How many times do you get told by the Students' Union what to do? Every year the su stands on its damn high horse and proclaims to be able to lead you to the promised land of low tuition and better education. Well I don't know about you, but I seem to recall a tuition increase every year no matter what the su rants and raves about.
The su cannot fight the issue of tuition.
Only you can.
There are less than 40 elected officials within the Students' Union. 40 out of 26,000 students looks pretty poor as a force for change. It is embarrassingly easy for the administration, province, and everyone else to ignore our student concerns if only 0.002 percent of the student population is engaging the powers that be over tuition and funding concerns. We are being ignored.
On Mar. 21, the Board of Governors of the University of Calgary will decide your tuition level for the upcoming academic year. The recommendation from administration is to charge students the maximum allowed under a ramshackle provincial tuition fee policy, including massive differential tuition in selected faculties. It is only in the strength of our numbers that we may form a critical mass that will protect accessible education in this province. Write your mla, mp, the President of the U of C, and the Board of Governors chair expressing your concern over this tuition proposal. Write the Gauntlet, Herald, Globe, or other papers outlining your thoughts. Come out on Mar. 21 and voice your concerns with the direction our administration is taking the U of C. Take your future into your own hands-together we will fight this.
It is time for the students at the University of Calgary to take the path less travelled, the path of action.
(For more information please visit www.su.ucalgary.ca)
Comments
Many don't have this luxury, some choose not to use it, and others still have a nice little pile of money to burn anyway. I did not participate in the protests against the tuition hikes for myself but because there are people out there who may not get scholarships/ bursaries, have little money to begin with, heavy living expenses or even children of their own. And still they push themselves for a higher education that will ensure a future and let them discover their potential. I hoped my voice would help ease their struggle. I was wrong.
The "protest" was an absolute disgrace; a molecular fraction of university students were present, there was no visible faculty support and even though the SUs intentions were good I was very dissapointed in their strategy. The tent village may have been a solidifying experience but for the wrong reasons. Making smors, playing games, drinking, singing pub songs and smoking pot are indeed valuable life experiences but I was hoping for a little less mosh-pit and a little more organized revolt. Smash a car, eat worms and other actions are misplaced. I don't care why such ideas came to fruition but I heard many voices of reason saying they did nothing but turn the entire event into a joke. I am sorry to say that I agree, and the intentions I had were out of place here.
On to the resignation bit. After writing many letters of protest and voicing my concerns about accessibility to an education; I am graduating soon and have no intention of comming back to the University of Calgary. My part is done, and though I was naive in my perception of the socially conscious student I was never indiferrent. I leave the hikes, debts and anger to my my fellow students. But have faith dear reader, history will repeat itself and only despair and necessity will foster true social change. The masses of indiferrent students currently in high school or university will eventually change their tune.
The new world order demands workers with either knowledge or skills and those without either will have a very hard life ahead of them. And just to make it clear to those who think of a borrow and loan into monstrous debt, you are never ever guaranteed a job and the loan sharks will suck you dry. This future will come and I add myself to the list of those who believe the current path leads to a future university exclusive to those with political,fiscal or genious means.
Cudos to Stambaugh and all those who came to try fight such an injustice. Shame on all those who oppose differential and increased tuition, could have protested in some way, shape or form and did nothing. Future protest can not be frosh, tents, pancake breakfast and a raggle-taggle bunch of loud poeple strolling to the TransCanada with signs. It needs an organized, well attended, peaceful and legal MARCH to the offices of power downtown. It needs hunger, less booze and a unified platform from the SU for students. It needs enough time for raw tuition to become >$10,000 a year for all students.
Good Luck.