From Wall Street to Washington, the Occupy Movement has spread across the country – and has now come to AU.
Over 28 students gathered Nov. 3 in the Davenport Lounge to plan ways to bring the Occupy movement to campus and encourage AU involvement in the movement off campus.
Students sat in a circle around Cody Steele, a senior in the School of International Service, as he gave a brief history of the movement. Then he opened the floor for discussion on how to implement “Occupy” on campus.
“Occupy AU is not acting on behalf of Occupy D.C.,” Steele said. “We want to create a larger student presence and raise awareness.”
Steele and his fellow Occupy AU organizers spread news of the information meeting via Facebook and word of mouth.
“Occupy Wall Street is a people-powered movement inspired by the populist uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt,” Steele said at the meeting, quoting the movement’s website.
Occupy protests have spread to 100 cities in the United States and 1,584 cities across the globe since the movement began Sept. 17, according to the movement’s website.
At the AU meeting, Steele played an audio recording of the Occupy Wall Street protestors’ official grievances against corporations, including corporations’ perceived refusal to negotiate with workers, their outsourcing of labor to foreign markets and their alleged practice of “blocking” the use of alternative energy sources.
The AU students also listened to Occupy Wall Street protestors’ grievances against banks, including fallout from the mortgage crisis.
The growing student loan debt in the United States was perhaps the biggest grievance students discussed at the Nov. 3 meeting.
Steele said his tuition as a freshman was $32,816 and now is $37,554. He feels AU did not give justification for such a tuition rise.
Occupy AU is not related to the A New AU campaign, which has been regularly petitioning AU to change its budget and other policies.
A New AU campaign organizers are interested in Occupy AU and have been helping spread the word, Steele said. However, the two are not officially allied in specific initiatives.
“There hasn’t been much discussion about working together, but I can see that happening in the future,” he said.
When Steele opened the floor for discussion at the meeting, students gave advice to each other on how best to get involved in the global Occupy movement.
One student urged everyone to get their information about the movement from sources other than major media outlets such as CNN. Many people in the group said they want to get as many students, faculty and staff as possible involved in Occupy AU. Some students stressed the protestors’ need to step out of their comfort zones and sacrifice their time for the movement.
Occupy AU will be holding its first General Assembly meeting Nov. 9 on the Quad at 3:30 p.m.
The group’s goal for the meeting is to build consensus on the best ways to affect change and to brainstorm how to connect to other general assemblies in Occupy camps across the world. The event organizers also hope to engage AU students, professors and staff that may be interested in the Occupy movement.
“It’s not about forming a new political system,” said Rachel Mandelbaum, a junior in SIS. “It’s about making economic equality achievable.”
Steele said students from many D.C. schools have come together to support the Occupy movement in McPherson Square. But he believes it is “understandable that more students haven’t gotten involved yet,” he said.
“We have such intense blinders on as college students, because we’re so busy,” he said.
When asked what he hopes what Occupy AU will achieve as a group, Steele replied, “[I hope] more students realize their potential and power as individuals.”
