March 4 Protests Roll On, UCSD Tries To Make Peace, Oakland Activists To Be Released

For students at UC Santa Cruz, the March 4 protests continued into March 5.

At 5 a.m. PST this morning, protesters blocked the main entrance to campus, preventing cars from entering. They dispersed not long afterward.

Meanwhile, the Associated Press reports that a meeting between UC San Diego students and administration yesterday was "productive and wide-ranging."

The university says administrators agreed to diversify the student body and the faculty through targeted recruitment, provide more classes and instructors dedicated to diversity and rewrite the student code of conduct.

UCSD had been marred by a series of racist events.

And according to multiple Twitter reports, the 160 protesters arrested after marching onto an Oakland freeway are slowly being released from multiple area jails.

Comments

[Conservative in NJ]

07:29 PM on 03/05/2010

The high cost of higher education can be fixed/mitigated in a few ways:
1) allow students to finish school in three years.
2) AP high school courses should count.
3) School is in session about 180 days (average work year is 250). Therefore, schools should function 6 days a week to make best use of facilities. Students can choose classes to meet their schedule
4) Make teachers teach a full schedule. They should be teaching 250 days a year and 10 hours a day like most Americans.
Eliminate Financial Aid and just have loans and work/study program.

[realitytrumpsbull]

04:05 PM on 03/06/2010

Or, remind students/prospective students that they can just buy the book itself, read it, and thus become educated, for a lot less money.

[foxbat]

08:57 AM on 03/08/2010

1) I assume that you are talking about high school since many of your other statements involve 180-day references. Many schools already allow this; students can typically finish requirements in 3 years + 2 courses. As such, one summer school session would allow this. Even in places where it is a full four years, three summer sessions would suffice. If you're talking about college, also doable with summer school.
2) AP high school courses count toward college credit; just not sometimes toward HS credit. It's called double-dipping.
3) HS functioning on a six-day work week would get severe pushback from easily 1/3 to 1/2 or more parents.
4) Teachers are paid based on the time that they teach already. A teacher pulling down $30,000 is paid for their spring/fall commitments. Their pay does not include summer. Many of them; however, have the option of working 9/10 months, but paid across 12months. That decreases their monthly pay, but the annual pay is the same. Teachers in high school work a 10 hour day in most cases. They work 7-3 and then easily another couple of hours in grading, prep, etc. College is the same thing ... teachers are paid for 9/10 month assignments not for the whole year. Want to have them teach those two extra months? No problem, but costs go up.

[Conservative in NJ]

12:04 PM on 03/08/2010

Not talking about high school. In fact, in would be more economical for HS to be 5 years and college three.

One last thing, the supply and demand for teachers is heavily weighted towards supply. If a teaching job opens up, there will be many applicants. And contrary to how Wall Street spins it, there are hundreds of quality individuals to take one wall street job.

[ucmep]

05:10 PM on 03/05/2010

eyewitness account of the freeway occupation:
http://ucmep.wordpress.com/2010/03/05/what-we-learned-from-march-4-privatize-the-streets/

[avocats]

03:47 PM on 03/05/2010

News for UCSD administration (who began kissing the feet of the "protestors" before any fact-finding was completed regarding the "hate crimes"/hoaxes: you cannot "diversify" the student body. The voters of California have rejected race-based admissions and race-based hiring.

[educate-inspire]

04:03 PM on 03/05/2010

it was mainly targeted towards the recruiment of faculty, you're right affirmative action was put down, but universities all over california have found a way to target minority students through various processes. I doubt the administration is as retarted as you sound...and believe me no one is or was kissing the feet of the protestors, I was there, half the things they told us was a lie...we'll wait for results.

[rightwing927]

02:23 PM on 03/07/2010

You were there? Did that fine education also teach you how to misspell retarded?

And how exactly do you "target minority students through various processes" while not having race-based policies for hiring and admissions?

This whole thing has turned out to be a shake-down. Fairly typical for the modern day race hustlers. Step 1. Create a situation that can be perceived as racially insensitive. Step 2. Feign offense. Step 3. Ask for money or favors in order to temporarily pacify the masses. Step 4. Wait awhile and repeat.

Seems to be working well....again.

[StateTheFacts]

02:53 PM on 03/05/2010

Haven't Universities across America promised for over 40 years to "diversify"?

[zeppelingirl89]

06:46 PM on 03/07/2010

Yeah...I don't know why they are complaining about a lack of diversity in California either....based on their statistics most of their universities are something like 30 percent asian, 30 percent white, 10 percent international and 25 percent latino or black. How on earth is that not diverse enough for them?

[lazercat2008]

01:48 PM on 03/05/2010

Universities began looking for other ways to attract big business dollars to campuses, such as building research facilities, hospitals and labs, and selling naming rights to big businesses, or subsidizing the work of these companies with public tax dollars and tuition. In fact, U.S. capitalism has been looking for ways to profit from every aspect of education for the past three decades.

[realitytrumpsbull]

04:06 PM on 03/06/2010

Education is big business. College sports is big business. Student lending is big business. The books aren't free, either. Then there's the salaries and benefits and this and that and the other...