Come on down! It's Critical Mass!!

Frederick's Critical Mass makes its 41st monthly ride this week and it is going to be awesome! Dozens of cyclists and bike riders will gather at the fountain in Baker Park at 6pm in Frederick, Maryland for a raucous ride through the streets of Frederick. There will be music, fun, and even a tall bike.

Critical Mass started in the early 1990s in San Francisco and was known as Commute Clot. It has since become a world wide phenomenon. In Frederick, Critical Mass was started up as a way to have a fun ride, make friends, and reclaim the streets. Popular slogans include, "Whose streets? Our streets!" and "We are traffic!"


Critical Mass or Critical Mass-type rides often accompany large protests. For example, the 2004 Republican National Convention saw a huge Mass (a Mass that also faced huge repression) and in October 2007 and March 2008 an Anti-Capitalist Bike Brigade wound its way through Anti-War demonstrations in Washington, DC. Frederick, too, has seen this pairing. Two Earth Day celebrations included Critical Mass rides through the city.

So all of you in Frederick should come out with your bikes, ride around, and have a wonderful time!!

No isn't on the ballot!

Announcing: Radical Rush Week

Students for a Democratic Society is putting together a Radical Rush Week: a week of fun, consciousness raising, action and empowerment to get our peers, faculty, and staff involved in social change and to build a more engaged campus community. College Park Students for a Democratic Society in partnership with other organizations will hold a week of events including media, discussion, performance, and parties to draw the campus together and foster social consciousness and political participation.

September 14-20 in College Park, we are going to work hard to bring together many different parts of the University community to have an incredible week of fun and social engagement. Events planned include a free picnic, a teach-in answering the question, "Who owns this University?", an awesome punk show, dance parties, a RAD poetry slam and more.

One of the best parts of Radical Rush is that it seeks participation from and cooperation between all of the organizations that foster student activism on this campus. This week is about two things, empowering our peers and building our movement. More specifically, Radical Rush is trying to

• expose and involved new and returning students to alternative political ideas and activities
• show (by doing) that being socially conscious is fun
• build coalitions between students, student organizations, and faculty
• educate and raise awareness about important issues in our community
• empower students to use their education towards social change

This wouldn't be the first Radical Rush to happen in College Park. Back in 2003 a group of student activists put on a three-day rush with a a series of workshops, a concert, and a sleep-in on McKeldin Mall. According to the organizers, however, it seems that too few people ending up doing too much work and instead of taking time to do real outreach were swamped coordinating events.

Similarly named events occur at many campuses around the country. Often, however, the Radical Rush is more a glorified tabling session with lefty students groups in attendance. This Fall, SDS hopes to put on an event analogous to a the Greek Rush (minus the forced binge drinking, psychological and physical torture, and enforced sameness, of course) in terms of the opportunity to quickly get seriously involved in campus organizations.

College Park SDS is dedicated to making this week super-rad and would love your help. Shoot me an email if you or your group wants to join us by co-sponsoring an event. Sigma Delta Sigma 4ever!!!!

No Logo

More than 40 people, including students, faculty and even one administrator, Joe Ebaugh, met today to watch and discuss Naomi Klein's film No Logo. Community Roots and Feminism Without Borders sponsored the event.

Klein explains in the film the role branding plays in our lives. She argues that we aren't presented the choice to not consume. Rather, corporations, and, as an extension, the government present us with different things to consume.

Following the film there was a discussion about corporate influence in the University. Joe Ebaugh, the director of licensing at the University of Maryland, was challenged by FWB members Mary Yanik and Daniela Vann. The companies which T-shirts, sweatshirts, travel mugs, and other assorted garbage wearing the UMd. insignia (often alongside their own, corporate logo) pay the University for the right to use its name. These companies often manufacture their items in factories with inhumane working conditions. FWB is asking Joe Ebaugh and President Mote to sign the Designated Suppliers Program to condition use of the UMd. logo on companies abiding by fair labor standards and monitoring.

Ebaugh brushed off the concern, saying that he understands the problem and ought to take an "evolutionary" approach to the problem. FWB sees his solutions, using current measures, as a band-aid and a failure to address the structural problems with the apparel industry.

My concern, and I talked about it during the discussion, was the Universities growing role as a research farm. So much of what is being done on the northeast side of campus is wholly owned by transnational defense contractors. The technology being developed is . . . profit corporate elite. What's worse is that a great deal of the research is weapons or military technology research. We should be so proud that our university is so deeply connected with the military-industrial complex.

