Students lined the hall outside of President Stanley's office to protest PHEEIA and tuition hikes

Days after staging protests on campus as part of the national March 4 Day of Action, a small group of students at Stony Brook University sat down in the hallway outside of President Stanley’s office for hours and begged passersby for spare change to cover the rising costs of tuition.

Kevin Young and Nick Eaton (who is a contributing writer for Think) organized the event today, and were accompanied by roughly a dozen other students with jars and signs.

“I can’t afford to pay for tuition,” said James Ging, a freshman Engineering Sciences student. Ging’s concerns are with differentiated tuition, which would set varying tuition costs based on departments within the university.

“PHEEIA is going to make it harder for students to pay for tuition, especially for the engineering students,” he said.

PHEEIA, or the Public Higher Education Empowerment and Innovation Act, is the SUNY-backed proposal to reinvent the tuition model for the 64 member campuses that comprise the State University of New York. One potential affect of PHEEIA would be the implementation of differentiated tuition.

The students timed their protest to coincide with a press conference with President Stanley for campus media. President Stanley did not step outside his office to address the protestors, but several campus media stopped on their way out to speak with students.

During the press conference, President Stanley was asked about these student protests, including the one that was ongoing on the other side of the wall.

“I take it very seriously, obviously.” He said. “Whenever the students are speaking, I’m listening and I hear what they have to say.

“Hot air. Empty rhetoric,” says Nick Eaton. “If President Stanley was really interested in student protests, he wouldn’t send the chief of police outside and charge us with disorderly conduct.”

Campus police were dispatched to the Administration building when the students arrived. According to Ging, at the offset of the protest, there were five officers in the hallway with just 8 students.

Robert Lenahan, the chief of police for the University Police Department, was stationed outside the door. He would periodically step inside the office and speak with representatives from the president’s office.

According to Eaton, the plan was to have two shifts of protestors, one for before the press conference and one afterwards. After the arrival of the university police however, they “refused to leave on principle.”

“This event was supposed to be small and shed light on PHEEIA,” said Eaton. “It was escalated by the presence of the university police department.

The University Police Department was not immediately available for comment.

March 4 Day of Action at Stony Brook from THiNK Magazine on Vimeo.

Ahead of a nationwide day of action on March 4, hundreds of students at Stony Brook University took to the Student Activities Center Plaza on Wednesday to protest budget cuts and tuition increases recently proposed by the State University of New York.

Colorful signs and rhythmic chants lured passersby into the rally, which featured speakers from the United University Professionals and the student body.

After almost an hour on the SAC Plaza, the protest organizers took the rally mobile. A group of roughly 75 students marched to the Administration building loop to board a rented school bus that took them to the Center of Excellence in Wireless and Information Technology complex where university President Samuel L. Stanley was wrapping up a meeting.

Students continued the protest at CEWIT for another hour, with heavy police presence looking on. President Stanley emerged from the building and was bombarded with chants demanding his support for keeping tuition costs low and fighting budget cuts. After quickly taking a letter presented to him by one protester, Stanley was ushered to a car and back to campus.

SUNY Chancellor Nancy Zimpher was also at the meeting at CEWIT, but left shortly before protesters arrived.

The rally had been organized to shed light on proposals by the state and SUNY administrators to overhaul the tuition process at the 64 campuses that comprise SUNY. Those proposals could nearly double the current tuition rates in 10 years, in smaller annual increments.

President Stanley and SUNY Chancellor Zimpher are on the precipice of initiating the biggest fundamental change since SUNY was created in 1948.

Barely six months into their tenures as heads of their respective institutions, Stony Brook University President Samuel Stanley and State University of New York Chancellor Nancy Zimpher are on the verge of initiating the biggest fundamental shift in the way Stony Brook, and indeed all of SUNY, operates.

The change revolves around the so-called Public Higher Education Empowerment and Innovation Act, an initiative that would end, or at least greatly reduce, the strict oversight by the state on tuition costs at each of the 64 campuses that compose SUNY.

