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It’s afternoon in Croatia, day two of the international student protest symposium. I haven’t had internet access during the sessions, and I’ve been out drinking with the group in the evening, so I haven’t had a chance to post yet, but I’ve been taking lots of notes and I’ll have reports on all the presentations soon.
The conference is tremendous. Student activists and scholars from seven countries, sharing news and analyses of movements that most Americans haven’t yet had a chance to learn much about.
You’ll be hearing much more from me about their work long after the symposium ends.
Pittsburgh mayor Luke Ravenstahl is moving forward with a plan to impose a one percent tax on college tuition, and he’s citing universities’ willingness to gouge their students as justification.
“When you look at some of the fees these places charge,” Ravenstahl told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “we think it’s only fair to include a fee for the city.” Ravenstahl pointed to “charges for everything from athletic facility use to orientation to security,” the paper said.
A member of the Pittsburgh city council has introduced a proposal to charge universities a set amount for city services, but such a scheme would depend on voluntary compliance by the institutions, which is unlikely. Mayor Ravenstahl freely admits that students represent a softer target — as tax exempt institutions, universities are protected from such schemes.
For a while now, I’ve been hearing rumblings about a planned second walkout in the University of California system, scheduled for November 18.
This semester’s first UC walkout took place on September 24. On that day, some ten thousand students, faculty and staff came together to protest budget cuts, enrollment reductions, and a huge planned tuition increase.
That fee hike is on the university Regents’ agenda for their next meeting, to be held November 17 through 19 at UCLA.
More to follow. Stay tuned…
The conveners of the upcoming Zagreb student protest symposium have made a request of the presenters:
The proposal is this: when you come to Zagreb bring with you a collection of photographs that would give the other participants of the symposium a general idea of everyday context of student life around you. These photographs would ideally include your faculties, dorms and other student-related facilities, and they would provide a general feel of both indoor and outdoor environment in which students spend their time (both study and leisure).
I absolutely love this idea. In fact, the only thing I love more than this idea is the idea of passing the request on to you.
Students around the world are shown Hollywood’s version of college life — now’s your chance to show them the reality. Send me your favorite photos of campus living, and I’ll pass them along to the folks in Zagreb. (I’ll also post them here, if you’re okay with that.)
You can email me the photos at angus at fecko dot com, post links as comments here, or post them to my wall on Facebook. Whatever you like. Just get them to me this week — the symposium starts on Friday!
I’ll be flying to Croatia in a few days for a three-day symposium on contemporary student activism.
The meeting, “Student Protests of 2009: Methods, Context, and Implications,” (or, in the original Croatian, Studentski Prosvjedi 2009: Metode, Kontekst, I Implikacije) is being sponsored by the Sociology students’ organization at the University of Zagreb, which saw a series of student occupations last spring. The upcoming event grew out of that experience, and out of the broader wave of student activism that’s been sweeping Europe in recent months. (The call for papers can be found here.)
I’ll have more to say about the symposium before it happens, and I’ll be blogging and tweeting about it while it’s going on, but for now here’s the schedule:
Friday
Does the Actual European Bologna strategy Respond to the European Students’ Aspirations?, Guillaume Sylvestre, France
The Struggle to Free Higher Education, Luka Matic, Croatia
Bachelor of Ass, Marcel Mansouri, Germany
Opening Banquet
Saturday
Politics in Education, Adis Sadikovic and Gorica Stevanovic, Bosnia and Herzegovina
From Democracy to Social Issues? Student Protests in Serbia Since the Early 1990s, Dorde Tomic, Germany
American Student Organizing in an Age of Social Networks, Angus Johnston, United States
The Student Protests as a Test for Civic Society, Kristiyan Vladislavov Hristov and Diana Boykova Velcheva, Bulgaria
Transitional Education, Azra Hadzihajdic and Emin Eminagic, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Sunday
Affective Politics, Zdravko Popovic, Croatia
Types of Protest Participants: An Empirical Analysis, panel presentation, Croatia
Croatian Student Protests and Video Cameras: The Importance of Filming as Much As Possible, Igor Bezinovic, Croatia
Short Film
Roundtable Discussion
studentactivism.net 
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