These connections are deep and longstanding and have serious, pressing consequences. Glenn Martin, for whom the Martin Institute of Technology here on campus and the Martin Aerospace Company (now Lockheed Martin) are named. The corporate sponsors of engineering school have hands covered in blood. The weapons they develop and sell to the military kill people. The wars being waged in Iraq and Afghanistan can only occur because of the availability of this technology. Future wars in different parts of the world (or the same, the U.S. has attacked Iraq three times) are dependent on deadly new weapons that provide no benefit to humanity.

As students of this University, we are responsible for what it does. This research is happening under our watch and in our name. What does it say about our priorities or our values?

More than just the research that is sponsored by the University, the way it invests its money shows how deep its corporate ties go. The University System of Maryland Foundation, Inc. is the not-for-profit company that is in charge of the combined endowments for all of the institutions in the system. In total, USMF directs about $1 billion. We don't know where it goes. USMF claims that it has established certain confidentiality agreements with fund managers which it cannot break.

So for now we can only imagine: not only does our University do research for war profiteers, but it funds them!

UMd. Strategic Plan: 68 For, 5 Against

The University Senate voted today to approve the Strategic Plan, a document prepared by Provost Farvardin and his Strategic Planning Committee mapping the next ten years of the course of the University of Maryland. (See 1 May post "The Strategic Plan is . . ." for more info.)

Below is coverage and analysis from the Senate's debate today:

Playing it safe and being content with the status quo is the path to decline

-Provost Farvardin

With University President Dan Mote present the University Senate approved with minor amendment the Strategic Plan today. The Strategic Plan is the result of

Several amendments were offered for the Senate's consideration - all but one by faculty Senators. Three of these amendments were particularly contentious and rejected by the Senate, including amendments rejecting a framework for a future general education program, changing the creation of a process for reducing compensation of tenured faculty to a study to assess the need of creating that process, and striking from the proposal or changing a reallocation process for University resources. Other amendments scrutinizing the particular language of the plan such as removing limiting qualifiers.

An amendment to remove the specification of the three dimensions of a future general education program until a new general education program is developed offered by Prof. Claire Moses was rejected by the Senate. Those three dimensions, a framework to underpin the development of a new general education, are "Pathways to Knowledge and Creativity," "2020 Perspectives," and "Ways of Thinking" (p. 22 Strategic Plan.) Jim Wallace, Professor of Engineering and Director of the Gemstones program, argued that the three dimensions are important to guide the formulation of a new general education program. Prof. Ira Chinoy supported inclusion of 2020 perspectives calling it "bold and gutsy."

Marshall Grossman indicated that the amendment addresses a procedural change so that the substance of future general education programs can be debated at a time dedicated for that purpose. Claire Moses explains that the amendment is nothing more than waiting to develop a general education plan before approving its substance.

Speaking for the amendment, Undergrad Senator Elliot Morris argued the importance of a liberal education, saying that current programs offer a, "fine tuned to make it in the work force with little education in the other facets of life." Morris's comments are on-point, we, as a university community haven't asked the question: What is a liberal education? As a consequence, students are left with programs churning out middle managers and engineers instead of programs fostering participation, critical thinking, and dissent.

Morris is absolutely correct in arguing that we cannot really develop an effective general education program until we really examine the purpose of the University? Is the University of Maryland a Defense Department research farm or is it a place to grow as and learn as a community?

Professors Clyde P. Kruskal and Chau-Wen Tseng offered an unsuccessful amendment to change the paragraph below to read "The Senate will investigate whether there exists a need to establish . . . " in what Prof. Kruskal characterized as an attack on tenure.

A policy and a fair and equitable mechanism for reducing compensation will be established for use when performance improvement goals that are set following an unsatisfactory post-tenure review are not subsequently met. The policy will be developed in cooperation with the Senate and will include stringent safeguards to ensure that this mechanism is not abused. (p. 30 Strategic Plan)

"It is suicidal to go down that path" urged Prof. Vincent Brannigan in favor of the amendment, arguing that adopting the language as proposed throws the protections of tenure into the hands of the State legislature and opens the door to the elimination of tenure.

Ann Wiley, Assistant President and Chief of Staff, speaking against the amendment, said there are tenured professors that do not perform and renege their responsibility to the institution and, in order to protect tenure the senate must establish a policy to deal with those faculty members. Other faculty Senators and student body President Andrew Friedson concurred, arguing that the protections of tenure are in small cases abused and require a process for disciplining those offenders.

Professor Boden Sandstrom offered an amendment unanimously approved to include benefits for domestic partners to University employees.

Professors Marshall Grossman and Maynard Mack offered four unsuccessful amendments to remove from the proposal a policy for resource reallocation within the University. Grossman argues that reallocation will result in gutting funding from some programs and unfairly preferring others.

