- We're not alone! Check out other Tent Universities at tentstate.com

- 230,000 students on strike in Quebec! See the indymedia article, their website, and photos.


- UCSC students successfully kick military recruiters off campus using direct action! See pictures part 1 and 2.

- Students and workers at Georgetown University win a living wage for all workers after 9 day hunger strike. See the Washington Post article and the Georgetown Living Wage website.

- Students at Washington University are currently sitting in to demand a living wage for all workers. Visit their website.

I wish I was at your tent state rather than Rutgers'... at least you're actually DOING something other than phoning legislators and listening to jam bands... Keep it real. Maybe it will get people off their butts to recognize you gotta fight for your rights.

-- Radical and lonely at Rutgers

Berlin is on the brink of bankruptcy. It can be felt in the uncut lawns of parks, the empty storefronts of small businesses, and now in the echoes of bustling crowds and chants that fill the streets of Berlin almost everyday. Students have begun to protest in response to the brash plans of government policies, which include budget cuts of 50 million euros in the years 2004 and 2005 and 75 million euros by 2009, faculty members and course numbers eliminated by their hundreds, and no clear solutions for future developments - all topped off by the fact that, though Germany's flailing economy hasn't helped, Berlin's predicaments are a direct results of a government bank scandal that took place 9 years ago. But these protests have not just been about demonstrating and petitioning. Powered by the internet and mobile phones, students are arranging themselves in much more fluent ways than before, and the results have been creative, to say the least.

www.shift.jp.org/086/activeslumming/

Sit-In May Turn Into Lockdown At Washington University in St. Louis
indymedia.us/en/2005/04/6283.shtml

At Washington Universtity, in St. Louis Missouri, 14 students sat in an admissions building to demand a living wage for the food, janitorial, and service workers of the university.

That was eight days ago. Today 50 students are inside the admissions office, located inside Brookings Hall, and an additional 200 are outside rallying for a living wage.

As early as tonight, the University will make an attempt to forcibly remove the students from the admissions building. However, it has been reported that the 14 students that started this sit in will not move voluntarily until the demands are met.

Living Wage Sit-In
www.bigmuddyimc.org/feature/display/1573/index.php

University of Mary Washington Living Wage Victory
richmond.indymedia.org/feature/display/10290/index.php

Today's lockdown ended in victory after only two hours with the administration agreeing to form a 6 member Living Wage Committee made up of three coalition members, and three administration members. The committee will investigate poverty wage issues at the University of Mary Washington and work together towards a solution. The fight is not over, but this is a huge step. Direct action gets the goods!

Living Wage NOW!

Students Empowered and Making A Difference

Everyone Involved Takes Credit in Victory

Those who profess to favor freedom, yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.
-Frederick Douglass

santacruz.indymedia.org/newswire/display/17332/index.php

First, I love Santa Cruz, and I can't imagine a better place to spend 5 (with 3 more to go) years of graduate school than UCSC... for me, this is about as ideal a place as I will ever live.

But the article might be better titled "Tent University Santa Cruz: Pissing off the neighbors". The people organizing this event seem to think "free speech" means they can speak any time of day from a makeshift stage (presumably with loudspeakers) at the edge of a suburban neighborhood. It seems they want to have an educational Woodstock of sorts, but everything I've seen leads me to believe this event will turn into a mini Woodstock 2, without enough space, basic services (water and bathrooms), or security to manage the hundreds of people they hope will take part.

One of the things I have always appreciated about UCSC is the feeling of security I have on campus. Relative to other universities and even greater Santa Cruz, UCSC is much safer. But without the support of local or university police at this event, the risk to students, their property and even the university property, will be substantially increased. What good is it to protest rising fees if the result is millions of dollars in damage (that would have to be paid for by student fees) caused by a small number of even attendees without even a basic level of respect for the community we live, learn, and work in? How much worse would it be if even one student was attacked on her way home from a late night study session at the library?

I realized a while back that the people of Santa Cruz, in general, like to think of themselves as open-minded people; God help anyone who isn't as open-minded as they are though. Everyone, including the administration, wants to promote a "climate of intellectual exchange and engagement" (from ucsc.tentstate.com), but that climate can't exist without safety for those involved. I would urge the organizers of this event to work with the university administration to find a location and time that will not only promote your ideas, but will also provide for the safety and security of the people who participate.

