"Team 2012" ReCentered: Students For Quality Education and M.E.Ch.A. de Cal Poly Pomona defeat proposed $90 million RecCenter

On October 2, 1968 in Tlatelolco Mexico City, Mexico over 300 people including students, teachers and workers were masacred in the barrio's Plaza de las Tres Culturas by millitary and paramillitary forces for demanding better learning, working and living conditions. Almost 40 years later in Mexico the memory of Tlatelolco and the campañer@s who died still live in the pueblos who organize against and resist U.S. Imperialism, globalization, neoliberalism and the privatization of their public institutions-UAM students and faculty are currently on strike and Oaxaca's urban and rural indigenous educators who embody the APPO continue to resist violent state and police repression.

Some of us here (Pomona) will never forget Tlatelolco either. And we definately will never forget the Chicano Moritorium, the Longest Walk or DQ University. This is why we also organize ourselves against private investors and greedy administrators who insist that a $90 million recreational center with a rock climbing wall, raised track, and indoor pool will "improve campus life and attract competitive students". Sure it will. As long as the future is willing to pay $149 extra per academic quarter for its maintenance.

Plus the additional 10% campus fee increases already in place for the next several years thanks to the California State Student Association and the CSU Board of Trustees who approved the increase amidst a budget crisis. Kind of like the $16 billion deficit we're in now which puts our people at risk of losing an aditional $312.9 million cuts to the CSU system, the Cal Grant B, and 10,000 students who the Governator has denied access to the CSU with his reforms.

Who would have thought that a group of students, administrators and staff could come up with the name,"Team 2012" and $17,ooo of "fictitious money"-actually student fees-for a marketing campaign to induce students to approve the $149 fee that would be imposed in 2012 when the construction of the RecCenter is scheduled to be completed.

A group of individuals and organizations including CSU Students for Quality Education and M.E.Ch.A. aggressively informed and urged students about what the impacts of their decisions made today will have on the future generations. Today's youth will be the ones to suffer the ramifications of an un-necessary RecCenter. Many of us consider this a neoliberal project used by the system to transform the face of our public institutions into a population that will continue to defend the ideals of the rich. Instead of a population that can be educated and trained to be allies to our communities-the barrios.

According to Cal Poly Pomona's ASI President Chris Wyrick "the Rec Center is going to built regardless of what students say. They [administrators] are going to build the RecCenter anyway. Its part of the Recreation Center Feasibility Study."

The Reality

Cal Poly Pomona's Recreation Center South Campus Feasibility Study, or whatever the hell its called, will only serve to further close the doors on people of color and all working class folks seeking 'higher education'. The argument is that a new rec center, added dorms, and quads will address the rising population of commuter and international students. Plus it would help bring in better students who have the social mobillity to become alumni working with companies, like Halliburton and Boeing. This practically gaurantees bigger financial contributions back into the university. Don't think this is a far fetched idea. Cal Poly Pomona is known for engineering and business and they recieve a lot of money already from these companies.

Despite a student's ten page complaint submitted to Cal Poly Pomona's Judicial Affairs, which proves that the "Feasibility Study" is not complete. It is still a draft and according to the ASI president, Wyrick, "too misleading for students to have public access to at this time". Judicial Affairs thanked the student for his hard work and dismissed the complaint because "the argument is not strong enough". This is the study that supposedly justifies the proposal of the RecCenter.

The counter awareness campaign read, "ReCenter Your Priorities" and "Budget Cuts + RecCenter=Less Classes and Higher Fees". Its only cost was the time and energy spent which is always well spent when you work to work horizontally.

Approximately 3,770 (twice as many who participated in last years ASI elections which spanned 3 days) students at Cal Poly Pomona-whom 64% voted "no", over the span of just 2 days, against the fee referendum needed in order to have the $90 million recreation center built by 2012. http://media.www.thepolypost.com/media/storage/paper1127/news/2008/03/04/News/Opposition.Weighs.In.Before.Rec.Center.Referendum-3248628.shtml

This is a sign that many of us are feeling the impacts of the budget cuts-fees have almost tripled since 2001- and the demise of quality education, less, over-crowded classes, pur riting skils and reading. This is also because our profes are being over worked-that's an understatement.

