MICHAEL WILLIAMS
Special to The Leader
As we know, the Science Center is now becoming the crown jewel of our campus, along with the respectable School of Music and theatre/visual arts buildings that give the campus of Fredonia its illustrious reputation. The Science Center was built using $60 million in funding from New York State in 2014. The project was spearheaded in most part by Republican Senator Catherine Young on the premise that the STEM professions will be growing at a much faster rate.
Over the next decades, Fredonia would have to catch up with the times and build a new facility to stay on par with many other SUNY institutions. This decision was a no-brainer.
The Science Center is beautiful. It is a great place that continues to draw in many more students to study science on campus. However, I feel this has come at a cost. There has been a steady deterioration of other humanities programs across campus.
For example, the department of political science, which I am a part of, is still down two full-time faculty. I am graduating a year early because the academic standards and course offerings for the program are very lacking, and even laughable compared to other SUNY schools.
While the campus may be gaining more STEM students, the humanities students are leaving in droves. Students see cutbacks in English, criminal justice and psychology departments and wonder where the line stops.
Fredonia’s long history of being a teachers’ college and a quality liberal arts school is hanging on by a thread. Fenton and Thompson are terrible halls to study in. These halls are in worse condition than my high school back in Cortland, N.Y., and I grew up in a high school that is ranked around 500th in the state. The rhetoric around the humanities is sickening.
Every time I’m asked what the hell I am going to do with a political science degree, the school massively fails in helping. Besides SUNY programs, there are practically no programs for job placement in my degree. My degree is not a joke and an English degree is not a joke.
The president and school have given up on trying to expand the humanities. We have suffered cut after cut for the sake of austerity and balancing the budget.
While maybe humanities majors are less likely to work a job in their field than STEM majors, the humanities are an unknown gem to the world. The humanities almost become unquantifiable in a sense until someone writes “The Grapes of Wrath,” or changes the philosophical or political thinking of the world. Our contributions are priceless, and that scares people.
You should not need to come from wealth to get a degree in the humanities. Say it with me again, your wealth should not dictate what you study in college.
Writing this article will make me no money and not show up on a budget sheet. However, even by saying that, this school has failed us.
The purpose of my degree is to think critically about the world and make rational decisions based on my observations. That skill will always be in need.
I strongly ask you to contact your state representative in Albany, contact your state senator, and especially Governor Kathy Hochul. They have failed us. There is up to 40 billion dollars every year the state could collect through a wealth tax or capital gains tax, as stated by the organization “Invest in Our New York.”
Projections say that even 25% of that, or $10 billion a year added to the current levels of SUNY funding, would make college tuition-free, and provide more capital for the investments SUNY desperately needs to attract more students. Look up your state representative’s number and tell them that we desperately need more money to fund higher education. Great students and great professors are leaving this school — the terrible education policy being pursued by the governor is influenced by her interests on Wall Street. Ninety percent of Hochul’s campaign contributions came from donations of one thousand dollars or more. Who do you think has the money to donate one thousand dollars to a political campaign? Why do you think we come second? We can stop it. Speak up. Make a difference.