Printcontinued from page 1
Iannuzzi is elected as president of NYSUT
The new president of the New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) has pledged to keep the AFT’s largest state federation on course as the leading advocate for education in the state.
One year ago, Richard Iannuzzi was leading his Central Islip, N.Y., fourth-graders on field trips. In April, he took the helm after winning a unanimous vote from delegates to the 2005 -NYSUT representative assembly. He is the second president in the 33-year history of the organization and succeeds Thomas Y. Hobart Jr. (see the February 2005 issue of AFT On Campus). Hobart and Iannuzzi both are AFT vice presidents.
“Tom Hobart has built a strong union that has become the strongest advocate in the state for our students and our schools,” Iannuzzi said. “I am humbled to follow in his footsteps, and I will honor Tom’s legacy by continuing his advocacy for better schools and a better future for all our students.”
Iannuzzi, also a vice president of the state AFL-CIO, taught elementary school for 34 years in Central Islip and became active in his union early in his career. He has held a range of offices in the state affiliate-—from building representative to vice president—and has vowed to work tirelessly on behalf of NYSUT’s 525,000 members, he says, “who rise to the daily challenge of meeting the needs of those in their care, often while overcoming the great hardships that result from unfair budget cuts and fewer and fewer staff.”
“Dick Iannuzzi has been a quick study on higher education issues,” says William Scheuerman, president of United University Professions/NYSUT and an AFT vice president. “We share a strong partnership with our public schools, since they are growing many of the students who will eventually attend SUNY. Another element of that partnership is that SUNY educates a majority of New York’s public school teachers.
Academic Bill of Rights rears its head in Pennsylvania, fails in Florida
Voting along party lines, the Republican-dominated Pennsylvania House of Representatives handed right-wing activists a victory July 5 when it passed H.R. 177, a resolution modeled after the conservative-inspired “Academic Bill of Rights.” The resolution, which AFT-Pennsylvania and its higher education locals vigorously opposed, is the first legislation of its kind to pass in any state. Meanwhile, in Florida, faculty breathed a sigh of relief when a similar bill failed to find traction in the state Senate.
The Pennsylvania resolution creates a committee to examine the academic atmosphere at state-supported colleges and universities. The committee can call hearings, take testimony and conduct investigations on the degree to which faculty and students have the opportunity to work “in an environment conducive to the pursuit of knowledge and truth.” The measure focuses, in particular, on how faculty are hired and promoted, what happens in the classroom and whether students’ grades are based on merit or ideology.
Rep. Jim Roebuck, chair of the House Education Committee, a Democrat and a former college professor who opposed the legislation, complained that “the resolution was so unstructured, so nebulous in its intent. Even the sponsor was not clear on what the precise purpose was.”
The sponsor, Rep. Gib Armstrong (R-Lancaster County), claimed he had 50 letters from people who said they were mistreated. “He never offered those for the record,” says Roebuck. “When we go into hearings, he’ll have to come up with them.”
The resolution passed despite a pitched battle by faculty groups and AFT-Pennsylvania. The state AFL-CIO worked against it, local union newsletters laid out the issue to activate members, and higher education locals devoted meetings and spring conferences to it.
In a letter to members of the education committee, William Cutler, president of the Temple Association of University Professionals, warned that far from neutralizing the academic climate, the bill would “open the door to the kind of political presence in higher education” not seen in Pennsylvania in 50 years. In visits and correspondence with their local representatives, faculty pointed out that institutions like Temple University already have policies and procedures stipulating students’ rights to file academic grievances. Faculty debunked the notion that students need protection by external political monitors.
Those opposed to the resolution at least were able to amend it to slip control away from Armstrong to Democrat Lawrence Curry, chair of the Education Subcommittee on Higher Education. “We think there will be a fair diversity of opinion,” says Roebuck. Hearings will take place in three locations this fall.
With the Florida bill, lawmakers invited testimony from David Horowitz, the conservative activist who authored the first such legislation and is its champion in the dozen or so states where it has been introduced. They also heard a detailed argument against it from Tom Auxter, president of the United Faculty of Florida/AFT/NEA, who spoke on behalf of the 18,000 faculty in Florida’s public university system.
While the bill sputtered in this go-round, its backers vowed to bring it out again.
