Disposable, disgusted, and embarrassed are all words that come to mind after reading “A Tale of Two Campuses: Berkeley and Davis respond to Occupy movements.” This article was very short yet very eye opening as in just a short statement released by UCD, they revealed how they felt about the individual student. A few years back there was a lot of peaceful demonstrations by students as they were frustrated that their tuition was so high. Two major campus’ where these demonstrations were held at were, UC Davis and UC Berkeley. Although these two campus’ have reputations of being liberal, progressive, and pro-student only, only one of these Universities held up to this reputation.
Days following the on campus student demonstrations each campus released statements about the incident at hand. UC Berkeley released a statement in short saying that they here the students and they will soon implement a program to specifically assist middle class students. Berkley acted swiftly as you might expect a progressive school would. UC Davis on the other hand chastised the student body for protesting and reported the student's cost the University thousands in damage and forced its custodians to work hours on end to clean the vandalism. As a student attending UC davis this makes me sick as this here alone, shows that the student body as a whole has no respect in the eyes of administrator’ of Davis. Davis views there students as replaceable and just a source of income.
The way Davis reacted to the protest reprimanding the students for demonstrating shows how the University views its students as pieces of monetary value, rather than an individual person. Reading UCD’ reaction made me feel like if there is an issue at my campus I shouldn't even voice my opinion because it doesn't even matter. I mean in UCD’ eyes there are thousand’ of other students who would gladly receive the education I'm getting, and they wouldn't complain at all. So why should I? This article shows that UC Davis has stripped the student a voice in their education, they have made the University into a large corporation that only views the student as a contributor. UC Davis is set up in a way so that the demand to go there is high, so in return they only let a certain amount of students in, so they can squeeze out every dollar they can from the individual. So let me leave you with this, if you are going to attend a school insensitive to your issue’, leave thousands in debt, with a sense of educational isolation, are you proud to call this corporation your alma mater?
-My one question I have after reading this article is what can I really do about the price of my education? I mean I could protest, but we seen how that worked out… What’s the alternative?
-Kadvany, E. (2011, August 28). GE's need to be restructured. Retrieved October 12, 2017, from http://dailytrojan.com/2011/08/28/ge%E2%80%99s-need-to-be-restructured/
-Markow, A. (2011, December 19). A Tale of Two Campuses: Berkeley and Davis respond to Occupy movements. Retrieved October 13, 2017, from https://ivn.us/2011/12/19/a-tale-of-two-campuses-berkeley-and-davis-respond-to-occupy-movements/
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