If the plan is enacted, it would allow the SUNY Board of Trustees to set varying tuition rates at each campus, rather than one blanket rate. That new freedom will translate immediately to tuition hikes for all SUNY campuses.

The plan calls for a 6%-7% increase in tuition annually for the next 10 years across the board, with certain campuses potentially receiving even greater increases. At minimum, those increases would nearly double the current tuition rates by 2020. Supporters of the plan argue that the additional revenue—which, unlike previous tuition increases, would remain mostly at individual campuses—will help schools like Stony Brook hire more and better faculty, improve infrastructure, and boost the overall quality of education.

But those potential benefits are not enough to offset mounting anger over the plan. The increase, some argue, will inevitably make SUNY unaffordable to low-income families.

President Stanley addressed those concerns, saying that SUNY ran a series of models based on the proposed increases and are committed to ensuring that lower-income families are not shut out of SUNY.

“We plan on allocating 25 to 30 percent of the tuition increases for scholarships,” he said. “We would cover the gap between TAP and our costs.”

Still, doubt remains over whether those scholarships will be enough to maintain the current demographics of the university. And while low-income students would benefit from these scholarships, middle-class families would ultimately be asked to pay significantly more without the benefit of scholarships.

But President Stanley stands firmly behind the plan.

“It will do a great deal to improve the quality of education” he said.

Stanley and SUNY Chanceller Zimpher have also made it a point to emphasize the “predictability” of these increases as a benefit. Past tuition increases have been delivered suddenly and met considerable anger, and that is not fair to students and their families, says Stanley.

“It breaks a compact with our students,” he said.

Instead, these increases will be announced right up front, so families can know what to expect every time the bill arrives.

Another potential variable is a proposal made by former SUNY Chancellor Robert King, who suggested that incoming freshmen be guaranteed the same tuition rates for their four years in SUNY as they paid their freshman year. In other words, even if tuition were to increase during their time there, those students would not have to pay the increased rate.

That is not currently a part of the proposal, but President Stanley is open to the idea.

“I’d like to take a look at that,” he said.

SUNY spokesman David Henahan also added that the current proposal would effectively eliminate the fickleness that SUNY has dealt with in the past.

“This would take tuition costs out of the political arena,” said Henahan. “It would remove a lot of red tape.”

Currently, the SUNY board of trustees is restricted by the state of New York on what they can charge for tuition, and the cost is maintained across the state. Students at SUNY Fredonia, a smaller college in upstate New York with 3,500 undergraduate students, pay the same tuition as students at Stony Brook University, a school with almost five times as many students and many more associated costs.

The proposal, if approved, would likely create a tiered system much like the public education system in Pennsylvania. There, students who attend a “flagship” campus—Penn State’s University Park campus in this example—pay more than students who attend smaller state colleges.

Opponents of the plan are furious that SUNY and Stony Brook would even consider the proposal, which would significantly increase tuition costs.

I began by asking how many Senators were members of the Student Advocates party. The reason for doing this was to highlight the name of the party, not the party itself. I (clumsily) segued into how the Senators at large should be “student advocates” and represent student interests. The point was largely rhetorical and meant to highlight a very obvious but overlooked part of student governance. It rubbed some people the wrong way, though. Why? I don’t fully understand.

Whatever the student party, whatever the university, whoever the senators- the point stands firm. The USG should represent the students. Higher tuition is not in the interest of the students. Lower budgets are not in the interest of the students. Private encroachment of a public facility is not in the interest of the students. This is a no-brainer.

Despite this, though, I was met with blank stares. A few interested souls approached me afterward for more information and to meet with me in the future. The vast majority, however, seemed to be glazed with disinterest and boredom. Lovely. It was silly of me to think that much would come from tonight, really. Representation is hardly ever truly representative. The real power is going to come from the students. From below. Representing themselves.

http://www.defendeducation.org

http://watcny.wordpress.com

Let’s take a look at our political system. We lack direct democracy and vote through a convoluted electoral college system. Third party candidates are shoved to the side through a sideshow of flaming hoops in order to even get placed on the ballot. Democrats and Republicans don’t have to jump through these hoops because they’re established parties.

