Walkout Thursday

It is unsettling to see higher education suddenly being limited due to this economy. There isn't a department on campus that hasn't been threatened by budget cuts. Everyone is being affected. I honestly thought it was a joke when I found out our tuition fees could go up by 45%. Higher education for a higher price (but with limited resources). So where's our benefit in this? We don't even know how limited it's going to be yet, the Board of Regents can do anything to make ends meet.

And don't even get me started about the job market. The demands for higher education are there, but the rewards of getting that degree are questionable. Of course nothing is always secure, but how big is your ball park of where you're going to be once you're given that diploma?

As a student, I've been working at the humanities library on campus for 2 years. Even without the budget crisis looming over our heads a few years back, we were still struggling then to compete with other schools on campus to gain some sort of recognition. If we don't stand out, why would our university want to keep us later on? You suddenly understand how serious it is when some of the staff decide to leave on their own and move out-of-state to avoid the pink slip. It is even disheartening to hear what they say now. The board plans to slowly cut back on office hours and then the staff. What else? Department by department? We make up the practicality of this university. Without us, the art of research would be diminished.

Before all of this, rumor had it that they wanted to expand us and accumulate bigger and newer resources. Now all we can do is sit and twiddle our thumbs until they rub dry.

That's just the libraries here on campus.

It worries me to ask which school on campus is worth keeping then? Fingers could automatically point to humanities or social sciences. Is there going to be another repeat of the 1990s like when the UC campuses were trying to figure out if ethnics studies was worth keeping? It was nearly 40 years ago then that when the Third World Liberation Front was fighting for such a department to exist at San Francisco State. And mind you, UC Irvine welcomed the Asian American Studies department back in 2002!

When that battle comes, which campus is going to stand against the hypothetical cut?

Right now the only campus I know of that seems active enough to go against the present conditions of our education is good ol' UC Berkeley. They have a website for crying out loud. Who is leading this walkout that's supposed to happen tomorrow? Is our campus going to do anything? I do realize, of course, that a nonviolent movement may not budge the Board of Regents with their decisions, but at least it'll make a statement. Hopefully a bold one.