Students are planning to shut down the upcoming UC regents meeting on Wednesday, in protest of tuition increases and the Berkeley Global Campus (BGC) in Richmond, California.
The agenda for the meeting does not include reversal of the previously approved tuition increase plan, as UC regent John Perez requested the last time the board met. The approved “Long-Term Stability Plan for Tuition and Financial Aid” will increase tuition at a maximum of five percent for each of the next five years, with a guaranteed 5 percent — or $612 — increase for the 2015-16 academic year.
A new satellite campus for UC Berkeley is also among the agenda items for Wednesday’s meeting. UC Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks suggested a 40-year plan for the satellite campus in February, which he sees eventually serving 10,000 students and faculty to “conduct interdisciplinary research on climate change, world health, big data and urban studies.”
UC Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks said BGC is “a new form of international hub where an exclusive group of some of the world’s leading universities and high-tech companies will work side-by-side with us in a campus setting.”
Students who plan to shut down the meeting say the campus can have a negative impact on Richmond, which is a low-income area primarily composed of people of color.
The board will meet March 17-19 at the Conference Center at UCSF Mission Bay. Click here for the meeting’s agenda.
