Is Occupy UMB “another dime-a-dozen movement howling in the wind”? Or is it “the beginning of a long-term fight to hold UMass Boston to its original promise of education for all”? See both arguments here.
Why Occupy UMB?
By Kyle Forrester and Chris Morrill
You’ve probably seen us by the tents on your way to cafeteria. Why, though, are we occupying? What use is it to sleep out in the Campus Center? For us, there are serious problems at UMass Boston that need to be addressed.
UMass Boston is in a crisis of character. Over the past several years, we students have seen our fees rise (by $3,000 since 2006) [1], enrollment increase (25% between 2006 and 2010) and resources strained [2], and a health insurance program that fails to adequately cover women and those with disabilities.
Students with disabilities have been ignored both in the classroom and the bathroom. The school purchases LCD TVs but not something simple like automatic or lightweight bathroom doors.
What once was a school designed to provide quality higher education to “those whose opportunities have been limited by income or race,” is being transformed and modernized [3]. As new buildings like the Integrated Science Complex are being built, some students, faculty and staff are asking the question: who is going to be able to enjoy the new UMass Boston?
There are two forces behind this transformation. One is the long decline of state funding [4]. The other is the administration and their Master and Strategic plans. The goal of the Master Plan is to update the campus – without the current student body or residents of Dorchester in mind. The Strategic Plan’s purpose is to rework UMass Boston into the next Boston University – a school geared towards recruiting wealthier students, rather than a university for all.
If we’re serious about fixing these problems, we have to realize that these things won’t come by asking nicely. If they did, public universities across the country would continue to be affordable options. Instead, across the country public universities are raising their tuition and fees just like at UMass. Only when students have engaged in occupations, strikes and protests (like at the University of Puerto Rico) have fee hikes been stopped [5].
Despite their rhetoric, the administration is not on the students’ side. When the administration has done hundreds of pages of research and planning, it cannot be simply explained away that they aren’t aware of our concerns. When administrators have invested heavily in outside consultants to implement their plans, it’s not the case that we simply can win them over with kind words and logic. Administrators are fully committed to and fully realize the implications of pushing out working class students from UMass Boston.
There are some students that have raised concerns about the occupation and our methods. Some have said that we don’t represent the entire student body. Some have said the occupation itself will achieve nothing. Often, these criticisms come from afar, with a clouded vision as to how social movements operate in practice.
It’s true that the occupation doesn’t currently reflect the views of every member of the student body. However, social movements start small and change people’s ideas through struggle. At the same time, the active engagement of larger layers of people shapes the development and demands of movements. Whether we’re talking about the movement for the eight-hour workday or the Civil Rights movement, not everyone agrees with movements’ ideas overnight.
During other past social movements, those outside the movement also criticized activists’ tactics. In May 1961, Gallup conducted a poll that asked if “sit-ins at lunch counters, freedom buses, and other demonstrations” would help or hurt African-Americans’ chances for integration in the South. 57 percent of respondents said it would hurt their chances while only 28 percent said it would help [6].
That doesn’t mean the tactic of occupation is the be-all, end-all of the movement against the privatization of UMass Boston. In fact, we see the occupation as merely the beginning. The administration has its long-term vision of turning this university into another unaffordable Boston University. To prevent that, we need to see our work in a similar light.
We aren’t going to stop the fee hikes through one protest or one occupation – let alone in one semester. Instead, this is the beginning of a long-term fight to hold UMass Boston to its original promise of education for all – African-Americans, whites, LGBTQ students, immigrants and those with disabilities included.
More importantly, we students aren’t going to stop the administration with ten people working on behalf of the rest of UMass, even if we are affected by the fee hikes personally. Instead, it’s going to take thousands of UMass Boston students, staff and faculty actively engaged in organizing in any capacity they can. Only by working together, actively raising issues of class, race, gender and other inequalities and engaging in this movement, we can win the changes we seek.
