I know that Occupy supports the strike on March 1st at UCSC. I am
concerned because I have paid for my classes and I would like to be
granted the right to attend them. I realize the strike is set to block
off the campus entrances. This infringes on our right to attend class.
While some students wish to protest, others do not.
Danielle L.
28 Responses to “UCSC: To Strike Or Not To Strike March 1st.”
Hi Danielle L.
Thanks very much for yours!! At Occupy Santa Cruz, one of our core values is that all voices be heard. I will put your message of concern up as a forum topic on our website. It’s my hope UCSC students favoring the strike will respond to your viewpoint in the respectful conversational manner intended…..
Solidarnosc!
John
Media
Occupy should not be preventing other students from attending classes that wish to do so. Try and educate them on why we will not be participating that day, but do not infringe on the rights of others to attend class. Just my opinion. That said, Lets Occupy Everything!
“If we want a world of peace we dont have to fight for it, we just have to be peaceful and it will come about.”
it’s only one day. many faculty members are likely to join in the protest. i would suggest reading the poverty of student life (http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/poverty.htm) and joining your fellow classmates in an act of solidarity.
My understanding is that the strike will not be physically preventing anyone from getting onto or off of campus if they really want to. Vehicle traffic will be blocked so buses will not be running up into campus, but nothing would prevent any student from walking up to their classes. Whether a professor will be there as well, I don’t know.
This strike is intended to be inconvenient. I think it is the peoples’ right to protest nonviolently if they wish to do so.
If you really believe that enough students are impassioned about going to class and exercising that right, you should consider organizing a march for education up to classes that day. I think that would be a really interesting demonstration.
Danielle your position is understandable but there are larger issues to consider. For me, protest is about voicing my opposition toward the general trend of privatization and I accessibility of higher education. My motivations for protest go all the way up to the fact that we have been at war for a decade, and that I perceive our political system to be corrupted by the influence of special interests. I see this as the central cause of movements like occupy and even the tea party. I can understand why you want to focus on your studies, but it also makes sense to consider the fact that a larger political framework exists that you then play a part in. We could discuss whether a campus shutdown is the best possible tactic for making a statement on these issues, but personally I’ll be attending because I want to show my solidarity for the cause in general. It is only one day, after all…
Students and instructors should expect that they will not be able to get to class. Some instructors are holding their classes at the base of campus as a part of the tent university. I suggest that you check out the website and contact your instructor(s). There are many resources on the website to facilitate this discussion, including with professors. http://march1strikeucsc.org/ Perhaps they will be interested in moving their class to the base of campus, just as I am moving mine. My students all seem excited about being a part of the action.
Secondly, let’s take a moment to examine the statement that Danielle L. has made, which makes a number of intertwined assumptions that I believe should not go unchallenged.
The overarching assumption made in the statement is that higher education is and INDIVIDUAL investment. This positions EDUCATION as commodity/STUDENTS as consumers. This faulty (perhaps selfish) orientation to education looks like this: “I will invest my dollars in my future to get an education, I will make those dollars back in the form of a good job. I will pay back my ever-increasing student loans because the more I spend, the more I can pay back.” This is a foolish orientation toward education for a number of reasons*:
a) It is unlikely that students will get jobs. Sorry, I know this is depressing, but only 50% of students who graduated between 2006-2010 found full-time jobs (www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/08/college-graduates-jobs-unemployment_n_893495.html), and as many as 85% of graduates will move back home after graduation (http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/05/10/survey-85-of-new-college-grads-moving-back-in-with-mom-and-dad/).
b) Even if you get a job, it is unlikely you’ll be able to afford to pay your loans back. Jobs are scarce, and the jobs you can get are precarious at best. Students are defaulting on ed loans at a rate like never before. Student debt has grown by 511% since 1999, to $1 trillion (http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/college/story/2011-10-19/student-loan-debt/50818676/1) surpassing credit card debt as the largest form of outstanding debt in the US.
c) Rising costs hit students of color the hardest – the wealth gap in the US means that students of color and low income students will take out more debt and are more likely to default on loans (Sandy Baum and Patricial Steele, “Who Borrows Most? Bachelor’s Degree Recipients with High Levels of Student Debt,” The College Board, http://www.collegeboard.com/trends).
d) EDUCATION, in my opinion, should not be about individuals. The social, economic and political benefits of education are enormous (Public Policy Insititute of California, “Higher Education in California: New Goals for the Master Plan”; 24 University of California News, “UC generates $46.3 billion in economic activity for state” http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/article/26271).
