Week 4 - Katrina Estrella

Katrina Estrella

Section A03

Week 4

    It was alarming for me to see the contrasting approaches of UC Berkeley and UC Davis in the face of Occupy movement protests in “A Tale of Two Campuses: Berkeley and Davis respond to Occupy movements”. The corporatization of universities was apparent with UC Davis as they blamed the students for the damages, using the number of costs for it as some sort of leverage against them. I felt almost emotionally manipulated to hear them explain that the Occupy student protesters were the cause of the “trouble”, forcing their employees to work overtime. On the other hand, I applaud UC Berkeley for their stance on actually lowering student tuitions. Now, to say whether they hold that statement to be true can be questionable, as universities are very capable of disguising themselves of being there for the interests of their students and faculty. I question UC Berkeley’s true agenda the same as all universities and other corporate-like groups. With their announcement, I wondered if it was all just a ploy to quell public dissent. I also wondered about the MCap program itself. If MCap is a UC-wide program, why have I not heard about until now as a UC Davis student? Although it is a system-wide program, it seems that only UC Berkeley is taking it seriously. Either way, it is a plain fact that the universities are very much a corporation, and it is going to take a long time to reform organizations like these to genuinely uphold the missions they promised at their creation.

Question: As a student of UC Davis who is heavily reliant on financial aid, does UC Davis instill the MCap program? Has there been any progress made on lowering tuition fees at UC Davis? 

References:

Markow, A. (2011, December 22). A Tale of Two Campuses: Berkeley and Davis respond to Occupy movements. Retrieved October 13, 2017.

Wuster, T. (2011, November 18). [Cartoon]. Retrieved from https://humorinamerica.wordpress.com/2011/11/18/occupy-wall-street-cartoons-post-2/