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The Student Labor Action Project, a joint effort of the United States Student Association and Jobs With Justice, has posted a set of OWS reports from student activists at U Mass Amherst, George Washington University, the University of Oregon, the University of Central Florida, and Brandeis.
From the introduction by SLAP coordinator Chris Hicks:
“What the mainstream media has failed to understand is that what the youth, the workers, and the unemployed want is justice. This is a justice that has been denied to many of us in our lifetimes – an idea that we once heard of but have never known. The issues that so many of us fight for can all be traced back to the same small group of people: it’s the corporate lobbyists that have prevented any meaningful change to immigration laws; it has been the corporations that have scaled back workers rights; it has been the corporations that have drowned college graduates in debt. For the first time in my life, we have been able to step back from our single issues and collectively look at who is responsible for the injustice we face daily and say, ‘It’s time to make Wall Street pay.’
“We are not demanding reform. We are not demanding that the current system left to us be improved. We are demanding transformative and fundamental change. We are acknowledging that the current system has not worked for us, and that we need something new if we are to going to create a sustainable future.
“When we look back a year from now and ask, ‘What happened at Wall Street?’ it’ll be very clear. We stood against those that oppress and said ‘Enough.'”
Last night a group of at least fifty Greek student activists stormed the studios of their country’s state television network, taking over the room where the evening news was broadcasting live.
The students were leaders in a national wave of student protest that is sweeping Greece in opposition to fiscal austerity measures and proposals to privatize higher education in the country. Student protest has also been swelled by the recent repeal of Greece’s academic asylum law, which until last month barred police from setting foot onto the nation’s campuses.
Network officials pulled the broadcast from the air abruptly, switching over to a travel documentary after a short break, but home viewers were able to tell that something was happening in the studio before the feed went dark.
The students demanded airtime to read a statement on the current student protests in Greece, a demand that was rejected. But after several hours of negotiations the network agreed to allow the group to record a statement for broadcast later that evening. The statement was shown on the network at midnight and the students left the station without incident (Google translation).
In December 2008 a group of Greek student activists succeeded in unfurling a protest banner on live television during a news broadcast after police shot and killed a fifteen-year-old protester.
Today is the first day of classes for most of the University of California system, and student activists at UC Berkeley are marking the day with their first student protests of 2011-12.
UC generally, and Berkeley in particular, have been a center of American student organizing in the last few years, though administrative crackdowns have quieted the campuses somewhat in the last twelve months. With the summer announcement of new tuition hike proposals that could nearly double UC fees in the next four years, however, things may be due to heat up again.
The organizers of today’s protest announced their agenda in a Daily Cal op-ed earlier this week, and the paper is planning a liveblog of the day’s events. Activists have already started livetweeting the day at the #Day1 hashtag.
I’ll be away from my computer for most of the afternoon (Eastern Time), but I’ll try to update as events warrant, either here or on Twitter. And with UC back in session, I’ll be posting updates on several big stories from the summer in the very near future, so stay tuned.
There’s a lot of chatter this morning about Groupon’s latest deal in the Chicago area: A 60% discount on university tuition at National-Louis University.
Sounds amazing, but the full story isn’t quite as impressive.
The offer is for one graduate-level course. Not one course as in “any one course,” but one course as in “one particular course.” A course that was concocted specifically for the Groupon promotion. It does apply toward a master’s in teaching, but only if, after completing it, you apply for, are accepted to, and enroll in NLU. (Given the nature of the class, it’s hard to imagine it being accepted as transfer credit at any other school.) All in all, this “deal” is clearly more a marketing initiative than an educational innovation.
And that shouldn’t come as a surprise, given National-Louis University’s past…
Until 1990, NLU was known as the National College of Education. It changed its name to National-Louis University to honor to its largest donor, Michael W. Louis, who had made a $30 million pledge to the college the previous year. In 1982 Louis had given NCE three million dollars to create a college of arts and sciences, which the school had also named for him. In 1983 they granted him an honorary doctorate as well.
So. Yeah.
“The events we’re seeing are happening because this university is not a community of students and teachers as it should be. Instead it’s an institution run by professional managers who have other interests. The security police on campus should serve the students and faculty. Instead they are hostile and contemptuous towards them, and often harass them. As for the administration, it should be in the employ of students and faculty, not the other way around. The students have rebelled against the administration because it identifies itself with all the outside forces that the students oppose.”
–Harvard professor Jeremy Larner, 1970
studentactivism.net 
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