Next, the Commission on Presidential Debates (run by the two major parties) makes prohibitive polling requirements to exclude third party candidates, thus denying them a voice.

Somewhere in here, corporations and lobbyists bombard candidates with campaign money, support and promises of future support should things go their way. There’s no such thing as “money for nothing”. In the past, these corporations could only solicit so much money in donations and only spend so much on the candidates. Now, though, they have free reign. They don’t even have to solicit donations. They can use money from their own coffers.

Big media (owned by six companies with the same interests) then uses “news” broadcasts to steer public opinion. Sometimes they outright lie. Other times they simply exclude major details. Most of the time they present one sliver of an issue as the entire thing. They manipulate the perspective of voting citizens by manipulating what they’re exposed to.

At this point we’ve narrowed the field of candidates to those who either already subscribe to an ideology favored by big business and the two major parties (who, if you lift the sheets, you’ll find in bed with big business) or who can easily be made to do the bidding of the corporate elite because they’re too compromising or easily corrupted.

Now we get to vote. This is the democracy we live in. One in which candidates are groomed and vetted by elite interests. One in which voters’ perception of truth is distorted. One in which the truth is obscured and nothing is transparent. One in which, ultimately, your vote matters very little and money rules the day. That day is November 4th, by the way.

So, Peep The Strategy

Does it make sense to participate in a system in which even when you win you lose? People say that socialism is idealistic. They say that anarchism is idealistic. They say that direct, participatory democracy is idealistic. What, though, is more idealistic than voting for candidates who benefit from a system that is an insult to democracy and expecting them to change it? What is more idealistic than voting for candidates who have survived the corporate gauntlet and expecting them to disempower the very people who allowed them to succeed? What is more idealistic than sitting day after day, election after election and seeing the people you’ve elected not just disappoint you, but work against you and still expect them to change?

I know it’s scary. It’s scary to think that we live in a country with a completely broken political system. It’s scary to realize that there is a neo-aristocracy running the show. Fear, though, does not negate reality. You can keep voting and keep waiting for change but you reap what you sow.

It’s time, then, that we end this reliance on politicians, our political system and traditional methods of activism. Don’t change the world with your vote. You won’t. Don’t write letters to your representative. Most of them, honestly, don’t care. In fact, they’ll likely come up with some poor legislation which looks like it addresses the issue but is designed to have no impact whatsoever. A good example of this is the Democrats’/Obama’s credit card legislation. Don’t petition.

Let’s abstain from a system that insults us. The electoral system, as it stands, is only legitimate if it is used. As long as people vote, the politicians are justified in their actions. They have “democracy” and “the people” on their side. One may argue that an even worse candidate will win, then! We voted (well, I didn’t) overwhelmingly for Obama. He gave us air raids in Pakistan and Yemen. He gave us an economic branch of the federal government made up of white collar criminals from the Savings and Loans Scandal days. He gave the banks all of our money. He glossed over torture and extraordinary rendition but somehow made everyone believe they had ended. He did nothing about rampant home foreclosures or skyrocketing unemployment. He defanged the already weak UAW. He approached popular support of the legalization of marijuana as if it weren’t extremely important to both domestic affairs but international ones, too. He snubbed the LGBTA community but plans on throwing them DADT as a consolation. He surged the war in Afghanistan. He continues to allow Blackwater to receive government contracts. He didn’t touch NAFTA. He didn’t touch the USA PATRIOT Act. He saber-rattled with Iran and North Korea. He did nothing about the overturning of democracy in Honduras. He remained silent on Israel’s massacre of Palestinians during Operation Cast Lead. Does he sound like a Republican yet? There are two parties in this country, but they’re a siamese twin. I don’t buy that McCain would be worse. He’d be terrible in much the same way. There is no least-worst candidate. Both candidates are the worst. One is just better at making you believe he’s not as bad.