What pleases me most about seeing my students and comrades active in this struggle is that they are essentially saying “NO, this is not the kind of society we want. We’re gonna shut it down.”
So, in closing, Danielle L., I would say let’s weigh the situation: a few hours of inconvenience for you, versus a trajectory of an increasingly rich-serving, unjust society? I’m going to say a better society is a lot more important than one class meeting. Let’s stop the way the richest few have directed the course of our lives and our society.
*www.teachthebudget.com
<3
I fail to see how a strike on the UCSC campus forwards OWS’ goals whatsoever. An academic center of learning is NOT the enemy or the “99%.” What happened to protests at the centers of corporate power? This is another example of poor vision by the movement which will ultimately turn the OWS protests into a minor footnote, if that. This strategy has run its course and seems to only serve to alienate the mainstream public further. The “1%” are laughing all the way to the bank, at your myopia and failure to come up with a coherent political strategy. It’s a shame, because this country (and the world) needs people of vision to rise up and stop the new aristocracy that will soon have us all in chains.
OWS will not be a footnote, in fact it has already made its mark. It is very significant for popular discontent to boil over in the way that it did with occupy (and arguably the tea party, for similar reasons) and it is further proof of the fact that the trajectory of our system is contradiction with the needs of American people.
But aside from that, the question of whether this will be an effective action or whether this is the right TYPE of action is a good one. If you agree with the above statements, and if you agree that something will have to give in this situation, then why not participate in an available grassroots movement that is struggling for change like OWS? I’m sure people would be more than willing to hear your alternate suggestions. Simply callin an amorphous movement myopic gets no one anywhere. Like I said I’ll be participating because I think at the very least this will be an opportunity to converse and network with other politically interested people.
To Daniel & other students/people who may disagree,
I can guarantee you that those involved in organizing the strike are for the right to education. I know this because I’ve been around long enough to see many of these people bare their humanity in front of others, making themselves vulnerable through sharing their fears of an uncertain future. Many of them aspire for a better world and they know it is only a matter of coming together and making it a reality. I’ve also been around long enough to see where the gaps lie in terms of the spectrum of people who support the strike, those who don’t, and those don’t care. This gap lies in perception and politics.
I personally believe education is a right and because it is a right it should not and cannot be purchased by any means. I also perceive a difference between the process of schooling and the process of education. The former follows a factory model of production, follows a strict schedule, produces units (students) in batches, can be commodified, privatized, and purchased by capital. The latter involves a complex and intimate relationship where everyone is respected as an educator and shares in the process of learning where capital has no place in the revelation of knowledge. I happen to know many people involved in UCSC organizing agree and would prefer to see the latter practiced throughout the campus than to be another stamped product off the UC Assembly Line.
I am fortunate enough to come from a discipline at UCSC that practices to some degree this deeper definition of education. My learning environment has revealed to me profound lessons that have made me a more compassionate, loving, and determined human-being. I’ve learned that there is an intense history of inequity perpetuated by a complex structure of oppression that many of us have come to understand as the Heteropatriachical-Imperialist-Capitalist-White Supremacist System. Now many people reading this may not understand what that means. It is not because you are stupid. It is not because you’re ignorant. It is because this very system thrives on the fact that different people under this system have different perceptions and opinions of their reality. Where Daniel and others may believe that this 1 day strike is infringing upon their right to an education that they purchased. I and many others believe that the Heteropatriarchical-Imperialist-Capitalist-White Supremacist System, that the UC is so intimately connected to, has been infringing on ours rights to develop and to flourish into healthy, educated, and cooperative human beings for the past 519 years.
