Graduate students grade student essays and midterm exams in the lobby at Kerr Hall in response to pay cuts to TAs’ salaries. Photo by Molly Solomon.

Students and faculty gather in Quarry Plaza to protest the proposed 8 to 20 percent tuition increase. Photo by Molly Solomon.

Members of the Graduate Student Organizing Committee (GSOC) and undergraduate students gathered Tuesday at the Quarry Plaza for a “teach-in” about contract negotiations between the United Auto Workers and the UC which resumed that day. The rally ended at Kerr Hall, where protesters succeeded in doubling the funding for graduate student childcare to the negotiation agenda.

UC President Mark Yudof’s proposal of an 8 percent fee increase for the 2011-12 school year was also criticized by protesters.

If the UC regents approve the proposal at the Nov. 16-18 regents meeting, Yudof’s proposal will increase the UC system’s educational fee by $828 to $11,124.

In an e-mail to the campus community on Nov. 9, UC Santa Cruz Chancellor George Blumenthal wrote, “In the end, about 55 percent of UC undergraduates will have the entire proposed fee increase covered by financial aid, Cal Grant awards, or a combination.”

He also announced that, after seven years of negotiation with the UC Office of the President, he expects that 100 percent of future fee increases paid by UCSC students will be distributed back to UCSC.

Erin Ellison, a TA in the psychology department, spoke to the group of protesters about how the proposed budget will affect graduate students.

“[I’m at] the University of California because I thought it was a high quality of education,” Ellison said. “But we’re overloaded with work and responsibilities and don’t get paid enough to even make rent.”

Protesters performed a skit criticizing large class sizes, where students dressed as zombies finishing assignment after assignment while a TA tried in vain to keep up with grading.

Comparing the skit to last year’s strikes, Ellison recognized the importance of diversifying methods of protest in order to remain effective.

“Well, obviously talking, negotiating, writing letters, and petitioning hasn’t worked, so this is what we’re left with,” Ellison said. “I think that it’s important to have lots of different tactics. I don’t think you’ve seen the end of strikes.”

Madeline Lane, a literature TA involved in last year’s strike organization and supporter of this year’s rallies, proposed that discussion of problems affecting the classroom be integrated into the classroom.

“I think there are a lot of opportunities to contextualize the content of our protests, of our critique of the budget cuts, and privatization into the classroom,” she said.

The rally moved to Kerr Hall, where 32 students staged an hour-long sit-in in the building’s lobby in an effort to reach out to the budget negotiators. The protesters had Kerr Hall staff contact labor relations, and they were eventually able to have their message heard.

A protester kept in constant contact with Kerr Hall faculty, clarifying the group’s incentives.

“We’re just trying to get paid fair,” she said to building staff. “Our rent is more than half of our monthly salary. It’s hard to survive.”

Protesters were concerned with potential decreases in TA salaries resulting from the negotiations. GSOC organizers argue that the UC’s current offer of 2 percent raises over the next three years will result in a 1 percent decrease in salaries, as the university has projected inflation of almost 3 percent.

Also on the agenda was increased funding for graduate student childcare. A UCSC TA and graduate student organizing committee member, who preferred to remain anonymous, said that current funding does little to cover the costs of childcare.

“Right now, grad students with children get $300 a quarter for childcare, and that’s nothing,” the student said. “That takes care of about a week of childcare.”

The Kerr Hall sit-in dispersed after the protesters’ message was relayed to the bargaining committee. As the sit-in ended, a GSOC organizer announced that childcare subsidies had been brought to the bargaining table. Before the protest, childcare had not even been part of negotiations.

Jim Burns, UCSC director of public information, said that UCSC administrators are sympathetic to the protester’s concerns.

“At the campus level, we very much appreciate the views expressed by the graduate students in Kerr Hall yesterday,” he said in an e-mail. “We not only understand their concerns about wages, workload and the state budget’s overall impact on the quality of education, we respect the manner in which they called attention to those views. Per the students’ request, we relayed those concerns to the UC systemwide bargaining team.”

As of press time, the UC has walked away from the barganing table without yet agreeing on a contract.

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at Graduate Student Rally Against Budget Negotiations

Raising their voices, students and faculty members gathered outside Kerr Hall to protest cuts to the language program. Photo by Nita-Rose Evans.

Chancellor George Blumenthal received a lot of valentines this year, but not all were from admirers.

