Occupy Movement Organizes On Texas College Campuses, Prepares For Future Action

by Teddy Wilson of the American Independent

Occupy Texas State rallies in the Quad at Texas State University - San Marcos. Photo by Caitlin Ortiz.

In the months since the Occupy Movement has begun, a significant segment of the protest has been focused on issues relevant to college students. The rising cost of higher education and the heavy burden of student loan debt have spurred students to get involved in the movement.
On college campuses around the country the occupy movement has been engaged, and the reaction to the protests by some administrators has spurred controversy. Democracy Now! reported that at the University of California at Berkeley police forcibly removed students and arrested 39 people, and at University of California, Davis, campus police pepper-sprayed student protesters as they sat together to protest the dismantling of the “Occupy UC Davis” encampment.

In Texas the occupy movement has been embraced on some college campuses, but there has not been the same types of confrontations with campus police that have been seen elsewhere. The students have often chosen to work with local occupy movement organizers than to focus solely on campus actions. However, as the movement has grown that appears to be changing.

According to the student newspaper the Daily Texan, a student walkout began the occupy movement at the University of Texas at Austin on October 5 as students joined with Occupy Austin. The event took place nationwide as Occupy Colleges called for students and faculty at college campus across the country to solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street Movement.

According to the Occupy UT Austin Facebook page, the group stands in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street movement. “The community is comprised of students, staff, faculty, and anyone affiliated with (or standing in support of) occupying university members.” A semester long event is being planned for January 16 until May 4 to occupy the University of Texas Tower. The Facebook event page says “that beginning on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the Occupy Wall Street movement will come to the University of Texas.” According to the group’s web site, a planning meeting is scheduled for December 13.

The Occupy Movement has also come to Texas A&M University. In November students organized with professors and community members in Occupy Bryan-College Station protests. The Texas A&M student newspaper the Battalion reported that a protest in November organized on campus, and an estimated 40 occupiers marched to the local branch of Bank of America.

However, students at Texas A&M have not “occupied” areas on campus, and their activities have been limited to protests and days of action. Junior mechanical engineering major Justin Montgomery told the Battalion that it wouldn’t be effective to set up occupied encampments. “We’re doing this to show our support for what’s going on elsewhere, and also for all these people to have an outlet to voice their opinions,” said Montgomery.

Joshua Christopher Harvey, one of the organizers of Occupy Texas State, told the Texas Independent that he became involved in the occupy movement because “over the years it had become apparent to me that our government has grown less accountable to the people.” Harvey went on to say that the “encroachment of corporate personhood in our society and its impact on our political system was also of great concern.”

“Here in Texas,” said Harvey, “grants and funding for higher education were and are being cut. These cuts have led my university to increase the student population in an attempt to balance the $10 million budget cut by the state. This puts a great burden on our teaching staff. Due to further cuts next year, our tuition will rise. The Occupy Colleges Movement, which started in California allowed me and others an outlet to be a participant in the greater movement at a local level and to seek solutions to counteract the negative effects of corporate personhood and a failed economy on education in our state.”

Like Occupy UT Austin, Occupy Texas State is also planning future events, including the possibility of acts of peaceful and minor civil disobedience. These events could be “sit-ins or erecting a tent on the Quad and occupying it for a number of hours or possibly days to challenge university policies that we feel limit free speech and expression,” said Harvey. In addition Occupy Texas State is planning on working with the Texas State Employees Union, CWA-TSEU, in the coming weeks to “address cuts and freezes to faculty and staff pay at our university.”

Moving forward, Harvey says that the Occupy Movement on the Texas State campus is going to continue its efforts to further the message of the movement and engage students in action. “We will hold more Days of Action rallies, shows of solidarity to the greater Occupy Movement and seek to work with our local and state governments. We feel it is time to move from demonstrating to action and we are planning a host of activities for the Spring semester including a voting drive to register the incoming students in time for the 2012 elections,” said Harvey.

Education Is A Necessity Not A Privilege

by Joshua Christopher Harvey

On June 9, 1963 then Vice President of the United States (and our universities greatest alumnus) Lyndon Baines Johnson, stated that we had “entered an age in which education is not just a luxury permitting some men an advantage over others” but rather  “a necessity without which a person is defenseless”  in a complex and industrialized society. Indeed, our university was established to strengthen the foundation of education in our state and, since 1899, it has risen to be among Texas’s leaders in the number of new educators for the state. But ours is a state in which, despite the job growth and economic clout touted by Governor Perry, has cut and continues to cut education funding.

According to a survey of school districts representing 39 percent of the state by the school finance consultant Moak, Casey & Associates, more than 60 percent of Texas school districts can expect further staffing reductions next year as they grapple with state budget reductions. These reduction come after those districts reported a loss of 9,586 school district jobs — one-third of which were classroom teachers despite those same districts serving 17,593 more students than in the 2010‐11 academic year. Applying these figures across the state would mean there are roughly 32,000 fewer school employees in Texas, including 12,000 fewer teachers.

During its 82nd session the Texas Legislature eliminated a host of grant programs  and slashed grants for higher education. These cuts totaled $5.4 billion. Schools through out the state were underfunded a further  $4 billion in basic aid and cut $1.3 billion from grant programs that paid for full-day prekindergarten and assisted students struggling to pass state standardized tests. These cuts would have been more drastic for the 2010-2011 academic year had Texas not received a one‐time grant of $820 million in federal education jobs funds to mitigate the impact of the state cuts. But the one-time grant was a double edged knife for the state – more jobs are expected to be lost during the 2012-2013 academic year because schools are relying on the one-time federal money to prop up their budgets this year and some districts will lose additional state aid next year.

