Feature Archives

On March 3rd, the Student Environmental Center at UC Santa Cruz hosted the 11th Annual Campus Earth Summit. This year's Campus Earth Summit included student-led workshops on a wide-variety of subjects, live performances, and keynote talks by Santa Cruz Mayor Don Lane and Eric Holt-Giménez of Food First.

Students, educators, workers, and supporters of the Occupy movement, converged in the thousands on the State Capitol in Sacramento on March 5th. They were there to demand that the government fund education and social services. In the morning, a march left Sacramento's Southside Park headed for the Capitol. There they were joined by thousands of other protesters. They came from across the state.

After effectively shutting down and preventing employees from starting the workday at the Hahn Student Services building at UC Santa Cruz starting at 5am on November 28, students held a rally at Quarry Plaza at noon followed by a general assembly at 2pm. After discussion of agenda items, students reached consensus on holding the remainder of the GA at the Hahn building to support those who were still maintaining the shutdown. At Hahn, it was decided that the building would be entered and occupied.

On the afternoon of Friday, November 18th, UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi ordered the UC Davis police to clear student protesters from the main quad on campus. In a gesture of solidarity with UC Berkeley students and faculty, and the national Occupy movement, students at UC Davis had set up tents on the main quad. Police in riot gear arrived to remove the tents, and students responded by sitting in a circle and linking arms around the tents. Without provocation, police pepper-sprayed the students. UC Davis students, alumni and others will converge on Monday, November 21st at noon on the quad to show solidarity and support for the students who were beaten and pepper-sprayed, and for a conversation about the university’s future.

Occupy CSU Monterey Bay will hold a rally, march and general assembly on Tuesday, November 15th starting at 1pm at Library Plaza on Divarty St and 5th Ave at CSUMB. A flyer for Occupy CSUMB states, "The California State University system is infected with the same disease as the rest of our sick society. It is designed to allow a small group of people to enrich and empower themselves at our expense. So as our tuition rises every year, and the staff and faculty are denied promised raises, the top administrators throughout the system receive outrageous salaries and benefits."

Students at UC Berkeley walked out of classes on November 9th to protest budget cuts and rising tuition, and to support the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations. The rally protested economic inequality and its impact on students, the poor and the young — in the words of the occupy movement, a protest by the 99% of the people who are exploited by a system that only benefits the top 1%. Later that night, students were beaten by police batons as they tried to set up tents in Sproul Plaza, and six students and an assistant professor were arrested. Students continued to occupy the plaza without tents, however.

On November 9th, over 500 students at the University of California, Santa Cruz joined various local workers' union members and Occupy Santa Cruz protesters for "Occupy Education," a protest against corporations and corruption in education. Protesters gathered at noon for a rally on the UC campus before taking to the streets. The UC Regents are meeting on November 16-17 at UCSF Mission Bay to vote on a tuition increase of 16% each year for the next four years.