Category Archive

Last Wednesday UC Berkeley Junior Laura Zelko finally got her day in court. Or “court.”

Sort of.

Zelko has been charged with five violations of the Berkeley code of conduct for her involvement in last November’s student protests. She’s the second such student to have received a hearing, and the first to choose to have her hearing conducted in public. (According to the Berkeley Daily Cal, seventeen students’ conduct cases remain unresolved.)

Zelko’s panel, composed of two professors, two students, and an assistant dean, met for eleven hours on Wednesday, but were unable to conclude their work. They will meet again sometime after November 8 to continue their deliberations.

Three members of the Berkeley community livetweeted the hearing, which saw confusion as to which version of the Berkeley code was being deployed and disagreement about whether it could legitimately proceed at all. University regulations mandate that such hearings be held within 45 days of the alleged conduct violation, but that provision was suspended last spring. Zelko asked that the charges against her be dropped due to the delay in bringing action against her, but the committee chose to proceed.

If you only read one summary of the current crisis in higher education in Britain this week, make it this one.

Nearly a year after an occupation of Berkeley’s Wheeler Hall ended in more than forty arrests, the university still hasn’t resolved campus judicial charges against many of the participants. (Berkeley’s student conduct policies are, as has been noted before, a mess.)

Tomorrow marks a milestone in this process — the first public hearing for one of the students brought up on charges. The blog Reclaim UC is encouraging people to attend, and I suspect they may be covering the hearing itself as well. Stay tuned.

The student newspaper at McGill University has run an article on the conference I keynoted last Friday, and they’ve included partial transcripts of interviews that their reporters did with myself and two other speakers.

I’ve often found that student reporters ask me more cogent question than “professionals,” and the McGill Daily’s Eric Andrew-Gee was no exception. He’s planning on putting up the whole interview soon, and I’ll let you know when it posts, but for now you can check out his questions — and my answers — on organizing tactics, student-run cooperatives, winning media attention, and the prospects for a new global student movement.

Also be sure to read the paper’s provocative interviews with higher education researcher Eric Martin and faculty union organizer Thomas Collombat. The whole conference was videotaped, so I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to post a link soon.

It was a light week’s posting this week, as I spent a bunch of time preparing for my three speaking engagements (each of which, by the way, was a huge amount of fun). So it’s not so surprising that a lot of the top slots were taken up by older posts.

Google is becoming ever more important in how people find this site. In part, I think, that’s a reflection of the higher profile that student issues have in the culture at large — more and more people who aren’t engaged with the student movement (or this site’s social media appendages) are interested in campus issues, and using Google to inform themselves.

Yet more evidence that the zeitgeist is shifting, I think.

1. Reports: Rutgers Student Kille Himself After Roommate Taped Him in Gay Encounter

My first post on the Tyler Clementi tragedy.

2. The University of California Abandons an Ideal

With undergraduate “fees” topping $10K a year, the UC system is preparing to acknowledge that it charges tuition. As I said on Twitter, this reminds me more than a little of Pope John Paul II acknowledging that Galileo was right about the earth orbiting the sun.

3. Yale Frat Apologizes for Rape Chants

The campus’s DKE chapter sent its pledges out to shout “No Means Yes, Yes Means Anal!” Charming.

4. Creepy PayPal Zillionaire is Paying Teens to Drop Out of College

Seriously. Read this one. You can’t make this shit up.

5. New Student Strike at the University of Puerto Rico

The most activist university system in the United States is at it again. See also this follow-up post.

6. Sex Tourist Professor Scrubs His Site

This post, on scumbag CSU Northridge Economics prof Kenneth Ng, dates from April. I’m thrilled that it’s getting so many hits — this is a story that folks in California really need to know about.

7. O Canada!

The announcement of my keynote address at a student activist conference at McGill University in Montreal. One of the most rewarding speaking gigs I’ve ever done — the McGill students are really incredible people.

8. 28-Year-Old Congressional Candidate Krystal Ball Fights Back

Someone leaked vaguely naughty photos of her joking around with her then-husband at a Christmas party. Instead of cringing, she took a stand on behalf of herself and her generation of women. Good for her.

9. “Chekhov for Children” Film and Discussion

I’m in a movie. The movie rocks.

10. “Jiggaboo Jones” and the UCSD Compton Cookout

Another old post, this one from March. This one needs a follow-up.