Higher Education

‘I Learned More Leading Student-Debt Strike Than I Did at College’

August 23, 2015 Nathan Hornes, www.yesmagazine.org Resist! Higher Education, Strike Debt, Student Activism, Student Debt

By Nathan Hornes for Yes! Magazine - Soon after we started our campaign, Debt Collective, a debt resistance group that grew out of Occupy Wall Street, contacted us. They had heard some of the complaints about Everest and had also heard about our activism. When we met with them they told us how they had recently figured out a way to buy medical debt for pennies on the dollar and abolish it. They wanted to start doing the same for student loan debt. The people we met through Debt Collective also told us about how Corinthian Colleges—the group of colleges Everest belongs to—had been screwing over students across the country. Up until then I’d thought it was just my campus, but then I began to understand that tons of people were dealing with our same problems. Debt Collective helped us take our campaign to the next level. Now I’m known as the guy who helped shape the very first student debt strike.

The Hidden Force In For-Profit Closures

August 22, 2015 Michael Stratford, www.insidehighered.com Educate! Debt, Education, Higher Education

By Michael Stratford in Inside Higher Ed - The messy unwinding of Corinthian Colleges was an unprecedented dance among various actors: the U.S. Department of Education, state attorneys general, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and buyers like ECMC’s Zenith Group -- not to mention members of Congress and student and consumer groups. But another, far less visible, entity also had a strong interest in and influence on the outcome: Bank of America and a handful of other banks. The extent to which those institutions, which lent money to help keep Corinthian afloat, were involved in managing the for-profit college giant as it hurtled toward ruin is becoming clearer in the company’s ongoing bankruptcy proceedings.

Long Distance Running: Interview W/ Veteran Peace Activist Doug Allen

June 27, 2015 Andy Piascik and Doug Allen, www.zcomm.org Organize! Activism, Education, Higher Education, Student Activism, Wars and Militarism

By Andy Piascik and Doug Allen in Zcomm - Anyone who has done organizing on a college campus knows the difficulty of sustaining such work. Faculty come and go, students enroll and graduate, and even the most vibrant campaigns come to an abrupt end. In the best of circumstances, organizations, particularly activist ones, seldom last more than a few years. When Doug Allen arrived at the University of Maine in 1974, he helped found the Maine Peace Action Committee (MPAC) even though he had just recently been fired for his activist work by Southern Illinois University. Remarkably, 41 years later, MPAC is still going strong, continuing, among other things, to publish its newsletter, sponsor events, tackle campus issues, and participate in broader campaigns.

John Hopkins, Federal Policies & Slumification

May 9, 2015 Sean Nevins, www.mintpressnews.com Educate! Baltimore, Capitalism, Government, Higher Education, Racial Justice

The world watched last week as protesters stormed the streets of Baltimore to oppose police brutality and demand justice for Freddie Gray, the 25-year-old man, who died of spinal injuries suffered in police custody on April 19. But racist policing policies aren’t the only factor leading police officers to allegedly treat Gray, and others like him, inhumanely and disregard his cries for help inside that police van. Contempt for black life in Baltimore and indeed across the United States is also manifested through a legacy of discriminatory housing policies, which include federally mandated discriminatory housing and lending practices, as well as predatory redevelopment projects which benefit one group of people while displacing and disregarding others.

Tufts Students Stage ‘Indefinite’ Hunger Strike Against Janitor Layoffs

May 6, 2015 Rachel Luban, www.inthesetimes.com Resist! Higher Education, Labor, Student Activism, Worker Rights and Jobs

Tufts University students launched a hunger strike and took over a quad next to the Medford/Somerville campus’s main administrative building Sunday to protest planned layoffs of 35 janitors. Five undergraduates joined the “indefinite” hunger strike as a show of solidarity with the janitors, 17 percent of whom are slated to lose their jobs. Dozens more students set up tents on a quad they plan to occupy day and night until the cuts are halted. Adelaida Colon, a custodian at Tufts for the past 18 years, doesn’t know what she’d do if she lost her job. “It would affect me immensely,” she says. Her husband is disabled and hasn’t been able to work for 12 years, making her the breadwinner. “He depends on me, because his income is very small, $800 a month.”

Adjuncts Join The Fight For 15

April 8, 2015 Colleen Flaherty, www.insidehighered.com Resist! Higher Education, Labor Unions, Teachers, Worker Rights and Jobs

Most observers agree that adjunct instructors deserve better pay, but what about $15,000 per course? The Service Employees International Union shocked even some adjunct activists last week when it announced that figure as a centerpiece of its new faculty advocacy campaign. But while union leaders admit the number is bold, those involved in the campaign say adjuncts might as well aim big, since they have little to lose. They also say they hope the $15,000 figure will force a national conversation about just how colleges spend their money, if not on middle-class salaries for instructors. “Clearly this is an aspirational goal, but it’s a realistic goal, as well,” said Tiffany Kraft, an adjunct instructor of English at four different institutions in the Portland, Ore., area, where she earns $2,700 to $3,400 per course -- about average, nationwide.

Elite Schools Should Stop Charging Tuition To Create Fairer Society

April 4, 2015 Ron Unz, www.unz.com Educate! Elitism, Higher Education, Inequality

Although Harvard is widely known as one of America’s oldest and most prestigious colleges, that public image is outdated. Over the last couple of decades, the university has transformed itself into one of the world’s largest hedge-funds, with the huge profits of its aggressively managed $36 billion portfolio shielded from taxes because of the educational institution it continues to run as a charity off to one side. The numbers tell the story. These days Harvard’s 6,600 undergraduates are charged annual tuition of $44,000 per year, with substantial reductions for students from less wealthy families. So student tuition probably contributes much less than $200 million to Harvard’s annual revenue.

