The Tower

In case you've missed it, the UA community seems to be fighting back against "the tower," which is what some campus community members have become accustomed to calling the administration building.

• In response to rampant rumors that the UA administration was planning to cut GAT/ RA benefits, the GPSC called a meeting with President Shelton, in which some very outspoken members of the gradstudent community grilled the president on lack of technology in the classroom, the failure to protect graduate students from increased workloads, the opacity of the administration's communications to the campus community (seriously, they're press releases), the consistent undervaluing of graduate student workers and the failure to recognize the importance of protecting graduate student rights.

• The Arizona for Education blog and corresponding activism began, leading up to Jacob Miller's arrest for exercising his First Amendment right to free speech. You can read Renee Schafer Horton's account on her Tucson Citizen blog.

• The faculty senate conducted a poll, including questions that asked for faculty's level of confidence in the administration's ability to lead us through this economic crisis. The results will be out Monday or Tuesday morning and then we'll see where it goes. It seems that it's really ABOR's job to decide who should or should not be president or provost, but it would certainly be difficult for the Arizona Board of Regents to force someone on the faculty if they did, in fact, vote that they had no confidence in the person.

• All of this unrest led up to Provost Hay and President Shelton writing a guest opinion for the AZ Daily Star. Just for fun, try doing a "Control F" search through the article. You won't find the words "education," "Student" (except in reference to GPSC and ASUA in the list at the bottom), "teach," "class" (except in the context of 'world-class'), or "learn." See also the Desert Lamp's response as well as our previous post in response to Shelton and Hay, called "Well, shame on us." Also check out Andy Seaton's mailbag article in the Wildcat. Seaton very bravely calls Shelton out on his lack of transparency.
  

• For an excellent rundown of the whole budget story, see Becky Pallack's article in the Star.

• Now this begs the question: Are you participating, or waiting on the sidelines to see who the victor is? Are you content to gripe around the water cooler and just be content to have a job while others lose theirs?

What can you do?

1) Write to your elected representatives in Phoenix and tell them you select your candidates based on their support of education funding. A list of helpful links is always up on Sallygradstudent (to the left).
2) Show up to protests and bring your outrage.
3) Organize in your department. Talk to other graduate students. Go to ASUA and GPSC meetings and demand strong representation.
4) Write letters to the editor of the Wildcat and the Star.
5) Give us and other bloggers and journalists a heads-up when something important is happening. You can also submit your thoughts any time by commenting on the blog or e-mailing us at sallygradstudent@gmail.com.

Jacob Miller's attorney is asking for your help. Please read her request here.

Read a letter of support for Jacob Miller drafted by concerned faculty members. Print it out, sign it and send it in to administration:
Robert N. Shelton, President
Administration Building, Room 712
1401 East University Boulevard
P.O. Box 210066
Tucson, Arizona 85721-0066
Or just cut and paste it and e-mail it in: robert.shelton@arizona.edu