Tuition is too damn high.

I’m not just talking about the passage of NYSUNY 2020, which—aside from being redundant—is raising tuition at the four major SUNY schools (including Stony Brook). I’m not even talking about the recent hubbub from the CUNY schools with their tuition also going up.

I mean tuition as it stands now across the United States. It’s ridiculous.

For example, the average in-state tuition for public schools is $7, 042 according to the U.S. News and World Report.

As an out-of-state student (I’m from Oklahoma), I look at that number with envy. But, I digress. This article isn’t intended to complain about out-of-state costs vs. in-state costs, either.

Did you know that 20 years ago the tuition average, when adjusted for inflation, was around $2,800? A middle-income family could afford that; they can’t afford the over 100% increase.

But here’s the real issue: Why are colleges charging so much more anyway?

The price of admission is going up, but the amenities are pretty much the same. What are they doing with this money? They’re building more facilities, buying more technology, paying administrators more. The actual logistics vary from institution to institution, but in the end, the costs of running a school don’t add up to the costs said schools are charging their students.

So, why the massive increases?

Because they can. Universities have become a business. Unlike in other nations, which offer free university-level educations—for instance, Denmark, Greece and Argentina—the U.S. has created the perfect storm for making certain people lots of money and taking it from many more people.

College is very in demand. Twenty years ago, the tuition was lower, but so was the number of people trying to gain admission. As demand rises and supply stays pretty much the same, the price goes up. That’s a standard of capitalism.

Also, the reason so many people are trying to get into school, any school, has to do with changing ideas that college is a necessity for living the great American dream. Students and parents are willing to shell out whatever universities demand because they have been conditioned to believe that without that piece of paper, the only job they’ll get is flipping burgers at McDonald’s.

The really annoying thing about that is they’re probably right. Unfortunately, even with the expensive piece of paper, the only job available is flipping burgers at McDonald’s. That’s just the way the economy is these days.

This column is about overreaction and why it sucks. In this case, the universities are overreacting to the promise of lots of money by charging exorbitant rates for college admission. Students and parents are overreacting to the pressures of a changing world by being dumb enough to pay these prices. The thousands of dollars in debt really aren’t worth it.

Unfortunately, the few of us who realize this can’t fight the tide, which is why I’m still shelling out over $10,000 a year for a public school. Go seawolves.

Joya Powell – Audio Slideshow from Brandon Baiden on Vimeo.

Standing in black sweats and a loose t-shirt, Joya Powell, A Stony Brook dance instructor, took a sip of her water and removed her knee brace as she unwound from her last dance rehearsal of the day.

For the past three years Powell has been an instrumental part of the dance program here, where she teaches students of all classifications about the art of dancing. Joya realized her passion for dancing when she was attending LaGuardia High School of the performing arts.

“I was actually a drama major and in our drama major we did have dance classes as well,” she said. “And through that, I realized that I didn’t just have a passion for drama and acting but I also really enjoyed movement.”

Soon after discovering her love for dance, Powell decided to attend Alvin and Ailey dance school, where she took West African dance, jazz and learned the “Graham Technique.”

Dance has allowed Powell to travel the world. She lived in Brazil for four years and studied Afro-Brazilian dancing. After starting her own company she has had performances in San Diego, Maryland and the Tri-State Area.

“Movement of the PEOPLE Dance Company is my own company which I founded five years ago and it is a company of approximately 10 dancers, so I’m the artistic director and choreographer for that company.”

Powell’s family is entirely supportive of her dancing. Ever since she was young, her parents have had a tradition of attending every performance she has had. Even if she performs the same piece two nights in a row, her parents are sitting in the audience watching proudly.

“My parents are a major part of my process,” she said. “When I’m choreographing a piece I would go to both my mother and father for ideas and feedback.”

While at Stony Brook, Powell has taught many classes including Jazz 1, Jazz 2, Intro to World Dance Cultures, World Dance 1 and World Dance 2.

But Stony Brook isn’t the only place that Powell educates students. She teaches for Wingspan, an arts and education organization and also teaches hip-hop dance to 6th graders in Manhattan and the Bronx.

Powell’s love for choreographing and teaching others has allowed her to keep dancing through the years. Although it is sometimes painful, she keeps going.

“I hope that my students learn that all dance is connected, no matter what the style, no matter what the technique and no matter what part of the world it comes from, all dance is connected.”

Quinn’s weekend activities included joining in the protests, eating at the now famous Ian’s pizza, and remaining in the Capitol building after it was officially closed.

According to Quinn, there was nothing to worry about, even though he was breaking the law. The police, who are also unionized, were openly cheering for the protesters. Even if they wanted to, the police don’t have the time or the resources to arrest all of them. A policeman even joined the protesters in occupying the building, risking his own arrest.