An open letter to the campus community and Chancellor Denton from UCSC Lit grads

In her most recent press release, Chancellor Denton states that Tent University is a security threat. "This is not an issue of free speech," she says. "Rather it is a matter of ensuring students' safety and protecting the orderly conduct of our educational mission." As graduate students of literature we understand this to be the language of bureaucratic euphemism, the same form of official rhetoric that has been used in the past to stymie academic debate.
In her most recent press release, Chancellor Denton states that Tent University is a security threat. "This is not an issue of free speech," she says. "Rather it is a matter of ensuring students' safety and protecting the orderly conduct of our educational mission." As graduate students of literature we understand this to be the language of bureaucratic euphemism, the same form of official rhetoric that has been used in the past to stymie academic debate.

And though we concur that there is a great need for the spirit ofopenness which Chancellor Denton calls for, we see her invocation of the highly politicized concept of security as an administrative tactic to justify control of public space and limit the exchange of ideas. If the UCSC community is really to foster "open dialogue," then the administration must dispense with policies and positions that pit the leitmotif of public safety against the practice of free speech. There is no liberty where the outcome is already determined; under such a presumptive and authoritarian logic, security always trumps freedom.

In recent years the UC has not operated openly, making crucial decisions about budget and resource allocation without consultation or consideration for student/worker needs. As a mobile counter institution, Tent University, on the other hand, is an example of democratic pedagogy in action; a liberated zone where students can conduct themselves as full participants in their education.

In contrast, the chancellor's call to openness comes wrapped around a threat: if "plans for erecting a 'tent university' proceed, the university will enforce all relevant university policies and will apply maximum sanctions against violators." Such dehumanizing rhetoric turns students into "violators" and is, in the end, drawn from the same technocratic lexicon that furnishes the terminology used to justify militarization, "free speech zones", and "special administrative measures"-- in other words it is the language of social control.

Of course the chancellor's quoted remarks are less provocative than the text of the press release. Attendance at Tent University by "well intentioned but uninformed students could threaten their academic careers," Chancellor Denton says-- a condescending and disingenuous statement which guarantees that self-determination on the part of students will be punished. Chancellor Denton would have us learn the lessons of participation and democracy, yet the curriculum she offers lectures in the language of consequences and obedience.

Oddly, the chancellor states twice in her press release that she desires not civic but "civil" debate. That lawyerly phrasing-- the civility of manners and legal custom over the civic activity of student citizenship-- indicates Chancellor Denton is more concerned that we behave politely than that this public university fulfill its educational mission. We the undersigned agree that the UC is a promising site for "sharing ideas and working for positive change," and we sincerely hope that the decisions to raise our fees, to cut language and academic programs, and to deny workers a living wage will be shared with the entire campus community in an open forum. Until this institution, the University of California at Santa Cruz, meets and then exceeds all those expectations, counter-institutions such as Tent University will be both welcome and necessary.

Sincerely,

Aaron Anderson
Stephen Carter
Sean Connelly
Jay Guevara
Johanna Isaacson
Jin Jirn
Laura Martin
Alexei Nowak
Emily Sloan-Pace
Monica Smith
Christina Stevenson
Cara Stratton
Katie Woolsey-Springer

Sean Connelly
Literature Dept.
UC Santa Cruz
831 227 0626

Laurel from TUSC (Tent University Santa Cruz) will be talking tent-in on 101.1 FM and www.freakradio.org on Bathrobespierre's Broadsides Sunday Morning at 9:30 AM.

Call-in to 831-427-3772 or log in to the chat room at pagesincolor.com to ask questions, make comments, or observe the fun.

Laurel promises updates on the latest UCSC bureaucrat shenanagans including the university's "compromise" offer that they can proceed if they limit their Tent University to students only and exclude the community. Apparently a particular fear is "the homeless" as well as "drug dealers". Tune in for more shocking details.

And have your tent ready 11 AM on Monday at Bay and Mission. Show up and support Tent U.

Join a statewide student action to bring attention to the affordability and accessibility problems at Texas Universities. Students at several campuses will be setting up tent cities on their campuses starting next Wednesday night (4/20/2005), and lasting indefinitely.
austin.indymedia.org/newswire/display/19749/index.php

Tent University students voted last night to make four demands of the University in exchange for agreeing to move the bulk of the students to the Rock Quarry on campus.

The demands were: All charges against those arrested be dropped
No student be subject to disciplinary action such as suspension or compulsion
Members of the community who are not UCSC students be allowed to join Tent U.

Tents be allowed to stay up until noon on Friday

A meeting is scheduled today at 11:00AM between Tent U. reps and UCSC admin. to negotiate terms for the withdrawal of charges.