Instead, let’s organize ourselves. No one’s saying it will be easy, but at least it will be honest. We can tackle many of the domestic issues ourselves if we stop relying on the unreliable and commit ourselves to action. As far as international concerns? The majority of our security problems are caused by the economic and military interventionism of the elite. The current War on Terror is a product of U.S. intervention in the Middle East since the Cold War. America’s safety is being further compromised by the War On Terror which is adding massive amounts of fuel to the flame.

I’m not saying that we can have cooperative health care facilities, democratic free schools, community militias, free housing and democratic workplaces by tomorrow. I’m not even saying that we’ll have them in my lifetime. What I am saying is that throwing your effort towards this process isn’t idealistic. Whereas voting for the same candidates and parties within the same system and expecting different results is just plain insane.

It always starts with a spark. Gather some kindling. By that I mean get together with people in your community. Find people with common issues. Make a commitment to one another and people in similar situations to at least try to find ways to solve these problems collectively. That’s how it starts. The revolution is social before it’s political. We need to break free from our current, individualistic, government-centered mindsets and start thinking as if our neighbors are our family and our neighborhoods are our homes. You’ll be surprised what you can accomplish.

If you want me to be a part of your community, send me an e-mail. We’ll chat.

Brookhavenprogressive@gmail.com

“They were under the heel of the French, you know Napoleon the third and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said ‘We will serve you if you will get us free from the prince.’ True story. And so the devil said, ‘Ok it’s a deal.’ And they kicked the French out. The Haitians revolted and got something themselves free. But ever since they have been cursed by one thing after another,”

Pat Robertson doesn’t know it, but he’s right. Haiti is involved with a devil of sorts. That devil is eternally cursing Haiti; sweeping in when the country is at its most vulnerable and working against its best interests. That devil is the United States.

The United States has been interfering in Haitian affairs since the very beginning. First it was a State Department supported move by American investors to take over Haiti’s national bank. Then Wilson’s subsequent nineteen year long occupation of Haiti with the sole interest of protecting those investors under which the US basically ran Haiti’s government for them. This was followed by a road building system, crafted by the US, which amounted to indentured servitude. Peasants would build roads in lieu of paying a tax. When the United States finally left Haiti, we left them with a $40,000,000 debt to us. Let’s break this down. We take over their national bank. When social unrest starts hurting American investment in the country, we invade and take over their government. Our officials acting as their government take a loan from us for them and we leave them with the debt.

This debt, continuous social unrest and overall lack of true independence put Haiti in a never ending unstable position. This worked out perfectly, though, for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) which preys on unstable third world countries to globalize the reach of multinational corporations and foster market/state relations which advance corporatist agendas and undermine democracy and the common good. Is it any wonder that corrupt leaders took structured IMF loans? The United States can hardly keep tabs on where Pentagon money is being spent. How easy do you think it is for Haitian leaders to cut some favors and pocket the cash?

How do the global capitalist elite win? The IMF tells Haiti that they can receive “aid” (loans) if they drastically change up their economic policy. Haiti agrees not to subsidize their farmers (despite the fact that their agricultural sector is enormously important to their economy). They agree to open up their borders to foreign investors. They agree to drop tariffs on imports. So, what happens?

Well, first world countries aren’t held to the same standard as third world countries. They can subsidize the heck out of anything they please. They can set tariffs, close borders, tighten health and safety standards and even embargo countries they disagree with. So, when the US subsidizes rice (a former cash crop in Haiti) it can sell it way below it’s actual value. This is called dumping and other countries aren’t allowed to do it, so says the IMF. Haitian farmers (lacking subsidies) are now entirely exposed to the foreign rice market. They have to compete with US agribusiness but can only do so with what’s in their pockets. They’re not backed by a wealthy state. Naturally, they go out of business. It becomes too costly to even maintain their farms and so they sell their property to foreign investors. While all of this is going on, US corporations are setting up sweatshops in urban centers across Haiti. Farmers, now jobless and likely homeless, flock to these urban centers to find work (think of the Industrial Revolution). The only difference is that Haitians can’t afford to purchase the products they’re making in these sweatshops due to abysmal wages and living conditions. The majority of what is produced is exported to first world nations and the profit is pocketed by foreign investors and maybe, just maybe, a handful of Haitian elite. Haiti doesn’t benefit. Period.

