‘An injury to one is an injury to all’
Groups rally against PASSHE’s consolidation plan
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LOCK HAVEN -- Triangle Park roared with adamant disapproval Saturday afternoon over the escalated apprehension to the consolidation of six state schools apart of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE).
The Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) from West Chester University along with PASSHE Defender members from Lock Haven University teamed up together to hold a rally and speak about their stern feelings on the current plan set up by Chancellor Dan Greenstein and the PASSHE Board of Governors. The consolidation plan has currently put 43 faculty positions at risk of layoffs by next year at LHU, on top of a current retrenchment of two professors. The proposal will see a possible 30% retrenchment of the entire school come next year.
PSL has been travelling across Pa in hopes to spark awareness of the volatility that the board's plan could have in each of the designated school locations. The political organization is comprised of leaders, activists, workers, and students from all backgrounds. They are organized in branches across the country and help bring together a new generation of revolutionaries alongside veterans of the people's movements with decades of experience. They are involved in a wide array of struggles spanning from local battles over affordable housing and racist police brutality, to the fight for a higher minimum wage and union rights, to the global issues of imperialist war and environmental destruction.
The rally came in wake of a former public hearing on Thursday where 123 faculty, staff, students, and parents gave testimonies involving the board's plan. 122 people across Pa spoke against the implemented consolidation that could see more harm than good being committed. The possibility of diminishing student enrollment and cutting of necessary departments could lead to an overwhelming impact on the economy of Lock Haven and other Pa cities/towns in the consolidation's aftermath.
Only one person allegedly spoke in approval of the plan giving a 99.4% disapproval rating of the consolidation according to LHU professor Dr. Richard Goulet. He continued by pointing out an alleged false narrative in the board's statements that students are "excited" by the opportunity of consolidating with other schools and claiming fictitious students were made up in the board's eyes. Based off of the results of a survey given by PASSHE, Goulet said that 67% of Bloomsburg University's students and 61% of total students in the Northeast who answered were against the plans of consolidation.
"The real narrative with respect to LHU is that we had an option. We had a five-year plan and it was a good plan for everyone. It did not require any layoffs, transfers, or reasons for retrenchment. We would have had to dip into our reserves but LHU has $53 million in reserves. We would have still had over 7% of those reserves after our five-year plan. There are absolutely other options despite what the Chancellor says," explained Goulet. "His plan is devastating to not only our school but our community… it will not work."
West Chester University professor Dr. Curry Malott referred to the plan as a "scam plan" with the exposure that many brought out during the Thursday hearing.
"They thought that they could convince us that more budget cuts were a solution to 20 years of budget cuts…. Workers, faculty, students, community members, and parents all showed up and said 'no, we see through this scam of what you have the audacity to call a plan'. We are going to defeat it and we are not going to let them get away with it… We are going to fight," Malott rallied.
He continued saying that PASSHE has the money to afford not going through with the consolidation of the state schools. He claimed that an excess of $500 million was collected in taxes by PASSHE within the last year that would be financially surmountable to what the board is proposing.
"It is our tax money that is created by working people. They need to hear from the people who expect it to be put to the use of these working people…. If they are cutting 1,500 jobs throughout the state system, cutting programs, cutting these schools back to nearly nothing, how is that not going to affect anybody?" Malott added.
Another speaker during the rally, Joshua Redd, a staff member from Millersville University as well as a member of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), spoke about how the proposed integration would be detrimental to the staff members currently working at their university. He said that they were met with a proposed outsourcing by another company outside of their union. According to him, it would see that current staff has the possiblity of losing wages, pensions, healthcare, and ultimately their jobs if the proposed outsourcing was to go through there. He mentioned that several other workers have already been furlowed over the last year amid a pandemic leaving about 35 staff members left at Millersville.
"An injury to one is an injury to all," Redd expressed.
Those who spoke at the rally urged to continue protesting and to not give up in speaking against Greenstein and the rest of the Board of Governors. The rally ended as cries of "shut it down", brandished throughout the crowd.