Location:

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Full Description:

Autumn, 2005

Fellow Campus Organizers,

We write to you as members of an emerging network of campus organizers who believe that it is time to better coordinate our energy and organizing efforts to fight for an accessible, diverse and fair public higher education system.

We note that our campuses are home to a wide array of progressive organizations, yet these groups and unions tend to focus on specific issues (such as sweatshops, the environment, Palestine, civil liberties, antiracism, the war, labor) and are often composed of single campus constituencies (i.e. exclusively undergrads, graduate students, faculty, blue collar staff, etc.). Even amidst a real rise in campus mobilizations across the nation, higher education is rapidly undergoing changes that run counter to the interests of the majority of Americans. These trends include the skyrocketing cost of tuition and fees, a new wave of campus union busting, massive cuts in public spending on education , the corporatization of campus research and services, the elimination of affirmative action and ethnic studies programs, and the corporatization of campus governance, to name but a few. Unfortunately, at present, we lack a national grassroots organization that makes the realization of accessible, public, diverse, and democratic higher education its primary focus.

(Continued)

Additional Information:

For an archive of what went on at the Democratizing Education Convention, click here.

Areas of Focus:

Campus Democracy, Civic Education, Free Speech, Full Funding, Corporatization, Right to Organize, Tuition Abolition, Democratizing Education (Liberty Tree)

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