If I may, I want to talk a little bit about the multiplier effect which is present in first world urban centers but missing in countries suffering under neo-liberal colonialism. When you work in your community, you create value. This value is measured in money. Normally, the goods you help produce and sell go to people within the community and the money comes back to you and your co-workers who, in turn, spend that money within the community. This creates a circulation of capital in which the community becomes a real market place where independent businesses can thrive as well as services. You’ll find everything from coffee shops to law offices in most communities and these types of businesses are able to remain afloat due to the local circulation of capital. This doesn’t happen in Haiti for exactly the reasons listed above. Haitian sweatshop workers are making less than enough to actually survive. They can’t afford legal advice or coffee shops. They can barely afford to live. They don’t live paycheck to paycheck, they live penny to penny, hour by hour. There is no community. Only slavery.

So, in the wake of this current tragedy, is it any wonder that the IMF is swooping in with $100,000,000 in structured loans for Haiti? This is stacking debt on top of debt with the sole purpose of maintaining control of them. Some of the stipulations for receiving the loan? Freeze public service sector wages (y’know- doctors and nurses. People you don’t really need during a crisis). Raise the price for electricity. Hold down inflation (this means less government spending… During a crisis).

So, Peep The Strategy:

Aid is aid. Loans are loans. Loans are not aid. I really don’t have much to say here. There is no strategy short of dismantling institutions like the IMF and dethroning the corporate elite. This is not to say that all hope is lost but rather that it’s going to take a complete overhaul in how we view politics and economics before we can take out the trash and rebuild the world as we see fit. Oh, yeah, and Obama’s an IMF cohort. Don’t be fooled.

Now, almost a year later, I expect that we’re beyond partisan partiality. Maybe I’m being naive, but let’s hope we’re beyond the favoritism and living, once again, in the reality of a corporatist state and rigged political system.

How can we not call Obama a carbon copy of Dubya? More charming? Sure. Nicer rhetoric? Definitely. More intelligent? Absolutely. Further left? Absolutely not.

Obama has managed to simultaneously continue and extend Bush-era policies while convincing the public that he has not. His moves to end torture and shut down Guantanamo Bay have been little more than face-value politicking that does little to address the issues. Torture continues under this administration as well as extraordinary rendition (captivation without a fair and proper trial). His health care reform was hashed out with corporate insurance and drug lobbyists. It’s no wonder that the health care reform has become a funnel for corporations since nurses and doctors (majority single payer activists) were granted no voice while K-Street folk got an EZ-Pass into the White House. Raids on Pakistan and Yemen (forgiven thanks to the concept of the “War On Terror” which allows us to stick our grubby fingers into whatever country whenever we please) and the surge in Afghanistan are exhibitions of Obama’s loyalty to the militarism and interventionism of Bush. A pledge to end nuclear proliferation in the midst of saber rattling against Iran and North Korea while turning a blind eye to Israel’s nuclear arms (and even ours) signal a disconnect between rhetoric and reality. Massive bank bailouts, his handling of the auto-industry crisis, the basic neglect of the hundreds of thousands of struggling American families displaced from their homes, and staffing the economic wing of his administration with ex-bankers are signs of Obama’s commitment to market-based exploitation and general disregard for the public. His maintenance of the Merida Initiative (aka Mexico Plan) with the Calderon administration, south of the border, in addition to his treatment of widespread popular belief in decriminalization are demonstrations of his disregard of the public, as well. This doesn’t include popular resistance to the surge, popular support of public health care or popular resistance to the bank bailouts, either.

Does anyone want to call him a socialist, now? Looks like a bonafide, rightwing capitalist to me.