Most of the protesters were from Wisconsin, Quinn said, but many had come from out of state to help out. They fear that similar bills could reach their home states if Governor Walker is successful.

Fortunately for union members in New York, Quinn doesn’t think Cuomo will turn against the unions. He also doubts that such a bill could ever be passed in New York.

For example, Mayor Bloomberg recently proposed a bill that would base the retention and firing of teachers on performance, rather than tenure or contracts. The Republican Senate approved the bill, but Quinn thinks that’s as far as it will get.

“Bills like that die in the Assembly,” he explained. “It’ll never see the light of day.” Democrats have historically dominated the lower house of the New York State.

But if Quinn were in put the same situation as Wisconsin unions, he doesn’t think he would have made as many concessions. “It’s a burden on the members,” Quinn said about the financial sacrifices the unions willingly made. “They’re effectively taking a pay cut between $3,000-$4,000 per year.”

Teachers in Wisconsin currently make just over $51,000 annually. “This is not the way to stimulate the economy,” he pointed out. “Teachers already make 4-7% less than others with similar education and jobs.”

Quinn wasn’t shocked that Republicans in many states were vilifying teachers. “Right now they are after the public employee unions. Teachers are the biggest section,” he explained.

In Quinn’s experience, he has found that school boards are less afraid of bargaining with teachers than Republican politicians are of their existence. Unions are typically among the largest spenders on Democratic campaigns.

Quinn’s favorite chant from the protests began with the question “What does Democracy look like?” The response, which came from a hundred thousand union members, protesters, and even car horns (though they could only keep rhythm), loud and clear: “This is what Democracy looks like!”

With an enrollment of approximately 22,500 students on campus and a ratio of 24 students to every one faculty member, waste management is a major issue. One could argue that there is more trash on campus due to the surplus of students. But after facing millions of dollars in budget cuts, the pile of trash is not because of messy students but rather the decrease in frequency of trash pick-up around campus.

With this year’s $34 million budget shortfall, maintaining proper waste disposal and the changing of garbage cans has reached a heavy decline. President Samuel L. Stanley said, “Filling the gap cannot be done without cutting jobs.”

According to a Facilities and Services Department e-mail, trash pickup was not the only thing hurt by the budget cut. The cleaning of public spaces, classrooms and hallways by custodial services has been reduced to once a week, while the cleaning of offices, suites and cubicles has been diminished to once a month.

The amount of ground service cleaning has also decreased. Lawn mowing frequency, landscaping and street sweeping have been reduced in order to save money.

Throughout all of these cuts, Stony Brook has implemented a new solar trash compactor as a part of its green initiative, joining more than 650 institutions in initiating the development of a comprehensive plan to achieve climate neutrality. The university plans to achieve a 25 percent reduction in greenhouse gas.

The new trash cans, made by BigBelly Solar, compact approximately four to five garbage cans worth of waste into one. BigBelly, as advertised on its website, drastically lowers the operating costs, fuel consumptions and green  house gas emissions by up to 80 percent.  Self-powered and requiring no outside electricity to operate, the cans save on labor costs and are energy efficient.

There are currently solar trash compactors outside the SAC, the Javits Lecture Hall and the Student Union (which is located in the shade).

The cans, priced at roughly $4,000 each, help bridge the gap between the budget shortfalls by reducing the amount of attention that needs to be given to the changing of garbage cans. Though the vast majority of garbage cans still require frequent pick-ups, the introduction of the solar compactors will lead to a decreased need to maintain at least a few spots on campus.

These trash cans, which require fewer costs to maintain, are implemented to both manage the necessity of constant garbage changing while saving the University excess spending on custodial service.

Revisionist history can have serious implications, but that doesn’t mean that it can’t, from time to time, be delightfully entertaining. Prime example: the brand spankin’ new Republican National Committee website GOP.com, which claims on its “Heroes” page that several prominent black figures were Republicans.

One of these people is Jackie Robinson, the baseball player who broke the color barrier.  While black Republicans are not an unheard of group, it was a curious choice.  Especially since the only real evidence for the claim is that Robinson once supported a Republican governor.

But he also had extremely harsh words for the Republican Party. Commenting on the shift towards Barry Goldwater-style conservatism by the Republican Party, Robinson said that he had “a better understanding of how it must have felt to be a Jew in Hitler’s Germany.” That’s quite a statement coming from a party “hero.”

Regardless of Robinson’s role, any Republican “hero” before 1964 shouldn’t really count at all. In 1964, the United States went through the largest political shift since the Whig party dissolved.  The Great Society was passed that year, and in it was a large and powerful civil rights act.

Prior to 1964, today’s traditional party roles were reversed.  The Northern Liberal party with relatively heavy black leadership was the Republican Party, while the Southern Conservative Party was the Democratic Party. Which is to say a Republican today would have likely been a Democrat prior to 1964, and vice-versa.