Students and faculty gathered outside Blumenthal’s office at Kerr Hall on Wednesday, Feb. 17. They delivered handmade cards, which both professed their love for UC Santa Cruz language programs and urged the administration not to cut from the languages’ budget.

Several faculty members, including Spanish lecturer María Morris, marched with their classes across campus to the chancellor’s office, where the group of about 50 chanted — in various languages — messages of support for the language programs.

“In the history of this campus, they always hit us,” Morris said. “This is for the administration to know that students support the languages.”

The idea to make valentines urging the administration to stop layoffs and course reductions came out of a general assembly meeting. The students and staff involved hoped to draw attention in a peaceful manner to language studies’ important place in a university education.

Third-year Amu Sidhu said that the cuts would damage any attempt the school might make to be seen as culturally diverse.

“It’s an attack on diversity, cutting off access to other cultures,” Sidhu said.

While students donned heart-shaped stickers identifying the languages they study, lecturers and organizers led chants and spoke about the importance of defending the languages.

Graduate student Sarah Smith addressed the effects the potential cuts may have on teaching assistants. One of the proposed options for accommodating the cuts to the language program and other divisions is to have more classes taught by graduate students.

Smith is affiliated with the United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, which represents university teaching assistants. She spoke on behalf of the group, condemning this proposal.

“We are outraged at any suggestions that we are qualified to teach languages that teachers who have been here for decades … are more qualified to teach,” Smith said. “The treatment of professors and lecturers [by the administration] is horrific.”

Participants rallied in response to proposals of cuts to language programs, a measure that was suggested in response to larger UC budget cuts. In addition to hiring grad students to teach in the program, proposals include everything from reducing the number of classes offered to switching French, Portuguese and Spanish to five-quarter sequences.

French lecturer Angela Elsey said the potential cuts would add more problems to the already struggling program.

“Now there are even more students, and they already can’t get into the [language] classes they want,” Elsey said. “The workload for teachers has gone up as well.”

However, administrators in the Division of Humanities stress that cuts to the language program are still hypothetical.

UCSC’s Dean of Humanities Georges Van Den Abbeele says a task force, which convened last fall, continues to assess the potential damages of proposed solutions to the budget cuts.

“We have made no decisions on any of the options proposed and are still actively consulting with campus people and units, including the Academic Senate, and seeking constructive input on how to negotiate reductions that may adversely impact all of our departments and programs, not just languages,” Van Den Abbeele said in an e-mail to UCSC spokesperson Jim Burns, which Burns released to City on a Hill Press.

Though no solution has been officially decided upon, some of the students enrolled in threatened courses see potential cuts as limitations to their education.

“College is supposed to be opening doors,” third-year Anab Mohammed said. “Each day they’re cutting something and closing another door.”

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at Students Show the Languages Love

Students remain barricaded in Kerr Hall which houses the offices of UCSC's highest administrators.

Occupants in Kerr Hall expanded their space last night after deciding to break into the Chancellor’s area of the floor.  The building has several corridors that cannot be accessed without a key.

Around 1 am, wearing bandanas and tee shirts to avoid exposure from many security cameras, over fifty students gathered around a secured corridor that leads to the Chancellor’s conference room.  Soon after students used various tools such as a hammer, machete and a crow bar to wedge open the door.

Inside the corridor there is a conference room, a kitchen and other small rooms. The Chancellor’s Office remained closed off behind another set of doors.

“It’s symbolic. We got through,” cried one student expressing his enthusiasm for the movement.

Jim Stevenson* described the condition of the door that was removed.

“The integrity of the door was not compromised,” Stevenson said.

Participant, Alexander Jacobson*described his expectation for the administration’s response.

“People feel that no matter what they do, the administration is going to say the same thing, and claim excessive damage,” said Jacobson.

When the door was thrust open, cheers broke out and the students flooded in. Once the cameras were covered, students explored the area.

“We’re doing something that has never been done before,” said Jacobson*. “That’s what is really important; when young people can take matters into their own hands.”

Leading up to the Kerr Hall occupation, UCSC Radical Student Union, the group who organized the previous occupations but have changed their name, hosted a Rally in front of occupied Kerr Hall Thursday night. Nearly 200 people showed up, including news stations and UCSC classes. At the rally, speakers addressed the fiscal state of the UC and the importance of action.

“Students have an extremely strong moral position right now; most sane people know that what is happening is wrong,” said Jacobson*.

