UCSC Workers, Students Grill Chancellor, Give June 5 Deadline

While over 1700 student petitions were delivered to the Chancellor, showing student solidarity with workers, many students associated with the successful C.A.R.E. (Community and Resource Empowerment) measure from last spring attended to remind the Chancellor of her yet unfulfilled legal commitment to provide the funding she promised for Student Initiated Outreach (SIO) and retention programs. The SIO programs, housed in the student-run Engaging Education (e^2) center, are responsible for the recruitment and retention of thousands of students of color on campus. Yet, when the Chancellor announced that UCSC's class of 2006-2007 was, for the first time in history, majority people of color, she failed to mention the students who are largely responsible for this occurance. The students, dressed in their green C.A.R.E. shirts, came to remind the Chancellor of the over the $70,000 she has owed SIO programs for months now. In Spring of 2005, the Chancellor agreed to match the funding generated by a new student fee (called C.A.R.E.) to support SIO programs. Expecting this money, the programs budgeted in her stated contribution, only to find themselves deep in debt after the Chancellor failed to meet her legal obligations. To this date, the SIO programs have still not received the promised money from the Chancellor. If this $70,000 is not deposited soon, the SIO programs will be unable to operate, drastically harming the diversity of the campus.

While she's continously asserted a 'diversity' platform, students are frusterated over the Chancellor's lack of any meaningful action towards this end, the huge rate of key faculty of color leaving (especially from American Studies) as a result of disrespect from the administration, the lack of Ethnic Studies and Asian American/Pacific Islander studies, the continued attempt to cut programs vital to students of color (including SOAR, the unit that houses student organizations), and the attack on the humanities (including the Language Program). All of this is amidst a top-admin salary/perk scandal, efforts to continue the management of UC's two nuclear weapons labs, and attempts to drastically expand the UCSC campus. The only question that remains is this: what exactly are they trying to expand?

-----

Please contact sugarloaf@riseup.net to repost/reprint these photos. Thanks!

For more information please visit:
http://www.afscme3299.org
http://www.engagingeducation.org