In a string of meetings hosted by the Black Student Center (BSC), a coalition has emerged to fight budget cuts at UMass Boston. Students, staff and faculty are working together to research and analyze how budget cuts are affecting the UMB campus and the future these changes hold for the university. There is a great deal of concern that UMass’s urban mission is in jeopardy; that is, providing affordable higher education and raising the standard of living for the surrounding community. The proposal to build dormitories for example seems to focus on improving the university’s ranking as an academic institution. These accommodations would be geared towards attracting athletes, non-Massachusetts residents and international students, and would attempt to increase the number of honors and doctorate students at the institution.

Tom Goodkind, a machine shop worker from SEIU 509, feels that though the budget cuts may be inevitable, they provide the administration an opportunity to reshape the university according to their own agenda. Goodkind attributed recent events, such as Governor Swift’s veto of the promised faculty wage increase, directly to President William Bulger and noted the leadership’s decision to shut down the UMass child center while proposing building new dorms. Goodkind feels, “this is a question of priorities.”

Professor Robert Johnson, chair of Africana studies, elaborated at a BSC meeting how an Africana studies line, Black women’s history, has been dissolved by the provost’s office and their plea to restore the line, taught by Aminah Pilgrim, has been in vain. Afro-American history funding has also been cut. Johnson is appalled that a state institute like UMass would veer away from minority courses and questions the mission of the university.

In response to what many students and faculty see as a mounting crisis, several actions have been proposed. Initial suggestions of protesting and speaking out at President Bulgers office have now been put aside in favor of holding a town meeting, instead. The coalition is planning to invite Chancellor Gora and Provost Fonteyn to discuss with students and staff what the true mission of UMass Boston is, thereby raising the awareness of all parties and allowing the community to discuss its concerns with the leadership.

In preparation of the meeting scheduled for December 5th from 2-4pm in the Media Auditorium on the lower level of the Healy library, students are compiling detailed accounts of how every department within UMass has been affected and plan to identify pertinent facts to bring forth at the forum. The administration’s attitude towards Africana studies and the College of Public and Community Service (CPCS) in particular, are being carefully observed.

A coalition of anti-war activists around campus is linking the federal government’s increased spending on the proposed war on Iraq with the shrinking higher-education funds. They see their mission as a recurrence of the civil rights era, where activists fighting for the right to education succeeded in bringing about free schooling at public high schools and raising enrollment by 146%. Patrick Ayers, of Socialist Alternative, questions the $48 billion increase in the Pentagon spending and the proposed $93 Billion for only the first two months of a war on Iraq, in light of $22 billion yearly it would cost the nation to pay for all students currently enrolled in higher education.