So, Peep The Strategy:
Quit voting. Or, at least, quit voting Democrat. Quit blaming the individual and start blaming the system that grooms politicians to be the pets of corporate America. Quit expecting a corrupt state that benefits from our misery to solve our problems. Start organizing and solving your own problems. More than anything, though- stop bearing the cross. Individuals have borne the cross for far too long. We must solve global warming by changing our lightbulbs. If we have a shitty president, more people have to vote. If our economy sucks, we have to spend. We have to get second jobs. We have to cut back. If we’re being exploited at work, we have to find a new job. If we’re being sexually or racially harassed, we should know better than to dress a certain way, talk to certain people or play the “race card”. What a paradox. We bear the responsibility and the government bears the glory. Well, let’s take both. Ditch the state and start building our world from the remains.

Expensive purchases, like ambulances, are paid in large part by undergraduate students.

Your professor is in the middle of a lecture when he suddenly begins having severe chest pains and fears he is having a heart attack. Someone dials 911. An ambulance is dispatched, and within minutes, he’s on his way to the hospital. Everyone in the lecture hall probably took it for granted that a 911 call would receive this response. But whose ambulance responded, and who paid for that ambulance ride? The ambulance was likely operated by the Stony Brook Volunteer Ambulance Corps (SBVAC), and as for who paid for it, that answer may surprise you: if you’re an undergraduate student, it was financed in large part by the Student Activity Fees you and your classmates pay every semester.

The idea for this article came into my mind as some friends and I, all relatively familiar with the Undergraduate Student Government budget, were casually discussing the issue of club funding before a USG Senate meeting. We were talking about which clubs received the largest budget allocations when someone mentioned SBVAC. Founded in 1970 and staffed by fully qualified student volunteers, SBVAC is not only our primary emergency medical service but also one of the largest and oldest student organizations on campus, and one that consistently receives some of the largest budget allocations from the USG. My friend opined that SBVAC provides a vital service to the entire campus community, not just undergraduate students – after all, someone had to respond when your professor was having that possible heart attack – and that it was therefore unfair for USG to bear the burden of being the organization’s primary source of funding. USG serves not only undergraduates, but graduate students, faculty, staff, visitors and anyone else who happened to need emergency medical attention while on campus.

I’d seen the USG budget many times before, and was aware of the large size of SBVAC’s budget allocation in comparison to those of other student clubs. In 2008-2009, it was the only club that allocated more than $200,000, or around 13% of the total allocation for club budgets, which was spread over 98 clubs. But I’d never given it a second thought; after all, as my friend had pointed out, running the primary emergency medical service on a campus with a population in the tens of thousands is an important job, and one that inevitably costs a lot more money than the operations of a typical club. Perhaps I hadn’t seen the ‘forest for the trees’: sure, SBVAC deserves to be well funded, but why was it treated not as a public service but as a student club, and why were undergraduate students disproportionately responsible for it’s funding?

A bit of cursory research on the web site of the National Collegiate EMS Foundation, of which SBVAC is a member, revealed that this arrangement is not terribly uncommon, but there is a wide variety of funding arrangements for college and university EMS groups. For example, similar organizations at Binghamton University and the University at Albany are funded in the same way as SBVAC, by their respective student governments. The ambulance service at SUNY New Paltz supplements funding from the college by billing the patients it transports, unlike SBVAC, whose services are provided free of charge. Outside the SUNY system, Columbia University’s ambulance service again relies both on funding from the university and on reimbursements from patients’ health insurance; Rochester Institute of Technology’s service is funded entirely by its Student Health Center; and at Cornell University, emergency service is funded much like SBVAC, through the student government. So despite the array of funding options on display, money from student governments seems to be a very popular way of paying for what seems more like an important public safety function than an activity for students (even if the organization is made up of student volunteers, as SBVAC is).

When I spoke to SBVAC President Christine Larose about her organization’s funding, she lamented the instability inherent in the USG budget allocation process, but did not necessarily welcome a change in its funding structure. She noted the large fluctuations in the size of budget allocations from year to year, and that it has been “lately, more down than up,” but was not particularly enthusiastic about the prospect of being funded by the university.

