About a dozen concerned students plastered the hallway outside of Portland State President Daniel Bernstine’s and Provost Roy Koch’s offices on the third floor of Cramer Hall with posters, banners and slips signed by thousands of students Tuesday night to protest the way the university has handled its flagship program, University Studies.
The concerned students, who asked to remain anonymous, met at 9 p.m. to show support for the University Studies graduate mentor program that administrators announced would be cut next year. On Bernstine’s door, the students taped a poster with a drawing of an axe-bearing monkey ready to chop down a tree representing University Studies.
A former student government member, who participated Tuesday night, said that cutting the graduate mentor program is counter-intuitive to the university’s mission of student-orientated education. The student said if the university cuts the graduate mentors, who currently work as a type of teaching assistant in all sophomore inquiry classes, it could be the start of the dismantling of the entire University Studies program.
The taped-up postcards, close to 1,000, each bore the name of a local community or business and the words “I support University Studies at PSU … Do you?” The group of students said they believe that if University Studies is dismantled, the relationship PSU has with the local community will suffer.
“It just seems ridiculous that the program we get nationally recognized for is the program we are trying to tear down from the inside,” the former student government member said.
The goal of the protest, the former student government member said, is to keep people talking about the sophomore inquiry graduate mentor program. The group of students said that although change will not happen overnight, the broad scope of the distributed literature will start the long process of change in the program.
The former student government member said that even if the mentor program is cut, it is not the end of the dialogue. “We’re trying to change an ideology about supporting student-centered learning.”
University Studies has been in an $800,000 to $1 million deficit over the last few years, and the department announced last fall that the graduate mentor program would be cut next year to save money. University Studies will save $224,000 from the mentors’ stipends, and $230,000 from the graduate mentors’ tuition remissions will be used in other parts of the University Studies program.
A fee was proposed in November to prevent some of the cuts to the graduate mentor program, which student body President Courtney Morse said she would support if the fee kept the graduate mentor program active.
Another possibility discussed in November would be to charge a large enough lab fee for students enrolled in sophomore inquiry to save 25 of the current 37 graduate mentors.
Because the fee would be viewed as a lab fee, University Studies has until March to make a decision on what fee, if any, would be charged to students, according to Sukhwant Jhaj, director of University Studies. Jhaj said he has heard positive feedback about the fee from those within the department and that he will inform the campus when a decision is made.
The group of students, who call themselves Student Leaders Against Poor Decisions, also take credit for last year’s plastering protest at the Auxiliary Services office. Students posted a drawing in May of PSU administrators as monkeys crouching on a pile of money alongside hundreds of signed notes to protest potential budget cuts to the Residence Life program.
Some of the students in the group support a fee if it would save the graduate mentors, while others say they are against any fee increase.
The former student government member said that the entire group is in support of saving University Studies. The student said the proposed fee is one example of students paying for things he thinks the university should be paying for.
“The fee is probably going to happen,” the student said. “What’s frustrating for me personally is to see things the university should be paying for reverting on the backs of students.”
The Student Leaders Against Poor Decisions launched a website aimed at students and administrators Monday (www.unsttruth.org). The website outlines the goal of the group, which is to promote university studies in order to get attention from the university.
“As many [of] us have learned, it is sometimes the loudest that get[s] the most attention, and sadly, that [is] what seems to be happening at PSU,” the students wrote on the website, “simply without a strong, cohesive faculty base, University Studies is an opportunistic place for PSU to make deep cuts. This must stop.”