures students have been evicted from their housing and have been forced to go hungry waiting for refunds that have yet to come.

State and local government have done little to nothing to help end the hardship for the students but instead have focused their attention on pointing the finger at one another and have managed to draw party lines in an issue that knows no political boundaries. Students know this fact very well, Both conservative and liberal students alike feel the weight of this budget impasse and still leaders on both sides refuse to put aside petty political differences to aid the very people that they serve. I often think how quickly this issue would be solved if instead of the students being kicked out of housing and going without food it was the state legislators. If the sacrifice was levied on the shoulders of the state representatives there would be tireless and endless work to come to a quick and suitable compromise to end their woes but for the students; the same urgency is not afforded. Our state representatives have distanced themselves from all of the students that filled the steps in the state capital. As they stopped and looked at the students chant in unison they failed to realize that they were taking a glimpse into the past, everyone of the state officials was once a college student just like the students in the capital building: young, hopeful, and optimistic about the future.

Some how they have lost that vision and have chosen to put differences in party affiliation above that of the needs of the young women and men of the state. The young people that showed up to the capital building that Monday ranged the gambit from black to white, male to female and democrat to republican, however in that moment, in that day of unison those students set aside their differences and stood together as won to fight for a cause that rises above their difference and effects their collective futures. Reflecting on that day I am left with a burning question. If a group of young people can come together lay their differences down and stand together, why can’t our leaders in the state legislator? Because at the end of the day you don’t need to be a D or a R to fund an A.

Let us think of education as the means of developing our greatest abilities, because in each of us there is a private hope and dream which, fulfilled, can be translated into benefit for everyone and greater strength for our nation.

John F. Kennedy, 35th President

Additional articles on our United We Stand, Underfunded We Fail Rally in the Rotunda!

ABC27 FactChecker: Higher Education Costs and funding College students make push for more funding for state universities: “Several hundred students, faculty and leaders from the 14 state universities came to Harrisburg on Monday to tell lawmakers their story about what the 2015-16 state budget debacle has meant to them.

They are bearing higher student debt loads from rising tuition and fees. Some of their friends have had dropped out. Some went hungry because student grant money was held up during the six-month budget impasse.”

Jan Murphy, PennLive Politics Hundreds rally for fair education: “Approximately 500 Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE) students, faculty and alumni crammed into the rotunda to voice their disapproval of the state’s funding of PASSHE schools.

When it comes to paying contractors, the sky is the limit; when it comes to financing the basic functions of the state, the coffers are empty.

Naomi Klein The Shock Doctrine

The current state budget, which was recycled from last fiscal year, provides inadequate funding for PASSHE, according to the protestors. The General Assembly once funded PASSHE enough for it to cover 75 percent of students’ tuition when the state system was founded in 1983. Currently, PASSHE funding only makes up about 25 percent of students’ funding, and universities are taking measures to raise tuition rates.”

Derek Evanosky, The Slate Students ready to rally in Harrisburg in push for state university funding: “Shippensburg senior Olivia Straka wanted to do something while watching her fellow students struggle to pay rising tuition bills and seeing some of them dropping out.

So the political science major began encouraging other students to take their stories right to lawmakers.

"I think to show the legislature when college students do show up they start to realize, 'OK, this may actually be an issue,'" she said. "If the students are here that has a bit more of an impact than if it's just faculty and administration."

Sara Hoover, NewsWorks Gov. Wolf challenges Republicans with his second state budget: “In higher education, Mr. Wolf proposes 5 percent increases in the current year and next year for community colleges, the universities of the State System of Higher Education and the state-related universities, which include the University of Pittsburgh and Penn State University.”

Karen Langley, Kate Giammarise, Post-Gazette Harrisburg Bureau