[CabrilloGA] UCSC 5/18-19: "Walk Out to Your Education"

[wind-up bird.]

not sure exactly what that means but yeah, check it out

Dear Students of UCSC,

As some of you may have heard, there is a planned student walk-out for the days of May 18th and 19th, coinciding with the Regents meeting on the Commission on the Future. We are writing to include you in the preparations for this walk-out as a pedagogical endeavor. A lot has been said about these actions as “teachable moments,” however, in practice that has obliged us to learn and teach around or after these actions occur, rather than from within. This walk-out is not planned as a campus shut down; the intent is not to disrupt class or education. Instead, we propose that this walk-out will push education outside the institutional spaces of the university. Rather than walking out of your education, the organizing committee is encouraging you to “walk out to your education.” This is in part symbolic: as students, we increasingly feel that our education is becoming peripheralized by the budgetary policies of the Regents and the administration. 

The emphasis of our preparations is on offering a pedagogical itinerary for these two days. These two pieces are practical workshops, and student- and graduate student-led discussion groups on topics ranging from the financial crisis to student debt. We invite you to join with us in practicing our education outside the divisive and precarious spaces which are increasingly disrupting our learning experience. 

There are four things you can do to support this effort. 

-- If you are scheduled to attend a class between 8am and 5pm on these daysh, you can encourage your instructors to re-locate their classes to the west entrance on the 18th, or the main entrance on the 19th. The walk-out committee is currently working to provide an infrastructure for class re-locations, and we would appreciate any of your suggestions. 

-- Encourage your instructors to excuse absences for this event, if they do not decide to re-locate their class.

-- Consider holding a talk or discussion group during these days of action. We are compiling a list of speakers for our itinerary.

-- Don't go to class and encourage other students to take advantage of the pedagogical opportunities being organized.

Please feel free to contact us if you are interested in participating, or if you have suggestions for how to make this a productive, teachable moment for the students of our community. 

In solidarity,

Madeline McDonald Lane, PhD student, Department of Literature mml...@ucsc.edu
Katie Woolsey, PhD candidate, Department of Literature, kwoo...@ucsc.edu

http://walkouttoeducation.wordpress.com/