Got UUP memorabilia?

You know what they say about one person’s trash being another person’s treasure? UUP wants to look through your “ trash.” If you have any UUP memorabilia, the union would like to have it to display as part of its 35th anniversary celebration.

We’re looking for old UUP T-shirts, picket signs, hats, pins, trinkets, photos and anything with a UUP logo. If you’d like to share them, please send them to us at UUP headquarters in Albany.

Please call first to find out what items are already in our collection. Please contact UUP Publications Specialist Karen Mattison at (518) 640-6600.

We’ll need your memorabilia by August 1st to prepare for our 35th anniversary celebration. The anniversary will be celebrated at UUP’s Fall 2008 Delegate Assembly September 19 and 20.

UUP Executive Board meets

UUP President Phillip Smith – flanked by VP for Professionals John Marino and Secretary Eileen Landy – leads a meeting of the union’s Executive Board on June 20 in Albany. The board covered a number of issues, including a briefing on the SUNY Board of Trustees vote to reduce SUNY’s budget.

Five new Executive Board members took their seats for the first time, including Carolyn Kube of Stony Brook HSC and Philippe Abraham of Albany (pictured in inset).

Support updated GI Bill

Vicki Janik of Farmingdale is hoping UUP members will contact their Congressional representatives and urge them to support an updated GI bill proposed by U.S. Sen. Jim Webb (D-Virginia). The current GI Bill offers veterans a mere $1,100 a month for 36 months — and even less ($440 a month) for military reservists, including those returning from active duty in the Middle East and Central Asia.

Increasing the GI Bill’s allotment to veterans “is something we, as higher education unionists, really need to push for,” said Janik, chair of the union’s statewide Women’s Rights and Concerns Committee. Delegates to the union’s spring policymaking convention in May overwhelmingly endorsed a resolution calling on UUP to actively support the bill. (more)

Chapter leaders briefed on budget battle

UUP chapter presidents, from right, Candace Merbler of UAlbany and Robert Rees of Alfred, and Purchase chapter member L. Eric Wildrick listen during a special chapter leaders meeting on the union’s drive to lift the state’s demand to SUNY to freeze nearly $110 million it receives from students and public hospital patients. (more)