University Protests Around The World

March 28, 2015 Rebecca Ratcliffe, www.theguardian.com Resist! Capitalism, Education, Higher Education, Student Activism

Students at University of the Arts, London, took over their university’s reception area last Thursday to protest against proposed cuts to some of its course programmes. This makes UAL one of the latest institutions around the world to be hit by occupations and strikes by staff and students. The causes of such protests vary: some are concerned about working conditions facing graduate students, others point to a lack of transparency about how universities are run. A key issue is the commercialisation of higher education, which many feel has led university leaders to prioritise financial goals over the needs of staff and students. We speak to academics and students in Canada, the Netherlands and the UK to find out why they’re taking a stand.

Toronto Strikes Back Against Neoliberal Education

March 22, 2015 ROAR Collective, roarmag.org Resist! Higher Education, Strike

It becomes remarkably clear that the foundational concerns raised in each case are symptomatic of the neoliberal restructuring of the university system, and indeed, of society at large, and represent a concerted push-back against austerity and the casualization and precarization of labor within and beyond the academic institution. In conjunction with increasingly assertive organizing on the part of adjunct faculty across the continent, with a second round of student strikes about to kick off in Quebec, and with student occupations taking off across the Atlantic in London and Amsterdam, these concurrent strikes have become increasingly powerful articulations of an emergent student and contract labor movement growing across university campuses globally.

College Campus Racism Is Not Just Sigma Alpha Epsilon

March 13, 2015 Terrell Jermaine Starr, www.alternet.org Educate! Higher Education, Racial Justice, Student Activism

Zellie Thomas was at a meeting with members of the activist group #NJShutItDown Tuesday afternoon at Montclair University where participants reflected on the 9-second video that captured members of Sigma Alpha Epsilon chanting racist epithets. As the ten or so mostly college students began recalling racist incidents on their own campuses, they decided to lead a Twitter conversation about it using #NotJustSAE. “We know that this topic is relevant to a lot of students, especially at predominately white institutions,” Thomas, 30, the lead on conceiving the hashtag and advisor to #NJShutItDown, told AlterNet. “All of the racism they face and experience and the micro-aggressions get swept under the rug. It doesn’t get in the news, it doesn’t get its own hashtag. They just have to deal with it.”

In Amsterdam, A Revolt Against The Neoliberal University

March 10, 2015 Jerome Roos, www.roarmag.org Resist! Higher Education, Neo-Liberalism, Netherlands, Student Activism

For three weeks now, the University of Amsterdam (UvA) has been shaken by a wave of student protests against the neoliberalization of higher education and the lack of democratic accountability in internal decision-making. Last week, UvA staff joined the rebellion, declaring their solidarity with the students and threatening further actions if their demands are not met. With the university’s main administrative building — the Maagdenhuis — now occupied by students, the governing council has been forced into an awkward position: will it honor the demands of the academic community for greater democratization, or will it continue to obey the neoliberal logic of bureaucratic financialization? While the struggle at UvA has been mostly local and national in character, the implications of the issues raised by its students and staff reach far beyond the borders of the Netherlands.

Striking TA’s & Staff Frozen Out Of A Living Wage At UToronto

March 6, 2015 Sharmini Perries and Omar Sirri, www.therealnews.com Resist! Higher Education, Labor Unions, Strike

We've been out of a contract now for close to nine months. In November of this last year, our membership voted in the largest turnout for an academic local union in Canadian history and voted overwhelmingly to endorse [strike (?)] action, which then led to the final hearing, in which negotiations should have taken place. And a limited number of dates was set by the university administration to negotiate a final agreement, which virtually all took place in the final week, the 11th hour, in which literally beyond the 11th hour the university administration put forward a deal that was endorsed by our negotiating team and then put forward to our membership at a meeting the next day. And at that meeting, where more than 1,000 people turned out for that meeting, again, more than 90 percent voted to reject that deal and to therefore be immediately on strike.

Adjuncts Deem Nat’l Day Of Action A Success

February 27, 2015 Colleen Flaherty and Kaitlin Mulhere, www.insidehighered.com Resist! Education, Higher Education, Labor Unions, Living Wage

It started as a simple question on social media: What would happen if adjuncts across the country walked out on the same day, at the same time? That question got answered Wednesday -- sort of -- on the first-ever National Adjunct Walkout Day. There were some big walkouts at a few institutions but, for a variety of reasons, adjuncts at many more colleges and universities staged alternative protests, such as teach-ins, rallies and talks. Still, the movement led to unprecedented levels of conversation on many campuses, in the media and elsewhere about the working conditions of the majority of college faculty (those off the tenure track). And as a result, adjunct activists declared the day a success -- while wondering what comes next.

United States Student Association Spring Tool Kits

February 24, 2015 USSA, www.usstudents.org Organize! Debt, Higher Education, Student Activism

USSA is happy to announce that Campaign Toolkits are ready for two of USSA’s big campaigns: Fund The Future and State of Emergency. These toolkits are ready-to-go manuals for running these campaigns, containing everything from sample petitions and student government resolutions to tips on how to plan rallies and meet with legislators. The Fund The Future campaign is part of USSA’s efforts to move towards FREE Higher Education in the United States, by doubling the Pell Grant and making it available to more students. The State of Emergency campaign seeks to pass federal legislation to end racial profiling and restore voting rights, while sharing best practices and campaign frameworks used by students of color organizing for racial justice on campuses across the country! Click the graphics below to get your Campaign Toolkit today!

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