I pay tuition and have taken out an enormous amount of loans to pay for a discipline that struggles to negotiate the tensions between schooling and education in light of budget cuts, fee increases, growing class sizes, and laying off professors. Many of us are looking into a future filled with loans, scarce opportunities, an unchecked corporate power structure, a growing military and prison industrial complex, increased repression of social movements, and an environmental crisis of catastrophic proportions. It is this awareness of this stark reality that has driven us to not just just protest, hold signs, and rage against the machine but to throw ourselves upon the gears and STOP THE MACHINE. Years of going to classes and remaining willing participants of a production line has not worked to realize a better education system and indeed a better world. This is why we strike.
-L7
Critical Race & Ethnic Studies at UCSC now!
Okay, here’s a suggestion in 20 words or less (you’re welcome) — protest the banks, not schools. Simple.
How exactly does shutting down campus lower tuition exactly? I’m genuinely curious about what this is meant to accomplish besides being inconvenient.
Here: I have an idea. Why don’t you shut down a bank? Maybe you could shut down student admissions instead?
This isn’t going to happen. Instead you’re going to alienate people who are suffering the most from tuition increases by preventing them from receiving their education so that you can play 60′s.
I would say that building a movement to put the UC in the hands of students, workers and faculty, rather than millionaire regents who are unaccountable and appointed for 12 year terms, is a great start. But, if you need something more concrete, Will, I would point out that the protests of 2009-2010 have been linked to saving the Pell Grant as well as preventing some other cuts to student services and funding. Additionally, the student protests during that time put public education on the legislative agenda. You can thank us later.
<3
It’s very easy to strike, but what we need is to mobilize to govern. We go to a strike, then walk home. What about the next day, and time after that.
The strike can be successful in gaining attention but for how long?
What happens when the news moves on?
Don’t worry Danielle L., we know what’s best for you.
The shutting down of campus can be seen as an opening up of campus. The university is increasingly inaccessible to ordinary people, and especially people of color. We must keep in mind that the drastic cuts to K-12 education mean that the children of our future will be denied access to college, and struggle to graduate high school. Let’s not forget that along with the strike, Tent University will be held all day: a chance for students, teachers, and workers (who DESERVE a paid day off, which the picket lines will give them) to come together and envision an alternative to an “education” that shackles the average student in $26,000 of debt & robs workers of their pensions.
The day will be filled with classes, workshops, skill-sharing, speakers, food, and discussion about the budget crisis and how we can fix it.
I spent money on my classes, and I deserve the right to get what I paid for. College is too expensive to not let students attend class if they want to. Not everyone wishes to protest, and ignoring this fact is just making the statement that protesters’ opinions are the only ones that matter. While other I respect their right to protest, I disagree with blockading the entrance.
I intend to go to class on March 1, whether classes are held or not. I have a right to the education for which I have fought so hard. While I sympathize with the students who are striking, no one has the right to prevent another student from exercising his or her right to attend class.
While you may talk about student poverty and rights, as a single mother and a veteran I know all about poverty and hardship. I also have seen firsthand what happens when one group of people physically remove the rights of another group of people to live as they see fit.
My name is Judith T. Samson. I am an undergraduate mathematics major. Those who wish to prevent me from entering campus on March 1 will have to physically restrain me.
The protesters should allow students to move on and off of campus on March 1st. If I am unable to leave campus on that day I will miss a 4 hour long lab which will pretty much guarantee I fail my class and will have to stay at UCSC until they offer the class again, a year from now. This strike, in that case, would not be making it cheaper for me to go to school here.
Further up this thread of comments, another UCSC student said the strike will only impact vehicular traffic going to campus….Whether or not any particular class will meet as usual is another question…. I’m thinking one day of inconvenience may later on be considered a very minor irritation, if the issues that the strike is about aren’t addressed.
Being a corporate drone fighting over crumbs to pay off a huge debt isn’t the rest of a life I’d want to have myself. A new model in some real manner that works toward happiness is an alternative I’d say beats the current corrosive status quo. Which will it be? John, OSC media
“Further up this thread of comments, another UCSC student said the strike will only impact vehicular traffic going to campus…”
So, if KB happens to need to take a vehicle off-campus for this lab, tough, she-or-he gets to flunk?
“Whether or not any particular class will meet as usual is another question…”
Evidently, the one being referred to is meeting. At least you have no apparent basis to assume that it isn’t.
“I’m thinking one day of inconvenience may later on be considered a very minor irritation, if the issues that the strike is about aren’t addressed.”
