Blog #4

Kimberly Hwang 

Section A01

April 21, 2013

Reading: “A Tale of Two Campuses: Berkeley and Davis respond to Occupy Movements” by Alan Markow 

A School that Sits Idly by vs. a School that Fights for their Students

This excerpt compares Davis and Berkeley’s responses to the Occupy movement. Surprisingly they had very different reactions. Berkeley’s chancellor responded by taking action and creating a program called MCap, that would make tuition more affordable to the middle-income families. Davis, on the other hand, responded by complaining about all the time and money it took to clean up after the protesters left the school building. Davis took no action to the problem at hand and instead posted articles about their damages and the costs. I think the purpose of comparing these two responses is to point out Davis’s lack of action towards the problem. They completely ignored their student’s plea for change and instead made the student protesters seem like the bad people who destroyed their campus. Berkeley’s action towards the situation, shows that there were ways in which the school could have remedied the problem. Instead of helping their students, Davis just sat idly by while pointing fingers. By comparing these two responses, it shows that the Berkeley chancellor really listens to the students, while the Davis chancellor did nothing to help. Chancellors are here for the students and should always be willing to listen and aid the students in any way possible, but this article shows that the Davis chancellor did not do her job. My question is: If there are other protests in the future about something the students feel strongly about, will the Davis chancellor step up and help the students or will they again do nothing to help the students?