Nassau Community College
AAUP Advocacy Chapter
August 31, 2015
NCC AAUP has joined hands with our students today to launch an exciting campaign: LET US LEARN/ LET THEM LEARN. This campaign, co-sponsored by the SGA, Amnesty International, NYPIRG and the Computer Graphics Club, aims to preserve community colleges as institutions providing high quality low cost educational opportunities for all America’s people.
Our nation has a history of defending human rights not only for our citizens but also for those around the world and yet one of the most basic human rights that we tend to forget is the right to an education. Community colleges were created as democracy’s colleges with this concept in mind. Unfortunately, there has been a startling shift in the thinking about the role of community colleges- a shift away from educating our students into just training them for immediate employment in local industry.
Governors across the country are starving public higher education and in the process creating a two-tiered higher education system- one for the rich and one for everyone else. Our students deserve more. They have a right to an education, one grounded in the same liberal arts tradition as students who can afford to attend baccalaureate institutions. Job training merely for employment in local industry without empowering students “to think intensively and to think critically” will be the first step towards a two tiered system of education one that is separate and unequal.
We need to maintain the historic role of the community college in our nation as a beacon for all students from all backgrounds who dare to dream big. Please join us at our Kick-Off event on September 24th during club hour in CCB 252/253 and say to the politicians and public “Let Them Learn”. We hope to see you then.
Sincerely,
NCC AAUP Advocacy Chapter
NCC AAUP Advocacy Chapter 