So really, any Republican hero before 1964 should be re-branded a Liberal hero.

Which leaves the new GOP.com with Reagan and… Nixon?

So whenever you hear Sean Hannity say that the Republicans are the “Civil Rights” party because they passed the first civil rights bill, just remember this bit of inconvenient history.

This is what happens when conservatives take over school boards, and textbooks need to pass “patriotism panels” real science goes first, and history is always sure to follow.

Right now, in Texas, the Board of Education is attempting to remove civil rights leaders from the history books, to be replaced with more information about “real American” heroes like Christopher Columbus (who was neither the first explorer to discover the Americas, nor an American for that matter).

As the saying goes, “those who fail history are doomed to revise it.”

The Stony Brook Statesman was noticeably thicker this week, and not in a good way.

The October 8 issue was stuffed with a 12-page, full color supplement from the Human Life Alliance, a pro-life organization based out of Minnesota. The pullout is made to look like a magazine, with propagandist articles displayed under headlines like “The Long Term Effects of Abortion.”

The Statesman News Editor Lauren Cioffi responded to the ad, and clarified the paper’s policy on advertisements.

“Editors are never informed of the advertising that will go in the issue they are publishing, until after the general manager makes the decisions, and the issue goes to print,” she said.

“The News department and advertising department are two separate entities of the paper and do not work together. To reject or accept advertisements based on what the ad represents- thoughts, companies and ideas- is unlawful,” Cioffi added.

A pro-life pamphlet was distributed in thousands of copies of the October 8 Statesman.

Two student newspapers in Wisconsin refused to run the same supplement, entitled “icare…,” for fear of alienating students who might disagree with the message that the HLA sends. The University of Wisconsin—Stevens Point Pointer released a statement on the matter, saying, “we have a policy against advertising topics which have a tendency to cause conflict, shame or controversy among the student body.”

The leaflet covers every base imaginable. It attacks birth control as ineffective and dangerous; showcases testimonials from regretful teens; displays pictures of various stages of a pregnancy; it even tries to make a constitutional argument against abortions.

Most alarming, however, is the fear mongering conducted by the HLA. Dr. Angela Lanfranchi, one of the leaflet’s “experts,” argues that abortions are linked to breast cancer, an argument that has been rebuked time and again by the National Cancer Institute, the American Cancer Society, and dozens of studies conducted over the last few decades which show that there is no link between either spontaneous or induced abortions and breast cancer.

The Statesman, like many other large-scale university publications, uses advertising agencies to gather ads for each issue. The Human Life Alliance likely used one of these agencies to target campus publications. Alloy, one such agency that works with hundreds of campus publications including The Statesman, offers freestanding inserts like the one HLA distributed, though it’s unclear from exactly where this insert came from.

Stay with THiNK for all the latest on this story.

Showing its support for the growing craze of paranoia and absurd conspiracy theories being touted by the right-wing, The Patriot has gone straight off the deep end in a section entitled “The One Party Classrooms” in which the author, (mysteriously named “the Patriot”) took it upon him/herself to root out nefarious left-wing propaganda in our school.

That's funny, I don't remember Mother Nature endorsing anyone in the 2008 electons.

In what can only be described as a strange fusion of McCarthyism and Michelle Bachman’s political ideology, the article attempts to find all the classes available this semester that “advance some sort of left-wing oriented agenda” by searching through the course catalogue and apparently picking any class that talks about racism, homosexuality, environmental science, multiculturalism, and history that happens to deal with Karl Marx (a historical figure) or Communism (a historical political system).

Besides the massive amount of Straw Man defeating going on at the Patriot on a regular basis, one has to wonder why The Patriot is so afraid of classes like “Weather and Climate,” and “U.S. Class Structure” being taught on campus.Apparently they are threatening enough to warrant an urgent warning to all the good conservatives on campus to avoid classes about scary things like “researched opinions” or “facts” or “undeniable scientific consensusthat human beings pollute the environment, poison water, and are speeding up global warming.”

The most telling (and generally humorous) bits of information come from The Patriot’s little editorial paragraphs about how apparently even talking about inequality means that the teacher is a Marxist “stuck in the Bolshevik revolution” or that Stony Brook University is saying that “Capitalism BADD!! Money is the root of all evil!!”

Also, mentioning homosexuality gives a course a spot on the list, as “Intro to Queer Studies” is on here, but with no explanation as to why.Apparently learning about gay people is something only liberals would ever do.Conservatives learn all they need to know about gays from Glenn Beck.