I know i can't get enough inspiration by just reading Emma Perez and Paolo Freire. I want my profes, all profes, to be able to teach in a class small enough to build strong community and dialogue. I want them to be healthy in mind, body and spirit-just as much as my community should be. But they are not. This is not right.

How many of us [people of color] get Ph D's or even masters? The colleges and departments to be hit the hardest by the cuts are the ethnic studies and social sciences. The ones that in all sorts of ways, whether top down or from below and to the left, bring resources to into our communities. I haven't even fully explained, nor will in this essay, the impacts k-12 and our community colleges have historically faced and continue to face during this soon to be recession. But oh how the system loves to pit us all against each other i.e. Props 94-98.

Should community, workers, students and faculty demand full controll of our education systems-including controll of the budgets. Will we get it? Should we just focus on building our own? What do we do? I'm asking you-a member of the community.

The past, present and future generations, who understand what education is truly for-liberation of the mind in order to become allies and agents that will serve to transform our society into "a world where many worlds fit" that allows for EVERYONE to live freely in harmony with Pachamama. Are they able to rest in peace? Have we become empowered enough to trust that there are growing numbers of students-community leaders-who are working to defend public education and all of our relations' future generations come what may?

The next question

How do we (community, students, faculty and staff) work together to prioritize the needs and resources of a broader university community that does not exclude our local, marginalized communities, like Pomona, where over 35% of high school students, each year, are pushed out before graduating and less then 15% actually make it to college? Only for the pigs to harass them for riding bikes and playing futbol in baseball fields. And I'm sure we all know about the gang injunctions and how they tear our families apart.

We must not ignore the plain and simple fact that the CSU's were built for working class people. We need them right now and for a while longer. Especially amidst these times of war, environmental degradation, poverty, hunger, racism, police repression and fear. As leaders we cannot go on planning and decision making without raising the issue of class. In fact we need to stop being 'leaders' and follow from behind while listening.

For whom do we want to improve university campus life? Why do we need 'Chicano Studies', M.E.Ch.A., BSU, MSA? What students? For the rich individualists who are only concerned about the self and corporate community? For working class folks (majority people of color but not excluding Anglo-Americans) overwhelmingly in prison, fighting in the U.S. Empire’s wars all over the world, who break their backs and die every day crossing the muro while the rich to live high and easy?

Do any of us think we will grow up to live amongst this top 2% of the population who own the wealth of the world? Sadly a vast majority of students in higher education act like it. Many of these have direct influence on its future like "Team 2012", Cal Poly Pomona's Associated Students Inc. and the majority of the campus frats and sororities that people of color buy into.

I would love to trust that the 2, 412 or so Cal Poly Ptown students who defeated the RecCenter proves that they are not these individualists. But students concerned for the future generations and a much broader community. A community that has historically and is currently being ignored and disenfranchised like AB540 “undocumented” sisters and brothers. Students who cannot receive financial aid nor jobs after graduation for lacking a SSN-more and more each day by folks who think that RecCenters, new dorms, higher fees and the privatization of public education is the answer to improving campus life-a capitalist, elitist process that must be decolonized.

As Enriqueta Vasquez gritó, "¡Despiertan Hermanos y Hermanas!"

Don't forget that the generations who came before you struggled, fought and even died for you to exercise your civil right to FREE, CULTURALLY and HISTORICALLY RELEVANT EDUCATION, K-12, Community Colleges, CSU's and UC's alike. They also demanded the end to the Vietnam War, Poverty and U.S. Imperialism.

And now it is being stripped away from you by people like the Governator, Chancellor "G"Reed and the Board of Trustees, Cal Poly Ptown President Michael Ortiz-a former Brown Beret, Team 2012-Mr. Cox among countless other private investors like Boeing and Northrop Grumman who clearly don’t acknowledge, and/or are ignorant of our history and the true purpose of the California State University-A PEOPLE’S UNIVERSITY.

¡A fuera los rectores, administrators and private corporations!

Liberate Education!

Save DQ University!

Reject Privatization!

¡Oaxaca Resiste!

¡UAM y UNAM Resiste!

¡Viva Zapata!

¡Viva todos los pueblos indigenas del mundo!

Fund Books NOT Bombs!

Free Palestine!

¡Viva Academia Semillas Del Pueblo!

Free All Political Prisoners!