For a list of cited sources, visit http://bit.ly/whyoccupyumb
Preoccupied with the Occupation
By Kenneth Wright
Occupy UMass Boston is preoccupied with the motions of an occupation. Though this movement’s fundamental motivations are understandable, one must wonder if their actions are on the up-and-up.
To be sure, the disparity between rich and poor is rising worldwide, especially in the developed world. This is the message hawked by Oxfam in its recent report on the state of the gap among the G-20 nations, aptly titled “Left Behind by the G-20?” According to Oxfam’s analysis, inequality in the U.S. has risen by three to four percent between 1990 and 2010. The report also predicts that rising disparity will continue, requiring a remedy to be in place by 2020. It’s clear that the complaint about the gap between rich and poor is not unfounded.
For anyone who watched the Occupy movements catch the world’s attention, the grievances about dissatisfaction with inequality in the US are not new. But one must ask the fundamental question about this movement: Is Occupy UMass Boston really the right vehicle to foment changes that will benefit our student body? There are signs that, in its current form, it is not the right choice.
First, the messages broadcast by Occupy UMass Boston seem to be insufficiently focused and accurate regarding its proclaimed overarching purposes: affordable college education for the underserved and urban youth that the university was founded to serve, and a democratically chosen board of trustees.
These supposed main points of Occupy UMass Boston have been mixed together with issues that have little direct bearing on UMass Boston. I had to isolate the two main points above to discern why the movement is relevant for the university, and what is realistic and reasonable for the movement to pursue. Other topics are distractions. Mortgages were not issued by the university – or by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for that matter – while credit card debt is an issue of personal responsibility, not university responsibility. What’s more, more than a few members of Occupy UMass Boston – which apparently has no more than 20 to 30 active members – are not even part of the UMass Boston community. In sum, Occupy UMass Boston lacks both a surgical message and an image to project to the student body.
Second, Occupy UMass Boston’s actions seem both ham-fisted and lacking in its pursuit of strategic endeavors related to its supposed overarching charter.
What is Occupy UMass Boston doing? Based on several observations, their activities include holding daily general assemblies, meeting up for working groups, lounging, music, chess, tweeting, and maintaining the movement’s website. These actions don’t appear to be based on results or driven to address their main points. Research is important for movements like this one. However, it doesn’t seem like research is underway, even when it comes to finding out how the university budget is done, or how transparent boards of trustees across the country came to be. Legal maneuvers are available under laws like the Freedom of Information Act. They’re waiting to be used.
Broadening appeal and membership is another major course of action, but Occupy UMass Boston’s members seem more interested in miring themselves in running a 1960s-style youth commune. If you aren’t trying to figure how UMB accounts for the rise in the cost of education, and you’re not figuring out a way to legally change how the Board of Trustees is chosen, can you really say you’re in the business of making change?
Third, the problems aired by Occupy UMB are not insurmountable, if you acknowledge that we should roll up our sleeves to find our way and make the changes we want to see. In short, be the change that you want to see. Like the John Mayer song says, don’t just sit around waiting for the world to change.
The point seems to be for the sake of promoting the social mobility and general livelihood of underserved and urban youth. This will allow them to make a decent living that doesn’t involve working in menial jobs, and to be free to choose fulfilling jobs that reflect their education. This aspiration is commendable, but don’t forget that a college education doesn’t automatically entitle a graduate to the job he or she wants. You must work for it. Internships and entry-level jobs in the student’s field of interest during college are a good path toward an individual’s career after they leave school. Forge your own destiny – don’t wait for a handout. If you can’t find work immediately, there are ways to productively bide your time.
Will Occupy UMass Boston become a tight ship that will effect change?
In the end, the movement can do whatever its members feel like, but its actions and words don’t seem to reflect a movement that most students can get behind in earnest or endorse. The motions are all too familiar and don’t truly inspire our student body. These issues must be remedied or else it will be just another dime-a-dozen movement howling in the wind.