The Remarks Of Speaker Sheldon Silver

SUNY Day

ESP, The Hart Lounge, Albany, NY
Tuesday, February 26, 2008 [12:45 P.M.]

On behalf of the New York State Assembly and the Chair of our Committee on Higher Education, Assembly Member Deborah Glick, let me welcome each and every delegation from our outstanding state university system.

Speaking for my colleagues, we thank you and we commend you for taking the time to be here, and for speaking on behalf of the SUNY administrators, faculty, staff, students and future students who could not make the trip to Albany today to make their voices heard.

My father owned a hardware store in Lower Manhattan.

He worked a lot of long days so that my brother and I could earn our college degrees. My brother went on to graduate from medical school, and I graduated from law school.

My father would hang our diplomas on his living room wall and tell the neighbors that he owned the most expensive wallpaper in New York City.

Many of my Assembly colleagues have similar stories of parents who wanted them to have a better future and who believed that higher education was the path to that better future.

So, to say that we in the Assembly Majority hold public higher education sacred, is to put it lightly.

We believe - and our record bears it out - that every New Yorker should be able to pursue a college education and earn a college degree.

When the previous governor attempted to raise tuition, we fought him tooth and nail.

When he cut funding for SUNY programs, we put those dollars back in the budget.

When he proposed reducing tuition assistance, when he tried to change the rules for TAP, we stopped him.

To us, public higher education is just that important.

To us, SUNY is worth fighting for. SUNY is worth the investment.

To us, every day is SUNY Day in the State of New York.

Standing up for SUNY is more than a matter of enabling every New Yorker to pursue their own calling.

We recognized long ago, that our human capital - our people - are New York State's most valuable asset.

We recognized that our SUNY and CUNY schools - if we invested in them - could become the new engines for economic growth and job creation in this 21st Century.

Less than ten minutes from here is the University at Albany.

Back in the early 1990s, the University came to me and to my Assembly colleagues with a vision; a vision to form a university/industry partnership that would make this region a world center for semi-conductor manufacturing.

All that was needed was a little seed money.

The Assembly Majority took a chance and made the very first investment in that vision, a relatively small sum of five million dollars to establish clean-room technology.

Today, that small "seed" investment has made the Capital Region an international center for nanotechnology.

Every day, major high-tech companies are moving onto the U-Albany campus, bringing with them the high-tech jobs and incredible research opportunities for faculty and students.

With our leadership, this State is now investing in Centers for Excellence and university/industry partnerships at SUNY schools across this State.

Now, we are entering a new era of support for public higher education in New York State.

I know I speak for my colleagues in the Assembly when I say that we look forward to working with Governor Spitzer, with our colleagues in the Senate, with all of our SUNY presidents and faculty, to make our SUNY system better and better with each passing year.

Let me assure you that as your colleges and universities grow stronger, we will be making sure that the opportunity to earn a college education remains within reach of every New Yorker.

As I have said many times before, with the possible exception of our natural resources, SUNY is the best thing we have going for us here in the Empire State.

Thank you for being here. Make the most of your day here in Albany.

And most important of all, please drive carefully in this winter weather which is expected to get worse.

Thank you.