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Ramo
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Austin, Texas, USA
Oct 1999
time: 23:34
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I've had an interesting past week. Here's the skinny:
Some of the faculty in the Physics Dept. at UT are trying to create a lounge. But there's a severe space shortage in the university (basically, because the Board of Regents are a bunch of unaccountable ****wits appointed by the Governor that hate the idea of public education), so what they want to do is take ~628 square feet of administrative staff office space - consisting of a couple peoples' desks, a room for copying, file space, etc., - basically a full space, and cram it into the undergrad student lounge, ~303 square feet. That lounge, which is crammed itself with a fridge, chalkboards, lockers, a computer, a microwave, tables, etc., is going to be squeezed into an area much smaller (one proposal is to get a space less than half the current area and is more out of the way, and the other proposal is to get a little larger and more out of the way space than that proposal).
This planning was all done with minimal consultation from the staff and students: the Physics chair (faculty) created a committee consisting of former chairs (more faculty) to create a fact-finding report, and the chair would have final decision on what happens. The principal member of the committee than presented the plan a fait accompli to the staff and the students, and they didn't even bother to inform the students about the staff's loss of space.
So naturally, older undergrads were pretty pissed off since this louge had been vital to our UT experience, and would be to future generations. So, principally myself and another senior decided to protest. We and others, last Sunday, moved the furniture in the lounge into the neighboring [administrative] hallway - in a non-obstructing way, and set up the couch right across from the chairman's office. Then, we proceeded to occupy the area continously (keeping at least one person in the "room" at any given time - with me and the other principal architect of the plan spending nights there). We had a petition to sign, set up posters in the area, had stickers, etc (our slogan was "What Would Feynman Do?"). That way we could demonstrate support for the student room, propagandize the room itself, and demonstrate a little of our resolve.
We were terrified the first night since we were afraid fo the administrative staff's reaction, and a bad one would be unpleasant first thing in the morning. We probably would've bolted if the staff were hostile. But they turned out to be really supportive since they're being shafted far worse than we're being shafted (one of the days, the advising staff sent us really good cookies). And that helped to flesh out our cause and give it more of a moral imperative.
We'd called the University paper the day we moved the furniture out, and they covered us the next day. Giving us a front page story, which is a little bit unjustified given the scope of the thing (this is a school of over 50,000 after all), but what the hell:
http://www.dailytexanonline.com/new...ge-921059.shtml
Then, the major Austin newspaper. the Austin-American Statesman gave us a story on the front page of the Metro section the next day (a crappy story IMO, but at least it's there):
http://www.statesman.com/search/con...04/13sitin.html
And the UT TV station supposedly covered us the next day, but we didn't get to watch the broadcast since we had no TV.
We did it through the past week for ~114 hours. During which we had morale ebbs. It's really hard to take that sort of solitude (especially under flourescent lighting), the undergrads didn't put in the energy that I'd've preferred (since physics students are generally more apolitical and nonconfrontational than the general student body), and the grad students were colder than I expected (partially because they were bought off through some money for their lounge, and weren't informed about the problems the staff had with the plan, or what we wanted).
But we had a lot of morale boosts too - the near unanymous support of the staff. The Chair's Secretary even wore one of our stickers The only reason they weren't even more supportive is that some were afraid of loosing their jobs. Some faculty gave us these boosts too. For instance, Cecile DeWitt, who was one of the pioneers of women in physics with a lot of influence in the department, told us that Feynman probably would've done something like that (she knew Feynman), regaled us with an interesting story of one of her own [far more important] rebellions (after Paris was liberated by us in 9/'44, she demanded the military to give up one of the hotels that they had requisitioned for their own use, to house concentration camp refugees, and the military eventually gave in), and helped to rewrite our petition more succintly to draw more faculty support. The guy who'll probably be the next chair also strongly supported us, in fact had been supplying info to us, and suggested the idea of a protest. And then when we talked to the grad students about plans that could please everyone, and they'd been helpful. Lots of students (both undergrad and grad) have been supportive, of course, giving us supplies to help us through the process.
The spending the night part of the movement is over - Operation Numb*ss as we christened it. All in all, a very interesting experience. But honestly, far, far, far more energy than I expected to put into it, and I probably wouldn't have done it again if I knew how hard it would be. But next time a sit-in happens, I'm there with the the morale support, because now I know how important that thing is.
We've got a meeting with the chair Wednesday, and are trying to talk with the Dean of Natural Sciences who, with the chair, make the final decision. We're looking into alternate decisions, and are trying to talk with the building committee.
So, that's about it.
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Ramo
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Austin, Texas, USA
Oct 1999
time: 23:34
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Unfortunately bars don't have chalkboards, and you can't get in if you're under 21 and live music's playing.  Our lounge's great.
quote:
Sit-ins for student lounges. You do your Vietnam protestor ancestors proud, Ramo. :wipes tear: :wipes tear: |
Why not? I think the proposal is pretty damn important for the people in my department - staff and students, and our actions have already had quite an impact. But really, the protest is for the broader point of how the faculty is given an unjust amount of power in how universities are run, relative to staff and students (and the chair, relative to the rest of the faculty, etc., etc.). As the title of the thread suggests, this is more about democracy in our public universities, rather than the room itself.
And thanks DR & Franky. 
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18-04-2005 10:07
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