Saying they have much in common with striking clerical workers, about 75 students staged a sit-in at Morrill Hall Tuesday and demanded a meeting with University President Robert Bruininks.
The students left a larger rally on the plaza outside and occupied several stairwells, staircases and the lobby at about noon. By 1 p.m., university police were guarding entrances and screening all visitors to prevent more people from taking part in the demonstration.
"We're going to start to make our support (of the strikers) physical in the administration building for as long as it takes," said Rosemary Fister, one of the participants.
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| Some students studied while others waited outside President Robert Bruininks' office to hear from university officials. |
University staff said Bruininks was out of town for two days but arranged for a group of 17 students to meet with another administrator. Students said they did not expect the meeting to be very productive and said they would continue to seek a meeting with Bruininks and would engage in more sitdown demonstrations in the future if necesssary.
AFSCME Locals 3800 and 3801, representing 1,900 clerical workers on four campuses, went on strike one week ago over health care, wages, job security and other issues.
"We really don't have any say about what's going on in the university," said Lindsey Lange, a junior majoring in global studies. She and Dan O'Neil helped occupy a stairwell between the second and third floors.
O'Neil, a senior theater major, said the demonstration was about more than the clerical strike. He said too many people are suffering under the current economic system and "people with the least power suffer the most."
Added Lange, "People are being forced to live on less and less money. When is it going to stop?"
Lange said the strike has been discussed in some of her global studies and women's studies classes. Some 6,000 students are attending classes off campus during the strike to honor the picketlines, according to one estimate, but several students said their professors had been unwilling or unable to move their classes.
Fister, in her fifth year of pre-law studies, said high health care costs faced by clerical workers are not unlike the high tuition increases students are experiencing.
"My tuition has gone up 43 percent since I started here and that's not affordable," she said.
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| An administrator passed students who lined a staircase in Morrill Hall. |
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| Students conducting a sit-in at the Morrill Hall lobby discussed their strategy. |
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Saying they have much in common with striking clerical workers, about 75 students staged a sit-in at Morrill Hall Tuesday and demanded a meeting with University President Robert Bruininks.
The students left a larger rally on the plaza outside and occupied several stairwells, staircases and the lobby at about noon. By 1 p.m., university police were guarding entrances and screening all visitors to prevent more people from taking part in the demonstration.
“We’re going to start to make our support (of the strikers) physical in the administration building for as long as it takes,” said Rosemary Fister, one of the participants.
|
| Some students studied while others waited outside President Robert Bruininks’ office to hear from university officials. |
University staff said Bruininks was out of town for two days but arranged for a group of 17 students to meet with another administrator. Students said they did not expect the meeting to be very productive and said they would continue to seek a meeting with Bruininks and would engage in more sitdown demonstrations in the future if necesssary.
AFSCME Locals 3800 and 3801, representing 1,900 clerical workers on four campuses, went on strike one week ago over health care, wages, job security and other issues.
“We really don’t have any say about what’s going on in the university,” said Lindsey Lange, a junior majoring in global studies. She and Dan O’Neil helped occupy a stairwell between the second and third floors.
O’Neil, a senior theater major, said the demonstration was about more than the clerical strike. He said too many people are suffering under the current economic system and “people with the least power suffer the most.”
Added Lange, “People are being forced to live on less and less money. When is it going to stop?”
Lange said the strike has been discussed in some of her global studies and women’s studies classes. Some 6,000 students are attending classes off campus during the strike to honor the picketlines, according to one estimate, but several students said their professors had been unwilling or unable to move their classes.
Fister, in her fifth year of pre-law studies, said high health care costs faced by clerical workers are not unlike the high tuition increases students are experiencing.
“My tuition has gone up 43 percent since I started here and that’s not affordable,” she said.
|
| An administrator passed students who lined a staircase in Morrill Hall. |
|
| Students conducting a sit-in at the Morrill Hall lobby discussed their strategy. |