ASA 2 Section 2
Week 4
In Alan Markow's article, "A Tale of Two Campuses," he ponders why two UC campus' responses to the Occupy Movement were different. In Decemeber of 2011, the Occupy movement was gaining strength all over America, and students all over the UC system were joining the cause. After protests on both the UC Davis campus and the UC Berkeley campus, the two school administrations responded to the outcry. Markow notes that the administrations' responses were markedly in contrast with one another: UC Berkeley announced plans to lighten the financial burden on middle class families, while UC Davis sent out an e-mail to make known the "$8,500 in expenses" that were racked up due to damages.
The surface-level reason for the different responses to the Occupy movement is simple -- school representatives at Berkeley chose to lead in a different way than those at Davis. But at this one is compelled to dig deeper into the matter to try and understand what school administrators might have been thinking. The way I see it, Berkeley has had considerable history with protesters and is doing what it must to avoid a quarrel. Davis, on the other hand may not understand the dangers of sparking an already lit fire. All in all, I believe the administrators at UC Davis are morally compelled to listen to the concerns of the students. After all, Davis is a public university -- for far too long has the campus moved towards acting as a business model instead of an institution of higher learning.
Question: What can students do to fight the deep seated corruption of campus officials cutting themselves too large of a pay-check?
Image: The Occupy UC Davis movement on the Quad as seen from above.
No comments:
Post a Comment