Save The Date: May 1 March on Trenton For Education

by: IndependentNJ

Sat Apr 24, 2010 at 03:12:20 PM EDT

http://www.facebook.com/event....

I would also like to share a persynal story about how I became active in higher education advocacy. In the Fall semester of my junior year at Ramapo College way back in 2005, I made the mistake of voting for Jon Corzine in the gubernatorial election (I corrected that by voting for Dagget in 2009, and I still have his bumper sticker on my car as a repudiation of Trenton politics)

Anyway, in Spring 2006, Corzine announced massive budget cuts to higher education and schools were mobilizing. However, my school was lazy to mobilize, due to the discouragement of these actions by our alternate student trustee, Steve Bloom. He was basically resigned to the idea that the state was in fiscal trouble and thus, strong armed members of student government as well as other groups on campus to not go along with me. Unphased, I went down to Trenton and was the only representative from my campus.

I was invited to speak about something close to my heart. At the beginning of the academic year, I joined the nascent student-run recycling program at Ramapo, and a couple of months later, spearheaded an expansion into 3 dorms (we decided to do door-to-door because the recycling bins in the trashroom were being contaminated constantly, so much that I put up flyers telling students to instead put their recycling out in front of the doors once a week). Well, we had plans for expansion when these budget cuts happened, and our supervisor, Carmela, who was a sustainability coordinator, was being 86ed by the administration. I had a chance to talk about this unique program, and at the end, Assemblypersyn Diegnan shook my hand and complimented my story (as well as the bandana I was wearing).

So, even if you are not a college student or public school teacher, I suggest you get out and support education.