UCSC students are currently, as I write this, occupying both the Kresge Town Hall and the Kerr Hall with hundreds of students in opposition to the recent 32% fee increases!
This is epic... Following the recent UC Davis and UCLA protests (See Below) UCSC is keeping the spirit of affordable and quality education alive.
Read the list of demands here:
"The demands in spanish are available on
http://occupyca.wordpress.com/Demands:
1. Repeal the 32% fee increase
2. Stop all current construction on campus
3. UC funds and budget are made transparent
4. Verbal and written commitment to Master Plan
5. Total amnesty to all people occupying buildings and involved in student protest concerning budget cuts including: Doug G., and Brian Glasscock and Olivia Egan Rudolph
6. Keep all resource centers open: engaging education, women's resource center, and all other diversity centers
7. Keep the campus child-care center open
8. Repeal cuts to the Community Studies Field Program
9. Re-funding the CMMU field studies coordinator positions
10. Get verbal and written agreement from admins to shut-down campus for one day for the purpose of educating students on the budget cuts
11. Said support for AB656
12. Said commitment to work-study for all who are eligible
13. Making UC Santa Cruz a safe campus for all undocumented (AB540) students and workers
14. Keeping LALS professors Guillermo Delgado & Susan Jonas
15. Repeal all furloughs to all campus employees, renege the 15% cut in labor time for custodians
16. Stop the gutting of funding for fellowships and TAships and the re-instatement of TAs who lost their jobs due the budget cuts from this quarter
17. Re-prioritizing funding so that essential student services i.e. the library get adequate funding to ensure regular library hours
18. Censure Mark Yudof
19. Un-arming UC police of all weapons including tasers
20. NO SCPD police allowed on campus
21. An apology from the regents and the state
22. Creating a free and permanent organizing space on campus for student activists and organizers (first options: Kresge Town Hall)
23. Due process for students:
a. trial by peers
b. constitutional rights for students tried under the UC judicial system
24. Making rent affordable for Family Student Housing, ensuring that the price does not exceed that of operating costs
Long Term:
1. no student fees
2. return to master plan
3. abolition of regents' positions
4. abolition of all student debts
5. tripling of funds from the state to public universities
6. all eligible students get work-study
7. highest UC salaries are tied proportionally to the lowest waged workers
8. Impeach Mark Yudof
9. Representation of students and faculty equal to UCOP/UC Regents
10. All UCSC tuition fees stay at UCSC
11. UC Money is only invested to education
a. cut ties with Lockheed Martin, Los Alamos & Livermore National Labs
Signed,
The Occupants"
What I love about this list of demands is the short and long term demands as well as the effort to refund departments that were cut, ensure adequate hours for their custodians and keep certain professors, understanding that every aspect of campus affects the quality of the education experience at California Higher Education Universities.
UCSC know that we are in solidarity with you!
-Robert Graham