Cuts to grants and funding mean increased tuition rates for us as students. Due to cuts by the 82nd legislative session, funding to Texas State University was reduced $10 million. This led to a decision by our nine-member Texas State University System Board of Regents to approve a tuition raise to be implemented  in January 2012.  We will now spend and additional $16 per credit hour for a total of $167. This tuition hike will only generate about $6.7 million for the university in general revenue which is the main source of state funding for the university. Overall, our university has lost about 3.6 percent of the 28 percent in state funds of the total university budget in the educational and general portion.

Bill Nance, vice president for Finance and Support Services said these cuts have led to the record enrollment that has led to the housing strain on the campus this year. “Given the progress we’re trying to make at the university, we just didn’t feel like we could go in and start cutting things like degree programs,” Nance said. “When you increase enrollment it puts stress on the workload of our existing faculty and staff. We don’t like having to do that, but it’s what we had to do to survive the cuts.”  Our enrollment increased 4.7 percent from 32,572 in fall 2010 to 34,113 for fall 2011.

In 2008 the College Board’s “Trends in College Pricing” reported that in the ten years prior the public college costs have risen at an average rate of 6.9 percent per year and four-year private college costs have risen at an average rate of 5.8 percent per year. As we grapple with high student loan payments for the first few decades of our adult lives, we will have less money to spend and invest in our nation and her industries where it would have been spent in future years. Unlike our parents, we might not be able to spend and invest enough to allow great economic growth to occur. It is vital to our survival as an economically competitive nation to hold education as a necessity and a fundamental cornerstone to our democracy.

Public education and higher education is for the whole of society and to fund both it to invest in our future. Without adequate funding many of the gains our schools and universities have worked so hard to realize will fall short in the growing face of international education and business competition. Even our own corporations see this as they continue to divest in our nation, ship jobs overseas and charge us more back home to cover their costs. The argument that education is a privilege not a right advocates a selfish society in which the American dream can never flourish. It is an argument that justifies a class system and allows for greater disparity in opportunity. For us to rise on the wings of a stable economy, attract back jobs and foreign companies and elevate our society we must not cut funding to education.

The structure and bureaucracy that exists within the educational superstructure itself hinders our progress and must also be addressed and combated. But first and foremost, if Texas is to succeed economically and, to quote President Eisenhower from a 1958 speech – “if the United States is to maintain its position of leadership and if we are to further enhance the quality of our society, we must see to it that today’s people are prepared to contribute the maximum to our future progress and strength” and the only way to do that is if  “we achieve the highest possible excellence in our education.”

Save our teachers, save our schools, save our grants and our future will prosper.

Occupy Texas State Movement Growing

Occupy Texas State Movement Growing

by Kolten Parker of The University Star

Following the “Occupy” protest trend in San Marcos and Austin, Texas State students are in the works of getting an organization on campus.

The Occupy Texas State group has doubled in size since its inception and is on the heels of sponsorship as a student organization.

The Occupy Texas State movement has nearly doubled in size since its formation and is on the verge of becoming a recognized student organization. The group held its second general assembly Oct. 13, attracting approximately 50 students.

Josh Harvey, organizer of Occupy Texas State, said the group is in the process of gaining university sponsorship with the only step left to pick a faculty adviser.

“I want to turn it [the protests] from a moment to a movement,” Harvey said.

Occupy Texas State held their second general assembly Sept. 13. Approximately 50 students gathered on campus in solidarity with the Occupy College movement taking place at more than 90 universities across the nation, according to their website.

Occupy College, an offshoot of the Occupy Wall Street effort, is taking issue with inflating costs of student loans and tuition.

“Higher education has become a business in itself,” Harvey. “Over the last eight years, cost for students per semester has risen 63 percent in Texas.”

As for Texas State, tuition increased 98 percent since the state legislature deregulated tuition in 2003, according to a Sept. 15 University Star article.

Harvey said once the group is sponsored, their goals would be to work with City Council, the Associated Student Government and the Texas State Board of Regents to find ways to make higher education more affordable.

Harvey said one of the primary goals of the group would to be to establish a scholarship for students who are active in the community.

Wade Smith, elementary education junior, said he stopped to listen to the activists in between classes afternoon.

“I think a college campus is a perfect environment for this type of demonstration,” Smith said. “Based on what I’ve heard so far, they have done their research and are very passionate on the subject.”

ASG President AJ DeGarmo stopped by the rally and said he enjoys seeing students using their First Amendment rights. DeGarmo said it exemplifies Texas State’s Common Experience theme this year.

“It’s empowering to see students organize and take part in a national movement,” DeGarmo said.
However, not all students were in support of the protest.

Brent McArthur, marketing freshman, said the national movement “will destroy the country.”
“Their demands are illogical and unattainable,” McArthur said. “To fall to their demands would kill American banks and businesses. They want the minimum wage to be $20 and all the debt in the country to disappear.”

According to the Occupy Wall Street website, there is currently no official list of demands. However, Adbusters, the organization behind the Occupy Wall Street movement, released one specific goal Sept. 17, (the first day of protests): “President Obama to ordain a Presidential Commission tasked with ending the influence money has over our representatives in Washington.”

Other student critics of the protest like Eric Reaves, exploratory professional sophomore, said the protesters are wasting their time.

“Instead of holding a sign, they should get take off school for a semester, get a minimum wage job, save some money and go to a cheaper school where they won’t have to take out a student loan,” Reaves said.

Anne Halsy, wife of a faculty member, participated in the rally with her three children ages 6, 3 and 1.

“I brought my kids because it is important for them to learn that you have to stand up for what you believe in,” Halsy said. “If we don’t fight for a better education system, we deserve what we get.”