Even more hilarious is how the Patriot summarily dismisses the class “Politics and Religion in Israel and the Middle East” with the great little one-liner “We can only imagine what goes on in here…” Then, to PROVE that the right wing is being downtrodden and defeated, they point out the “History of the American West” is cancelled, with the witty retort of “I wonder why…” I’m not entirely sure why this is a right-wing class, apparently information about Manifest destiny and guns is a good old fashioned “Real American” class, but alas! It was cancelled! Meaning that the cruel Liberal/Socialist/Fascist/Marxist establishment must have seen its support for real America and canceled it while laughing maniacally and taking away all our money to give to gay black crack addicts.

Of course, The Patriot never mentions why it was cancelled, and I couldn’t find out why either, but I would hazard a guess that it didn’t have enough enrollment, and not because of a vast Left-Wing conspiracy.

Finally I need to point out something that struck me. Every course on their scare list had a few things in common: one, they were bound to upset anti-science people, as evident in their labeling nearly all classes about the environment as anti-Capitalist, anti-Human propaganda.And second, any class encouraging diversity was immediately placed under suspicion.If a class even mentioned that race has had an impact on society in any way, it earned a spot on the list.If a class deals with homosexuality, it’s on the list.Any class that talks about multilingualism as a good thing earns a place as well. Care about “Sustainability of the Long Island Pine Barrens?” Congratulations, you tree hugging commie, you’re on the list too.

I am amused by this, but equally worried. When people are this terrified of opposing viewpoints, or in some cases any viewpoints at all about certain topics, its hard to imagine them being able to make informed decisions about anything.If The Patriot proved one thing to me, it’s that its biggest fear is information that it may disagree with, or information that dares to discuss issues like class or race in an inquisitive light.

Photo by Stony Brook University

Stony Brook University officials today announced their selection of Dr. Samuel L. Stanley Jr. as the next president of the university.

The decision will not be finalized until the State University of New York Board of Trustees convenes to approve the selection of Dr. Stanley, but SUNY Public Relations official David Henahan said that Chancellor-Elect Nancy Zimpher would not have endorsed Stanley if she did not have a “high level of confidence” in him.

Richard Nasti, the Stony Brook graduate who chaired the presidential search committee, was also confident in Stanley’s ability to fill the role.

“He has a leadership style that tries to empower people,” said Nasti in a phone conversation. “He will bring with him the best people and empower them to do their jobs.”

Stanley is currently working at Washington University in St. Louis, where he serves as Vice Chancellor for Research.

Stanley’s background is largely focused in the medical fields. After graduating from the University of Chicago with a Bachelor’s Degree in biological sciences, he attended the Harvard University Medical School.

His postdoctoral work was done at Washington University, where he began focusing heavily on immunology. In addition to his current role at Washington University, he serves as the Director and Principle Investigator at the Midwest Regional Center of Excellence for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases, which, according to their website, is “dedicated to improving national defenses against bioterrorism and emerging infectious diseases.”

Stanley’s appointment indicates that the university administration is making serious efforts to improve its hard sciences and medical programs and elevate the status of Stony Brook as one of the nation’s top public research universities. Washington University currently ranks 12^th in the country as a research university by US News and World Report.

The renewed focus on sciences and the medical professions could be a contentious issue with students and faculty in the arts and humanities majors, who have already expressed their frustration with President Kenny for seemingly neglecting their departments in favor of the more research-oriented programs.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nCUsP2y8ds

But Nasti said that the committee was mindful of the needs of the humanities departments.

“We were very focused on those questions,” Nasti said. “And we would not have recommended Dr. Stanley if he did not have a solid grasp of the things that make the university great.”

Nasti also noted that the search committee, which included a broad array of university representatives, recommended Stanley to the SUNY Board unanimously.

“There was significant representation by faculty from the west side of campus who are much better equipped to address those concerns,” he added.

The transition from Washington University to Stony Brook will likely take some time. Washington University has slightly more than 12,000 students, only half of which are undergraduates. That is a fraction of the size of Stony Brook, which has almost twice the number of students and close to three times as many undergraduates.

But the change in environments is not a big concern to Nasti.

“Dr. Stanley is a tremendous leader and a tremendous manager,” he said.

Those skills will be of great necessity to the next president. Stanley will inherit a university that faces increasing budget cuts and tuition increases, as well as an athletics program that is in the middle of a great period of growth and improvement.

Now that the search committee has made its decision, Stanley’s appointment rests with SUNY Board of Trustees.

David Henahan could not give an exact timeline for when the Board would meet, but in a press release made public by the university today, the university indicated that the trustees would be convening in “the near future.”

Stanley would take the reigns of the university the day that President Kenny’s term ends on July 1^st. But his transition would start much sooner.

“We are currently putting a transition team together,” Nasti said. “The day he gets approved, I will guarantee that Dr. Stanley will be more at Stony Brook than at Washington University.

Welcome aboard, President-Elect Stanley.

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