I’m thinking flunking a class is something other than “one day of inconvenience”, and I’m also thinking that this strike make be considered a very major irritation if the issues raised by, for example, the GSA aren’t addressed.
Will they be addressed?
“Being a corporate drone fighting over crumbs to pay off a huge debt isn’t the rest of a life I’d want to have myself.”
Apparently, forcing your views on vocally unwilling others is the sort of life you’re choosing.
“A new model in some real manner that works toward happiness is an alternative I’d say beats the current corrosive status quo.”
You have yet to present any “new model”. It doesn’t sound like you’re interested in producing any happiness for the students who are voicing concerns. It sounds more like you’re promoting their subjugation of their legitimate concerns to the will of a GA which they’ve “autonomously” chosen not to support.
Let ‘em go about their business unimpeded.
Does anyone else happen to recall how the last “tent university” in 2005 worked out…?
I’d go further and point out that a movement which has a stated commitment to non-violence has no business whatsoever imposing its collective will, whatever that amounts to, on unwilling others.
Numbers are force, and using numbers to effectively impel students like Danielle, Judith and KB to either participate or stay away is unfair and unreasonable.
The last protest on campus seems to have amounted to some unsightly graffiti painted on the side of a building — http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/01/22/18705328.php — and that surely won’t lower tuitions any. I’m waiting to see any indication that this protest being imposed on the University at large is any better thought-out.
If you think your “Tent University” is so much worth attending — and I’ve seen absolutely no details of the promised “classes, workshops, skill-sharing” or “speakers” anywhere — then present it as an option, not an ultimatum.
Don’t block the entrances. Don’t stop buses. Let whoever wants to participate do so, and let whoever wants to attend classes do so. If the student body at large isn’t unified behind this — and it doesn’t seem to be, any more than Occupy Santa Cruz was unified behind the occupation of 75 River Street — then it’s simply an imposition, and it will do more harm than good, just like 75 River did.
(Compare this to lunch-counter sit-ins in the South in support of civil rights. I dare you.)
“… but nothing would prevent any student from walking up to their classes…”
Unless that student were, oh, disabled, hm?
“Students and instructors should expect that they will not be able to get to class.”
Oh? So, which is it? Is anyone in a position to say? Sounds like what you’ve got there is a lack of communication.
“The shutting down of campus can be seen as an opening up of campus.”
Slavery can be seen as freedom. War can be seen as peace. Anything can be seen as anything, if you squint enough. I can’t see shutting down the campus as doing much except squandering some more good will in the community, and — truth be told — I don’t believe there’s all that much left to burn.
One last point: The USCS Graduate Students Association has raised some very reasonable questions.
• Graduate students living on campus – especially those living in Family Student Housing – will need to get on and off campus for their work and childcare obligations. Especially given their responsibilities to their children, what steps are being taken to ensure these residents will be allowed on and off campus?
• Dining Halls on campus tend to stock fresh, local food, and therefore only have supplies for one to two days. What steps are being made, especially if the strike continues to Friday, to ensure students living on campus will have access to food all the way through Monday?
• Some graduate students and professors do research and experiments utilizing life forms that require daily care. What steps are being taken to protect the academic freedom of these researchers so that their work isn’t ruined from even a day of missed care?
• Some Departments are having prospective graduate students visiting on March 1st. Shutting down campus could negatively impact these students’ decision to apply to UCSC. Are there any contingences being planned to support Departments unable to reschedule their visit days?
• Recognizing that the intent of a Strike is to disrupt business-as‐usual, the GSA recognizes that this tactic may alienate potential allies in the fight against State budget cuts, including discouraging Faculty from being willing to Teach the Budget. In what ways has outreach been done to connect with UCSC community members who may not support the tactic of a Strike to minimize alienation?
I’ve seen no responses to these questions so far. Anyone know differently? Or is it just “there are larger issues to consider”…?
What provisions have been made to insure absolutely no property damage, vandalism, graffiti, obstruction of existing signage,etc, will be done to the campus and surrounding areas? Will the rights of disabled people be protected or will they be denied access to buildings and transportation? How will these rights be protected and who will protect them? You will irreversibly alienate a huge number of people and children to your cause if any of these rights are violated.