A direct financial relationship with the university “would have its pros and its cons,” Larose explained. “It might be financially beneficial, but we would lose some of the autonomy we have now.”

Direct funding from the university, of which SBVAC currently receives none, would mean more direct control by the university’s administration and less flexibility for the organization, a situation of which Larose is understandably leery. For now it seems that SBVAC is content to sacrifice a bit of financial security for greater freedom in conducting its operations. Besides, with rampant budget cuts always looming on the horizon, university funding might barely be less volatile than that provided by the USG.

So that leaves me where I started, with the issue of fairness to those of us who, as undergraduates, are mainly responsible for funding SBVAC. For the 2009-2010 academic year, SBVAC requested a budget allocation of $182,000 from the USG. Combined with a projected $2,000 in funding from the Graduate Student Organization and $25,000 from New York State – the latter being the only funding SBVAC receives that is not directly from student fees – it projected a total income of $209,000. In this situation, undergraduates would have provided 98.9% of SBVAC’s student-provided funding, with graduate students paying just 1.1%. This, despite the fact that undergraduates make up only 76% of full-time students and 66.4% of total students at Stony Brook according to the Fall 2009 enrollment figures provided by the university. And despite the service also being used by its employees, visitors and others, the university contributes nothing at all.

Regardless, SBVAC does not appear set to receive the $182,000 it requested from the USG; while budgets are still subject to revision, its current allocation for 2009-2010 is $145,209.30. Based on Fall 2009 enrollment figures, that’s approximately $9.85 per full-time undergraduate. (Part-time students don’t pay the Student Activity Fee.) This is significantly less than the $201,000 it received in 2008-2009 (when it requested $199,410), but far more than the $98,189 it received in 2007-2008 (when it requested $131,419.20). Even with the lower contribution, if the GSO contributes the projected $2,000 (which works out to about $0.42 per full-time graduate student, or about 4.3% of what each full-time undergraduate pays), USG will be responsible for 98.6% of the student contribution to the SBVAC budget for 2009-2010 and, assuming a $25,000 contribution from New York State, 84.3% of the total.

Even at this relatively high cost, SBVAC is still clearly an asset to the Stony Brook University community. But that is the entire community, not just undergraduates; and whether the burden of funding it is distributed fairly across that community is another matter, and certainly a debatable one.

Bulldozing a publicly funded classroom at one of the nation’s best public universities to make room for a corporate hotel is another matter entirely.

Salamanders like this one are a part of the living laboratory that will be torn down when construction of the hotel begins.

But in a manner of speaking, that is exactly what is being proposed here at Stony Brook. The “classroom” doesn’t have walls or desks, but the woods by the main entrance of the university do serve as a living laboratory for thousands of students.

Caitlin Fisher-Reid is one of those students. She is a PhD candidate in the Department of Ecology and Evolution whose dissertation on the evolutionary processes of the terrestrial woodland salamander will be significantly impacted should construction on the property begin before she completes her research in two years.

The 13-acre plot of land appropriated for the hotel is one of Fisher-Reid’s most successful field sites for her research, out of 30 other locations across Suffolk County.

“I consider it one of my high quality sites because every time I go there I find salamanders,” she said.

For two years, from March to mid-November, Fisher-Reid has been taking expeditions into the forest twice a week to find salamanders and take various measurements of environmental factors and the creatures themselves.

The focus of Fisher-Reid’s dissertation, color variations (or morphs) within the same species, makes the site even more valuable. That particular forest is home to one of the best contact zones between two color morphs of the species, she says.

“My project has the potential to generate a lot of long term monitoring of these salamanders and of the environment in general,” said Fisher-Reid.

While Fisher-Reid may be the biggest beneficiary of the forest, its educational significance is felt by many more students and faculty on campus.

“Beyond the scope of my dissertation, the forest is used,” she said. “Once I leave, the forest is still going to be used.”

Catherine Graham, a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution, is constantly looking for ways to provide students with real world examples of what is discussed in class, and the forest provides the best window for doing just that.