·         Tuesday Oct 11^th    3:00-4:00

·         Tuesday Oct 25^th    3:00-4:00

·         Tuesday Nov 8^th    4:00-5:00

·         Tuesday Nov 29^th  3:00-4:00

·         Tuesday Dec 13^th  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

Student Debt Campaign

Takes Off

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.

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/

FRONTLINE recently reported on for-profit universities, which are managed "more like a corporation than a university." Currently, about 2.8 million students attend for-profit schools, where the tuition runs "five to six times the cost of a community college and as much as twice a four-year state university," according to FRONTLINE correspondent Martin Smith. As a result, for-profit students take on an average debt load more than double that of traditional students.

Instead of directing more public funding toward public universities such as UMass Boston, the government is subsidizing this growing, private industry, which receives about 75% of its revenue from the federal government. By providing for-profit students with grants and loans, "[t]he taxpayers are essentially funding this industry," argues Daniel Golden, an education reporter for Bloomberg News.

Many for-profit universities enroll a majority of their students in on-line courses, such as Grand Canyon University, which has 35,000 of its 40,000 students taking classes over the web. A similar shift is happening at UMass Boston, where students are increasingly enrolling in more expensive and more profitable on-line courses. In fact, UMass is currently planning its so-called "University College," which will primarily enroll students in on-line degree programs. Given the trend, UI Education professor Nicholas Burbules warns about "a kind of fast-foodization of higher education itself, where a low cost, convenience and ease of finishing become values in themselves, to the possible detriment of the things that only can be accomplished slowly and over time."

You can watch the entire episode here.

The Graduate Employment Organization (GEO) would like to cordially

invite you to attend our annual Haloween Party on

October 27th (Thursday) 

4:00pm-6:00 p.m.

Venue: Pointe Lounge (Campus Center- 3rd floor)

Please R.S.V.P. by October 24, 2011 to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it  or leave a message at

(617) - 287-3109.