The occupants held a press conference of their own in the Chancellor’s conference room last night, to communicate with those involved with the similar actions taking place in Europe, speaking to students at a university in Vienna, Austria.

“We have very different backgrounds in this occupation and very different options,” said the Austrian student during the Skype conversation where occupants from both universities discussed their efforts. “I think that is very important.”

A large number of students remained in the space overnight. Sleeping bags, pillows and blankets littered nearly all hall ways on the second floor and the two elevators which had been propped open.

Blumenthal and Kliger are both out of their office, doing work elsewhere. The 150 staff members who did not come in to Kerr Hall on Friday are unable work.

The administration hopes that the occupants will vacate the premises without police intervention.

“At this point we would like to avoid bring in police. We remain hopeful that they will voluntarily leave,” said University Spokesman Jim Burns. “Their presence has effectively closed a building and the sooner they leave the better.”

In an address to the campus community regarding the occupants, Executive Vice Chancellor David Kliger established the liability of the actions.

“Those still inside are trespassing and subject to arrest and/or campus sanctions that may lead to suspension or expulsion.”

Burns established the stipulation of Kliger’s statement.

“The longer they stay here the greater the risk of being arrested or sanctioned,” said Burns. “We’re still hoping that they leave and if they don’t, [Kliger’s] message makes it clear.”

*Names have been changed.

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at Occupants Expand Movement

The chants and stomping of demonstrators reverberated off the cement walls of the Kerr Hall stairwell as students filed into the building that houses high-level UCSC administrators, including Chancellor George Blumenthal and Executive Vice Chancellor David Kliger.

Nearly 150 students marched across campus after a brief meeting at the Kresge Town Hall occupation, entering the Kerr from the bottom floor entrance marching to thte rhythmic beating of drums.

The occupation of Kerr Hall came a few hours after UC Regents voted to raise educational fees by 32.5 percent.  Next school year students will be required to pay over $10,302 at a system that was once free.

As students invaded the facility, they chanted “Whose university?  Our university!” and one student placed tape over a security camera. Once inside, students gathered in the hallway and lobby.

“Across the state, students are taking action to demonstrate our unwillingness to accept this state of affairs,” declared an anonymous student activist source in an email sent to members of the UCSC community.

The occupiers created a list of demands which they delivered and read to Executive Vice Chancellor David Kliger at 5:30p.m. After the list was dictated to Kliger, he shook the hand of the student who read the list aloud.

“[Kliger] took it gracefully.  He listened to every demand,” said Matthew Palm, who worked as a moderator between occupiers and administrators.

Items on their list of demands were voted on using a democratic process; each student raised a hand for the ideas they supported.

“We actually know what democracy looks like,” said an individual who spoke at the Kresge Town Hall occupation, which happened moments before the Kerr Hall occupation took place.

The demands, numbering close to thirty, were divided into two segments, long-term proposals and short-terms demands. The short-term demands are the conditions that must be met by administration for the protesters to vacate the space which range from halting construction on campus to imploring that the University not acknowledge the 32.5 percent fee increase.

“The administrators can come out publically against fee hikes,” Palm said. “I’m afraid they are not going to do that because without the fee hikes the cuts will be a lot bigger.”

Throughout the processions, over 30 staff members left the building through isle ways created by the mass of student protesters. A few students masked with bandanas barricaded the side and back doors.

Similar actions are being taken across California. At the UCLA campus, students have occupied Campbell Hall and at UC Davis students have occupied an administrative building.

Kliger, in an email sent to the UCSC community in response to the occupation, expressed his views on such actions.

“Unfortunately, occupying buildings –a library last week, an administrative building this week – does little more than divert precious resources while denying others their rightful access to campus facilities and services,” he wrote.

The email sent by occupiers echoes the sentiment that the Kerr Hall occupation is a call to action.

“Students at Kerr Hall need your support immediately,” declared the email. “We call on all students, workers, and community members to come join us. We have the power to change the university.”

UPDATE 11/20 11:52am
Protesters are now not permitting entry to administrators or workers into Kerr Hall.  Earlier, a small group of administrators were admitted entry by occupation participants in the building to “grab personal items,” including laptops.  However, occupation participants have just now decided to not allow entry to anyone after this point. -R. Matsuoka

UPDATE 12:18pm
Additional protesters are gathering to rally in front of Kerr Hall.

UPDATE 4:50pm
Kerr Hall Occupants Expand Moment. See this post for updates.

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at Over 150 Students Occupy Kerr Hall