Schmoomcgoo

DD says this happened last night, the students are still in the building, it is surrounded by protesters and heavy police presence. No one is allowed in the building. It's the biggest lecture hall on campus. Masked students are yelling to the crowd outside and stating they are nonviolent protestors, urging people to go to ebay.org (which takes me to ebay.com) to see "what they did to us last night."

http://www.kcra.com/news/21674326/detail.html

Batman17

Last night? I thought it was early this morning =\

Well anyways, this is really pointless imo. They're protesting, but offering no solutions. And the inconsistency of the strike just made it worse. 1 day here, 3 days now? What the hell happened to October? It just kind of angers me that students who had lecture today in Wheeler now don't have a class because other students want to make a stand, which is all good, except for the fact that the regents already approved of the increase. Unless they can keep taking over buildings, today is going to be worth absolutely nothing at all.

hidingout

This is Berkeley's heritage: free speech and peaceful protests against what they fear are unfair actions by the Regents and the the State of California. Maybe those students are upset because not too long ago, 20% of the state budget went to higher education and 1-2% went to the prison industrial complex. Today, California spends 9% of the budget on higher education and 8% on prisons. California is 48th in the nation on education funding and 1st in the nation in funding prisons. (These stats were from an interview aired on NPR in preparation for Tuesday's Regent's meeting at UCLA). Money spent on higher education brings back much more revenue to the state than it takes out of the budget. Maybe students don't like the fact that it costs $46,000.00 to support every Death Row Inmate annually, money that could be used to educate the workforce. That is something to protest about and I support every college student in CA who is striking or protesting today. I hope they follow it up with letters to their representatives expressing how important education is to them. The next thing they should do is ask the taxpayer who is writing their tuition checks (be it Mom, Dad, or themselves) if they have supported education at the ballot box or if they voted instead for prison population-building measures like three-strikes. This didn't happen overnight. Will today's protest matter? It will if students take this to heart and start electing representatives who support higher education.

ak_dogg

Screw the plutocrats and kleptocrats ruling over us. Prisons instead of universities, investment banks instead of people, etc. We would all do well to read the Catechism of the Revolutionary and implement it in our everyday lives.

anonymousername

occupying Wheeler hall so that students can't go to class in the 3rd week before end of instruction isn't going to help anyone and is certainly not going to hurt the regents.

What we (the students) need to do is organize a boycott of sorts that will hurt the regents in a way so that a tuition hike will not be beneficial for UC regents.

MLK and his supporters boycotted the buses by AA's finding alternate ways of getting around. Gandhi and friends boycotted imported British goods (cloth, tea, ect.).

We just need to create a situation so that it is counterproductive to increase the tuition by this absurd amount.

cjue

"What we (the students) need to do is organize a boycott of sorts that will hurt the regents in a way so that a tuition hike will not be beneficial for UC regents."

I concur. But how? :|

Aphrodite99

All 20,000+ students go on telebears and cancel all classes and semesters and therefore unregister. NO STUDENTS, NO MONEY, NO UNIVERSITY XD.

anonymousername

^^that's what I was thinking...also boycotting finals would make an immediate statement that could be more easily implemented and get the point across sooner

momfromme

If they don't increase tuition, they will cut all the adjuncts and probably entire departments. Under higher education law, you can't fire tenured professors unless you get rid of the entire department.

So which departments do you think the University of California should do without?

DougK

The English department would be a good place to start since it adds absolutely zero value to the economy. In fact, after one takes opportunity costs into account, the English department at Cal hinders rather than nurtures education.

birdhouse

I hope posts 9 and 10 are sarcastic. Or are you serious? Just because the English department may not be financially viable to keep up? Recently an article ran in the Daily Californian about how the athletic programs aren't actually profitable. Each year, they consistently owe money, but so far they haven't been pushed to become really sustainable. Why can't we cut those instead?

Cal might as well be a tech school then, without humanities departments. That kind of "attack something that doesn't affect me" is part of the problem.

LeftistHominid

What the **** are you talking about? I am guessing you are one of those people who failed English R1A and are bitter.

More than one in four English majors become teacher.? Education fuels the economy. Also, they Career Center reports show they make as much money as biology majors at graduation

RSBuletz

If the major or department has "Studies" at the end, out it goes.

Batman17

Hell let's just cut all the cream puff major departments. Yeah! REVOLUTION!!!

DougK

The facts speak for themselves:
- Only 34% of English majors get employed
- Given the above statistic, you'd hope the remaining students go on to greener pastures but only 10% go to graduate school
- So 56% of the English majors who graduate from Berkeley and have practically nothing to do

The last statistic is a major problem because as a publicly funded institution, Berkeley has a mandate to create students who will go on to better California, something which few English majors are capable of.