Protesters occupy cottage on UCD Quad
In their first major action of the winter quarter, Occupy UC Davis protesters on Tuesday afternoon took over the former home of the campus’ Cross-Cultural Center.
Though numbers fluctuated, at mid-afternoon about 50 remained inside the cottage, one of the campus’ oldest buildings, across from the Quad.
Since breaking camp on the Quad in December, protesters have been relatively quiet, holding workshops, meetings and small protests, without incident, at the U.S. Bank branch inside the Memorial Union.
“Over the winter break, people took time to refocus, re-energize and reorganize,” said Brett Lemke, a junior anthropology and philosophy major from Madison, Wis. “While I think there was the misconstrued perception that we were going away, that’s simply not the case.”
While protesters are always quick to say each has his or her own reason for taking part, Lemke said that most talk on Tuesday was about “the continuous fee increases and the privitization of the university.”
Asked how UCD would respond, spokeswoman Claudia Morain said only that officials planned to “monitor the situation and make decisions in the overall best interests of the university.”
Cross-Cultural Center staff members left the cottage in December, moving to the recently opened $22 million Student Community Center. The new building was paid for largely by fees approved by students in 1999 and 2002.
The cottage is slated to be the new home of the Educational Opportunity Program, which provides services to help students adapt to university life both academically and socially, and the Guardian Scholars Program, which assists former foster youths.
Both protesters and campus officials reported no trouble. No police were present, according to protesters, who rallied, marched and sang before moving into the building. They asked UCD staff monitors to stay outside. News media also were not allowed inside.
Crowd counts raged widely, from 50 to 60, according to campus officials, to 100 to 200, according to protesters.
The protesters’ general assembly meeting voted to support a ballot initiative. It would use a tax increase to fund four years of tuition and fees for full-time University of California or California State University students who maintain a 2.7 grade-point average or perform 70 hours per week of community service.
Authored by Oakland high school students, the effort was cleared to begin gathering signatures starting Tuesday, according to collegeforcalifornia.org.
On Nov. 17, protesters set up a small camp on the Quad that, after one night, led to a confrontation with campus police that resulted in 10 arrests and the pepper-spraying of about a dozen protesters.
That incident, which brought worldwide attention to the campus, remains under investigation, with the campus police chief and two officers placed on administrative leave. The Yolo County District Attorney’s Office opted this week not to prosecute the protesters.
After a rally that drew thousands to the Quad on Nov. 21, students rebuilt their encampment and occupied Dutton Hall, home of student financial aid.
The Dutton occupation drew some criticism because of its impact on staff and students using the building. UCD later estimated damage caused to the building and the Quad totaled $8,500, a number that protesters dispute.
David Roddy, a third-year animal biology major from Amador County, said the Dutton occupation impacted counseling and other services he would rather have seen stay open. But he maintained the vacant Cross-Cultural Center was not necessarily chosen to avoid inconveniencing students or staff.
“I think there’s a sort of general message of Occupy that people want change and they’re not going to move until the change happens — literally,” he said. “The administration keeps building all these new buildings, and a lot of these capital projects are really unnecessary.”
— Reach Cory Golden at cgolden@davisenterprise.net or (530) 747-8046. Follow him on Twitter at @cory_golden
Short URL: http://www.davisenterprise.com/?p=129714
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Posted by Cory Golden
on Jan 24 2012.
Last Login: Mon 21 May 2012 03:57:15 PM PDT
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“perform 70 hours per week of community service”
I doubt these students have done 70 hours of honest work in their whole lives.
Very logical, Jack. The next time I want to know about the ‘honest’ working status of all 30,000+ students here on our campus, I’ll be sure to turn to you.
Actually, there has been an influx in students who are also part of the full time work force over the last 5 years. And “these students” are all individuals, many of whom work several jobs to pay for their tuition. Generalizations are always false, so you should try to refrain from using them.
The article explains how the students themselves voted for the construction of the Student Community Center, which is why that cottage is now empty. Then at the end, a current student, David Roddy questions why the administration is building so many new buildings. It shows you how university administrators can be damned if they do and damned if they don’t. Beyond that, it reflects the policies of the Vanderhoef administration — they engineered the student fee increases for a lot of this construction. Yes, the students voted for them, but the fee increases were phased so that the votes were largely taxation without representation.
How many are just staying there for the free rent?
Yet another fine example of our tax dollars being wasted on “higher” education.
the squatters are blocking the planned move of two important programs that serve the most vulnerable and deserving students—EOP and students who were foster children. They are losing the considerable goodwill built up during and after the pepper spray incident. If this group has no constructive plan for lowering tuition, they need to move on. They are dwindling and demonstrating only their ineffectiveness.