Fall 2011 GEO Meetings GEO Conference Room Quinn 02-81 Between Healey and Quinn on the 2nd floor catwalk · Tuesday Oct 11th 3:00-4:00 · Tuesday Oct 25th 3:00-4:00 · Tuesday Nov 8th 4:00-5:00 · Tuesday Nov 29th 3:00-4:00 · Tuesday Dec 13th 3:00-4:00
Our Annual Fall Event GEO Halloween Bash Thursday October 27th 4:00 - 6:00 PM Campus Center Point Lounge 3rd Floor Open to all Grad Assistants Buffet Music Questions and Answers Presentation RSVP to
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
or call 617-287-3109 and leave a message or just pop in
Weekly Office Hours Fall 2011
Monday 1:00 - 3:00 Lan Tuesday 1:00 - 3:00 Minal Wednesday 1:00 - 3:00 Kevin Thursday 1:00 - 3:00 Mitch
updated 10/13 PHENOM has joined with a number of other organizations in filing a formal complaint with the state’s Division of Health Care Finance and Policy concerning student health insurance. At UMass Amherst and UMass Dartmouth, students’ insurance plans have been changed to include “co-insurance” for services or procedures not available at their campus health service. Unlike co-payments, which represent a fixed dollar cost per medical service, coinsurance requires students to pay a percentage of the total cost of care and can represent an unaffordable cost-barrier for low-income students. We believe this is wrong, undermines the principles of affordable health care and affordable public higher education, and is probably illegal. See more information here. Read the complaint here. Student debt in this country exceeds total credit card debt. In a few months, total student loan debt will exceed a trillion dollars. That's $1,000,000,000,000. The height of a stack of one trillion one dollar bills would reach more than one quarter of the way from the earth to the moon. This is not just a crisis for our students and their current and future families; it has the potential to be the next "bubble" that undermines our economy. PHENOM is starting a campaign to highlight this problem and to explore solutions. We invite you to participate in the first two parts of the campaign. First, we are screening a great 27-minute film called Default: the Student Loan Documentary. The first showing will be held at UMass Amherst October 18, and other campuses are organizing screenings as well. Contact us if you would like to arrange a screening and discussion. Then, on November 2, starting at 12:30, PHENOM will hold a street action in Boston's financial district to highlight the crisis, how some are profiting from it, and what we should be doing about it. Exact details to be announced, but save the date! It will be fun, dramatic, and memorable! Contact us if you would like to help stage or organize for this action. U Mass Boston Faculty and Students Sound Off Boston, MA, April 13th, 2011 – Students, staff, and faculty at the University of Massachusetts Boston staged a series of flash-action teach-ins to educate the campus community about new fee hikes for students and the troubling trend of state disinvestment from public higher education in Massachusetts. The almost 40 activists who participated in the day’s events were responding to recent announcements of a proposed 8-12% fee increase for students as well as the current debates surrounding the state budget on Beacon Hill.
UMass Boston is the only public four-year college in the city, yet state funding here has shrunk to less than 25% of the University’s budget. As a result, student fees have skyrocketed (more than doubling since 2002), in part to compensate for the loss of state revenue. Most UMass Boston students already work part- or full-time, so increasing fees means even longer work hours or student loans or both. The net effect for students is less time for classes and schoolwork and a delayed, debt-ridden graduation.
Teach-in participants argued for a progressive income tax and the elimination of wasteful corporate tax breaks to cover the public higher education budget. Citing the examples of the wasteful and ineffective Hollywood tax credit as well as the noteworthy lack of sales tax charged on private jet purchases, teach-in participants claimed that a fairer tax code would allow the state to adequately fund public goods like education by shifting the burden from average working people to under-taxed corporations and wealthy individuals. This move would benefit both students and the state, since most UMass Boston students are Massachusetts residents who remain in the Commonwealth, working and paying taxes and generating an estimated $11 of economic activity in return for every dollar invested in the UMass system (according to the most recent UMass Donahue Institute study).
The three teach-ins were held at various high-traffic locations on campus throughout the day. They were loud, dramatic, unannounced, and successful. Some participants held a large banner that said “Fund UMass Boston: The Money is There” while others held signs protesting the fee increases. Two students, Stasha Lampert and Chris Morrill, were the teachers for the actions. Many faculty and staff were students. Other teach-in participants passed out flyers to passersby, many of whom stopped to listen or join the action. The flyers re-iterated the information provided at the teach-in and also included concrete steps to counteract state disinvestment. In all, the activists distributed over 1,000 leaflets throughout the course of the day. To see the flyer distributed at the teach-ins, click here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/53209860/Apr-13-flyer UMass Boston was one of 36 campuses in 8 states to participate in a nation-wide day of action on April 13th spotlighting state disinvestment from public higher education. This event, named “Take Class Action!”, is part of the launch of a new grassroots national movement, the Campaign for the Future of Higher Education (CFHE), which aims to promote quality, accessible, affordable higher education for all. To see a video of the UMass Boston teach-ins, click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8wi3-Gj86A To see photos of the UMass Boston teach-ins, click here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/51279570@N07/sets/72157626378617417 For more information about April 13th Take Class Action! events across the country, click here: http://www.calfac.org/event/april-13-events-listing# For more information about CFHE, as well as its statement of principles, click here: http://qualityhighered.wordpress.com/ |