With budget cuts looming, CSI
students receive recognition
They complete work in
Adult Learning Center, which will have funding reduced by
11 percent next term
Staten Island Advance - May 25, 2004
The joy of yesterday’s recognition ceremony for
students in the College of Staten Island’s Adult Learning Center had
a tinge of sorrow attached next year’s term will begin with an 11
percent cut in the budget.
“A program like ours should not receive cuts,” said
Staci Weile, program director, and director of grants and public
contracts for CSI’s Office of Continuing Education and Professional
Development. “The work we do is too important to the community.”
About 100 people gathered in the Green Dolphin
Lounge on the Willowbrook campus to celebrate the success and hard
work of students in the free program, which offers instruction in
basic education, English as a Second Language (ESL) and preparation
for the General Equivalency Diploma (GED).
According to Ms. Weile, the program served more than
750 students over the past year. It receives grant funding from
state and city education departments.
Next year, the program will have to cut enrollment
by at least 120, further glutting the waiting list, which already
stands at over 250. Class hours and the ability to hire full-time
faculty will also be decreased, she said.
But that news did little to dampen the mood, as
students both young and old gathered, to celebrate a year’s worth of
I hard work and dedication.
Iris Napolitano, a GED teacher in the program,
praised the center for raising its students’ self-esteem.
“A lot of people come to these programs, and they’re
stuck in dead-end jobs and they don’t know where to go,” she said.
“This program lets them know that they’re important.”
Suk Hui Nico of Great Kills enthusiastically
recounted her education in ESL, beginning with the alphabet and the
difference between upper- and lower-case letters, to her current
English reading habits.
“If you met me three years ago, I would have said,
‘hi,’ ‘thank you,’ and ‘bye,’ and that’s it,” she said.
Meanwhile, Bulls Head resident Sanda Ricker, a GED
student, has a lofty goal — an aspiring writer, she wants to trump
J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic, “The Lord of the Rings.”
“I’ve always wanted to be a writer, and from this
program, I got a lot of motivation,” she said.
by Rob Hart
Reprinted here with permission from the
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