Ann Wiley, against the amendments, argued that the only way to find the funds to implement the Strategic Plan and other new initiatives is through reallocation. Mentioning that Provost Favardin urged "strongly" to reject the amendments saying that "if these amendments are approved the strategic plan becomes meaningless." Without reallocation, the University will not be able to respond to external forces and will require downsizing of programs. Deans of ARHU and CMSC argue that to leverage more funding from the state government the University will have to demonstrate that it can effectively use what little state funding it receives.

I agree that resources ought to be reallocated, but that the areas and programs to which funds are directed must be carefully scrutinized. I.e. terrorism studies and the engineering school do not need new funding and LGBT, Persian Studies, Latina/o Studies, etc do need new funding.

No amendments challenging broadly the motivation or goals of the strategic plan were made. The Strategic Plan was written as a framework for the growth and development of the University. The nature of the University as a place for industry R & D and a recruiting station for military officer corps and Central Intelligence Agency is something foundational to the idea of strategic planning. It is also something that the Strategic Planning Committee failed to address.

Following the vote on the strategic plan, Prez Mote so eloquently addressed the body describing the Strategic Planning process as "a remarkable experience in governance and in planning" and lauding the Senate and its "best meeting" ever. The Diamondback this morning reported that "parts of [the plan] could be implemented over senate opposition."

Despite Farvardin's rhetoric about status quo and the University's decline, we cannot overlook the political systems and ideologies at work in the plan. The neo-liberal project and the military industrial complex are, and with the implementation of the strategic plan, will continue to be key parts of the operation of the University of Maryland.

The Strategic Plan is . . .

. . . a document outlining the next ten years of the University of Maryland's future. A "road map" so to speak.

. . . available here for your reading pleasure/pain.

. . . something I didn't put due diligence into learning about, understanding, or being critical of. The process of review and revision was a great forum to raise questions about business ties to the University which wasn't taken advantage of.

. . . a plan for "elevating [Maryland's] rank among world-class universities."

. . . something that "will transform the institution, enhancing its contributions to society and elevating its rank among world-class universities."

. . . a strange tome summoned by the Provost Nariman Favardin and his band of Strategic Plan Committee'ers.

. . . full of some great rhetoric which, if adopted and if Mote and the University administration are held to - by the letter - is a powerful resource in moving this university in the direction of a democratically run, socially conscious institution that is a space for both political education and activism.

. . . a compendium of values, missions, strengths, threats, weaknesses, priorities, initiatives, priorities, enablers, strategy. In particular, the plan values diversity, inclusiveness, ethical actions, creativity, civility, openness, and accountability. Oughtn't we demand that the University toe its own line.

. . . a call for greater collaboration with the military-industrial complex, with big business, and with the Federal government.

. . . something I will post about next week after the University Senate votes on it.

The Death of Worker's Rights

Feminism Without Borders staged a funeral for worker's rights Saturday during the 10th annual Maryland Day to urge University of Maryland President C. D. Mote to sign on to the designated suppliers program. The action is part of a sustained campaign to stop university support for sweatshop made clothing. To learn more go to http://www.workersrights.org/dsp.asp.

More than a dozen students representing Feminism Without Borders, Students for a Democratic Society, Students and Workers Unite, and Community Roots solemnly proceeded down McKeldin Mall on campus eulogizing worker's rights and humane labor practices as a result of the University's current licensing policy. The group urged and encourage onlookers to urge President Mote to sign on to the designated suppliers program. The Maryland Day crowd includes current and prospective students, alumni, faculty, staff, neighbors, and relatives of the University - all with a small bit of power over Mote and University policy.

Meanwhile, Feminism Without Border's campaign continues. A petition is circulating (which y'all should sign) and communication to the University administration continues. More importantly, though, is the building momentum and student acceptance behind this campaign. At its core is the issue of the corporatization of the University. Whose interests dictate University policy: those of the students or those of Nike and Jansport and the administrators, regents, and trustees stock portfolios?

The influx of the corporate voice is easy to understand. The University and its logo, mostly because of its successful sports teams, has become commodity. The Maryland seal and name, just like the name and seal of many other universities, appear beside corporate logos and account for millions of dollars or revenue for both the school and the company. We must remember, however, that these items were likely manufactured in deplorable working conditions, in factories that allow neither breaks nor unions and deprive the people who work there basic human rights.

Previously Feminism Without Borders has delivered balloons, FWB: "Hey Mote!", letters, and even a Valentine to Mote in an effort to get him to sign on the the DSP. From 4 April:

The designated suppliers program was envisioned by the Worker's Rights Consortium and United Students Against Sweatshops as a way to leverage university logo licensing rights towards livable working conditions for the people producing clothing bearing university logos. The DSP is a set of standards clothing manufacturers must follow when producing university licensed clothing. The standards define a set of fair labor practices that must be followed in textile factories.