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The Union of Students in Ireland is sponsoring a huge protest against new student fees at the nation’s colleges and universities.
The Dublin protest, underway at this hour, is expected to draw tens of thousands of students. Check back for more details.
Last semester, Brenda Councillor was a student senator at Haskell Indian Nations University in Kansas, and a vocal critic of university president Linda Sue Warner.
This semester she’s an alumna.
And she’s still not quite sure how it happened.
Councillor had one required course left to take as the fall semester ended. She was enrolled for the spring, and settled into her dorm room. But over the holidays, the registrar called her to congratulate her on her graduation.
The university was waiving her final required course and refunding her spring tuition and fees. They were also locking her out of her dorm room, shutting down her student email account, and mailing her a (misspelled) diploma.
When Councillor, who had circulated a petition in the fall demanding President Warner’s removal, wrote to the university’s vice president for academic affairs to ask why she had been involuntarily graduated, he blew her off.
“My priority is working with current Haskell Indian Nations University students,” he wrote. “Your concerns as a recent graduate of Haskell Indian Nations University in American Indian Studies will not be considered at this time.”
Ouch.
11:40 am Update: Linda Sue Warner, the president of Haskell Indian Nations University, has been summoned to Washington DC for a meeting with her university’s regents and the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
I haven’t had the chance to read it yet, but I’m passing it along anyway. Here’s a collection of three essays by participants in last semester’s occupation/protest at the New School in NYC — a “list of lessons and thoughts,” as the introduction puts it.
The link is to a 25-page PDF.
As promised, thousands of Arizona students descended on their state capitol on Wednesday to protest a planned 40% cut to their state university system.
Bused in by the hundreds from each of the state’s public universities, the students eventually amassed a crowd estimated at as much as 2500. Media coverage was intense, including news pieces, editorials, and even a slide show.
Thanks to the Arizona Students’ Association for forwarding links and info on the protest, including this great piece on how the planning and logistics of the protest were handled.
The economic stimulus bill that Congress is scheduled to vote on today includes more than $150 billion in new education funding, according to the New York Times.
That number includes $6 billion in construction and renovation funds for colleges and universities, and an $8 billion increase in Pell Grant funding.
The Pell Grant hike would raise total government support for the program by nearly 50%.
Meanwhile, as the Times reported two weeks ago, colleges and universities spending on students has dropped in the last half-decade, while the proportion of the cost of education paid for by students has risen. (The study the Times drew those conclusions from can be found here.)
studentactivism.net 
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