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On Tuesday, October 17, students launched an occupation at the University of Fine Arts in Vienna. Two days later, other students occupied the largest lecture hall at the University of Vienna, and the movement has since spread to every leading Austrian university.
The Austrian students are protesting underfunding, corporatization, and overcrowding at Austria’s universities. More broadly, they are part of a wave of European student activists in opposition to the Bologna Accords, a set of proposals for education reform and standardization throughout Europe.
Yesterday, Thursday, saw a mass march through the streets of Vienna whose participation has been estimated at more than thirty thousand students.
There has been very little coverage of the protests in the English-language media, and most of what does exist in English is from non-English-speaking countries, as with this story and this one from a Chinese news agency. This short piece from the Boston Herald, now four days old, is a rare exception.
English-language reports from within the movement include this one, Reports from sympathetic activists include this one.
The primary Twitter feeds for the campaign are #unibrennt (“the university burns”) and #unsereuni (“our university”). Almost all of the traffic is in German, of course, but I’ve found that adding the word “Austria” or the word “students” to a search turns up a fair number of English-language posts.
The Twitter account @unibrennt_en is in English, but it’s infrequently updated. This blog post has an impressively detailed roundup of online sources of information, most of them in German.
I’m obviously still getting up to speed on this story myself. Look for updates in the days to come. If you have any useful info or links, please leave a comment.
We have received a PDF copy of a third statement from the administration of Southwestern College regarding last Thursday’s campus rally and subsequent banning of three professors from campus. Highlights:
The statement appears over the signature of Nicholas C. A. Alioto, who is identified within it as SWC’s “Acting Superintendent/President.” Alioto, a Certified Public Accountant, is a recent hire at SWC — he was named as the college’s Vice President for Business and Financial Affairs in July.
The statement says that the primary protest on October 22 “was conducted in accordance with Policy 5550.” Policy 5550 is Administrative Policy 5550 of the Southwestern Community Colllege District, and can be found here. It is based on, and promulgated in accordance with, Section 76120 of the California Education Code.
Note that Section 76120 and Policy 5550 regulate the conduct of students, not faculty.
The statement expresses the administration’s “concern” about events that took place when a “group of individuals left the free speech area” after the rally. It says that three faculty members are being investigated because of “concerns” that “center around three areas” — “[a] Incitement of students to move outside the free speech area and to violate College policies, [b] Disregard for warnings and directives of police officers, and [c] Physical confrontation with police officers.”
According to the statement, these areas are concern are being explored by “an outside investigator” who is not named or otherwise identified. That investigator has been conducting interviews, and his or her investigation “is expected to be concluded in the very near future.”
The statement denies that the three faculty were suspended. Rather, it says, they were “placed on paid administrative leave” and notified of “withdrawal of consent to be on-site.”
The faculty in question have, according to the statement, requested administrative hearings regarding their non-suspension suspensions. The next passage of the statement is worth quoting in full:
“In the interests of being as transparent as possible, administration offered to conduct the hearings in public; however, legal counsel for the three individuals declined that offer.”
Finally, the statement declares that “in order to provide due process,” the administration “must refrain from commenting further until the investigation is concluded.”
More soon.
studentactivism.net 
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