This is what we need...

The Chilean students that I live with, if you have been reading other posts, all go to the Santa Maria University, a very well-known engineering school.

These last couple of meal times, they have been talking about a "paro," which from the context I learned was a strike. Although in their heating discussions at the table I really couldn't figured exactly what was going on, I did pick up that there was talk of some sort of strike that would be going on at the university.

I asked Sigrid and Jose Thomas what this was all about. Jose Thomas, who also goes to Santa Maria, explained the complaints that the students at Santa Maria had about the university. For one, the university has been accepting more students than they have room for, which means that classes and labs are always overflowing with people. Secondly, money that students here in Valparaiso are paying for tuition is also going to the campus that they have in Santiago, which they believe is unfair since they need more resources here. Finally, there are some students that do not have to pay, I'm guessing for financial reasons, and the university is failing to give them credit.

Sigrid explained that all the departments of engineering each have their own governing body that interacts directly with the administration of the university. Since the students have this power, they got together in a congress of each department and the students voted whether they would strike or not.

In the end, the students are not going to class today because they are going on strike!

This is what UMBC needs. There have been so many occasions where students complain about the university - from tuition increases, to monopolies on the on-campus housing, to not enough places to live on campus, to disappointment about on-campus food options, etc - but don't do anything about it except complain. It's really a shame that we can't organize to form a strike when the administration of the university does something upsetting to the students. Unfortunately, I don't think that it is in our culture to strike. First, the students wouldn't strike because they wouldn't want to miss class, get in trouble, etc. Second, I'm not sure the administration would even react to a strike; they'd figure we were just wasting our money not going to class.

From my experiences at UMBC and being in the student government there, I don't think this forceful a method could be used to get anything done, nor do I think there is a good way in general to get anything done.