Thurgood Marshall College undergraduates walked out of their Dimensions of Culture lectures in droves on May 30, advocating for student representation on a recently formed committee tasked with reviewing the program’s curriculum. The participants also supported two teaching assistants critical of the program, whose contracts were not renewed for next year.
Chancellor Marye Anne Fox (center) addresses a crowd of protestors demonstrating outside her office on May 30. The students informed Fox about the faculty resistance they encountered in their quest to update the D.O.C. program curriculum, and she pledged to give the group her support.
The walkout came on the heels of several new developments in the controversy that has surrounded D.O.C. Director Abraham Schragge’s decision to not rehire Scott Boehm and Benjamin Balthaser, including the formation of a faculty committee to evaluate the program’s curriculum and a May 23 town hall meeting with program leaders that fanned student discontent.
Approximately 40 people walked out of the morning track’s lecture and an additional 30 from the afternoon class. After the 1 p.m. exodus, students gathered outside Solis Hall to hear student leader Kent Lee, a Thurgood Marshall College senior, speak.
Lee spoke to the crowd about the issue’s urgency, and the reasons for the day’s walkouts.
He said the TMC Student Council had passed a resolution expressing its concern for the state of the college’s writing program and its inability to address the college’s founding values, an issue also raised by the Lumumba-Zapata Coalition.
“”The council met with D.O.C. administration as well as the provost, and at the time were told that a committee was impossible and that the idea that there would be students on the committee was ridiculously unreal,”” Lee said.
The protestors walked behind Lee through Solis Hall, shouting, “”Keep D.O.C. Real!”” into the open doors of lecture hall Solis 107. Students remaining in the lecture closed the doors as the protesters filed past.
Moving across campus, the protesters arrived chanting at the offices of Chancellor Marye Anne Fox, who stood waiting with Associate Vice Chancellor of Undergraduate Education Mark I. Appelbaum. Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Joseph W. Watson later joined them outside at the student protest.
Appelbaum cautioned the students against expecting speedy solutions to their demands, especially regarding Boehm and Balthaser’s reinstatement.
Several other campus administrators have carefully avoided public comment on the controversy, including at a Town Hall meeting held a week prior to the undergraduate walkout.
At the meeting, students submitted written questions to a panel that included Shragge, Assistant Director Pam Wright, Professor Michael Schudson, Provost Allan Havis and Watson.
Questions about the two TAs were not answered because the matter is now an issue of labor negotiation between UCSD and the Academic Student Employee arm of the United Auto Workers, Marshall College councilmembers explained at the end of the forum.
“”The issue on the TAs is a complicated one because the TAs are represented through the United Auto Workers, so we are working within a labor-negotiation contract,”” Appelbaum said at the protest. “”A grievance has been filed in which claims are made, and that’s what you would expect.””
But some students, including Lee, did not accept this answer. Various faculty members and administrators in the public forum have opposed the organized undergraduate and graduate students, Lee told Fox, Appelbaum and Watson.
“”While there have been some faculty and some [administrators] supportive of our process – despite having hundreds of students signing petitions for the rehiring of TAs and hundreds of students signing petitions asking for student representation – there has been very little response,”” Lee said. “”There is a great need for the faculty and for the administration to advocate for the students and their concerns.””
Fox, however, praised the student protestors for their active involvement in their education, and pledged her support to them.
“”We’ll sort out the rumors from the facts and try to treat everyone fairly,”” she said.
Results of the fact-finding committee and the labor negotiations between UCSD and the UAW are forthcoming.
However, the lineup of speakers continued Wednesday with undergraduate leaders from El Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan and the Student Affirmative Action Committee, followed by a spirited moment delivered by visiting professor of sociology Sharon Elise, who read a poem she had composed for the occasion in support of Boehm, Balthaser and the students.
“”We will stand with this LZC against this repression because we still can and will make this a struggle for a true university of the people of Lumumba-Zapata College,”” Elise said. “”We will stand with Benjamin, Scott and the LZC in solidarity.””
