CHLOE KOWALYK
Editor in Chief
Many students felt a fire light underneath them following the list of cut programs announced by SUNY Fredonia President Stephen Kolison last semester.
Angry, frustrated and outright disappointed, Fredonia students joined forces to advocate for the campus and the students, faculty and programs that were affected by lack of funding to the college.
Because of this, two students, Alex Fisher and Ben Evans, coordinated the protest that occurred last semester on Dec. 7, 2023.
Over 300 students showed up to this protest, voicing their concerns for the college.
Following the protest, the Student Association held an open forum for students to share their opinions on the situation.
After the forum, students gathered and bonded over the anger they felt about the potential loss of several programs.
“We started talking about the injustice of it all, and I could see that everyone there was driven by a strong sense of anger about what had been done to students and faculty with the program cuts, and even with the way the announcement itself was handled,” said Sophie Myers, a senior psychology major.
Myers found herself becoming increasingly active in the conversation the students were having, as more and more students began to pitch ideas for how to create change.
“We had a lot of ideas, but someone needed to organize them and plan out [exactly how] we were going to accomplish them,” she said.
This led Myers to take the lead on setting reasonable goals for the group to accomplish. These goals included researching program cuts, interviewing professors and students and reaching out to local politicians and United University Professions (UUP), a union of higher education faculty representing the SUNY system.
“Our pace was truly breakneck,” she said. “Because a lot of the work we did was during finals week, many of us had plenty of free time, so we were meeting multiple times a week, scheduling back-to-back interviews, recruiting more members and basically doing whatever we could.”
This is when the group Students for Fredonia (SFF) was formed.
What started out as a mutual frustration among students has now led to the creation of a full group, with an e-board and a member base.
Myers herself serves as one of two co-presidents of the group. The other co-president is Abigail Tartaro, who is also a senior psychology major.
Today, Myers describes SFF as a, “student group dedicated to supporting and advocating for faculty, staff, students and departments at SUNY Fredonia.”
The group has worked together to organize events and protests on campus, and has even organized a trip to Albany for students to meet with state legislators to advocate for Fredonia.
SFF is now looking to grow.
According to Tartaro, SFF is working towards becoming recognized by the Student Association (SA) as an official campus club. The group is currently recognized by Campus Life.
Once the group gains recognition from SA, Myers explains that they will begin hosting meetings and will continue to host campus events.
Right now, Myers explained that the group collaborates closely with UUP, who has also advocated for fair funding for Fredonia.
“They’ve been gracious enough to provide us with funding, to connect us to their political departments, to connect us with media and to meet with us to continue planning throughout the semester,” Myers said.
Logan McGranaghan is a sophomore music composition major and co-PR chair of SFF. He leads social media for the club and has worked on field interviews.
McGranaghan said the mission of SFF is simple: “Get our programs back, and get the funding we were supposed to receive but didn’t. We also want to spread awareness as widely as possible.”
Myers hopes that eventually, the group will “focus on unifying smaller SUNYs so that we can advocate collectively.”
As the group grows and collaborates, they hope to hold true to their mission.
SFF is a club that was formed because of the shared frustration of students, and the members seem to hold their motivations for starting the club close to them.
Myers said she got involved in SFF because she was “furious” about the program cuts, and the fact that many of them were liberal arts programs.
As a sociology minor, Myers has found a love for liberal arts and finds them important for students to learn.
“The more I learned about why program cuts were happening, the angrier I was, because they’re completely unnecessary,” Myers said. “UUP advocated and won $163 million for all SUNY campuses, and that money was intended to take them all out of debt.”
Myers then described how the Chancellor of SUNY, John B. King, and the SUNY Board of Trustees took that money and distributed it unevenly, favoring larger SUNY campuses such as University at Buffalo.
“Fredonia doesn’t have to be in debt, and it really doesn’t have to cut programs,” Myers said. “No one in [the] administration has been able to tell us how much money these program cuts will save, or how they plan to retain faculty in these cut programs for students that are being ‘taught out.’”
Myers has also found a love for her professors, and saw how saddened they were about the cuts. She provided an example of an adjunct professor in the Sociology Department, Danielle Lewis, who helped her develop her research and has encouraged her to further her education.
“It is important to show SUNY that we are united and we will not back down until we get the funds we deserve. I am forever grateful for the opportunity to work with my amazing e-board, club members, UUP, faculty and alumni who have supported us throughout this journey,” Tartaro said.
It is these reasons that many students are hoping to keep SFF’s mission alive to save programs at Fredonia.
McGranaghan said, “I believe that SUNY hoped that whatever retaliation (which I applaud you, fellow students, for such great retaliation) occurred at the end of last semester would lose traction and be snuffed out by semester break. In reality, the result has been quite the opposite.”
So far, SFF has seen success in their actions.
“SUNY is noticing what we’re doing, and that our voices have power. The more students meet with legislators, the more they show up to protests and advocate, the more scared the administration gets,” Myers said.
SFF has a high number of students, alumni and professors supporting their work.
“We are already making an impact,” said McGranaghan. “SUNY was not expecting such an aggressive response to the program cuts. Kathy Hochul currently has a mountain of letters on her desk from Fredonia students. We are pressuring them.”
SFF is available for all students of all majors to join, and has an open-door policy.
Students can find information about upcoming events and other information on their Instagram page, @Students.For.Fredonia, and can send an email to studentsforfredonia@gmail.com.
In addition, students can still attend campus events if they are unable to attend meetings.
SFF represents a group of students with a shared interest: saving Fredonia and its programs.
McGranaghan said, “SUNY, on behalf of Students For Fredonia, the teachers whose careers you have ripped away, the students whose path you have destroyed, I would like to inform you that your ignorance has only fueled our aspirations further. We will not concede.”