Rybak distributed literature that summarized the problems with the federal, state, and SUNY budgets. The list ranged from an increased athletics fee to military investments by SUNY.

Rybak recounted an experience she had two years ago with the Freedom Of Information Act in which she tried to figure out exactly where her tuition money was going. Instead of getting answers, she found a complex web of financing that involves the mixing of public and private money. The information she did receive she described as “vague.”

Rybak is opposed to the increase in fees, but at the very least wants them properly explained. A lack of transparency seems to be a theme in complaints from student groups.

The GSO, an organization that represents graduate students, released a statement condemning the process by which the administration increased fees. They offered assistance and requested transparency since the fees were proposed, but only now, eight months later, are they able to speak with the administration in the form of a town hall meeting.

The focus of the conversation was Stony Brook’s budget, but the RSU even had issues at the federal level. For example, Obama’s budget proposal calls for a regressive tax on oil and less money for Pell Grants.

The meeting was filled with calm, intellectual discussion––so much so that another student could sleep on a nearby couch with a jacket over his head. But that time next week, things might not be so relaxed.

On March 2nd, the RSU will play host to the second annual rally featuring student and union leaders from around campus. Last year they filled three busses with protesters on their way to be seen by President Stanley. This year, that number is being described as a conservative estimate for attendance. With more speakers than ever expected to show up, it could be many more.

On Wednesday afternoon, dozens of students protested and made their way past University Police in the Student Activities Center to show their disapproval for a proposed hotel to be constructed at the main entrance of Stony Brook University.

The marchers were part of the Stony Brook Conservation Collective, a coalition of members from several other clubs on campus. The group of about 30 held signs made of cut up cardboard, recycled posters, and even cut up cereal boxes with paper towel rolls.

With the help of a megaphone, slogans such as “We pay the fees! Don’t cut our trees!” and “It’s bullshit! Get off it! Your hotel is for profit!” caught the attention of passersby on the academic mall.

Nearby, Nazma Niles collected signatures for a petition to be presented to President Stanley.

“We’re asking them to reconsider their location for building the Hilton hotel if to build it at all,” said Niles. “Just today, over 100 people have signed.”

Not everyone was impressed. Three women walking out of the Administration building joked that the students “don’t realize their signs are made out of trees.”

Campus police were on hand for the rally as well, and kept a close eye on participants. At first, only one officer trailed the rally, but by the time the march moved back towards the SAC, six members of campus police and security watched from a distance.

All six officers had their hands full at the SAC, where protestors learned that President Stanley was attending a Veteran’s Day event in the auditorium. The marchers attempted to enter the SAC, but were stopped by Campus Police.

For several minutes, the confrontation went back and forth, with students claiming that they had the right to enter the building as long as they weren’t disruptive and police insisting that the very presence of the protestors would disrupt ongoing activities.

Rally organizers came equipped with a copy of the university’s official policy on entering buildings though, and organizer Andrew Greco ended the argument by walking in holding his sign anyway. Most of the group followed.

For several minutes they occupied a part of the steps in the main lobby. The protesters were satisfied standing there until the Veteran’s Day event ended, when they tried to relocate to the front of the auditorium to catch the attention of President Stanley.

He was long gone, though. After the event, he was escorted out of the building through another hallway, and steered clear of the main lobby where the protestors were assembled.

Rally leaders, not satisfied that they had gotten Stanley’s attention, decided to march silently past his office in the administration building. Campus police guarded the closed door while protestors walked in a single file line past it. When they had left, the officer guarding the door opened it and assured everyone inside that it was safe.

After the event, we spoke to Greco about the goal for the rally.

“We are trying to press administrators to promise they wont level that forest,” he said. “We’re asking Stony Brook to change the location now.”

An ongoing lawsuit has put plans for the hotel, reported first in Think Magazine, on hold. But an injunction against the university from developing the plot of land in question was recently lifted, removing any legal barriers stopping the university from demolishing trees.

The lawsuit, however, has not been resolved. Marchers are demanding that the university commit to leaving the land intact until the suit is resolved in the courts.

“I don’t see how they could win because the land lease has expired,” said Greco. The lease, granted by New York State decades ago, outlines the area directly across Circle Road from the administration parking garage.

Wednesday’s march came after previous, more diplomatic attempts to air their grievances over the hotel with university officials

The Environmental Club attempted to get answers from the University Senate, but they were turned away from a November 2 meeting. That, says Greco, is why they had this rally.

“We’ve tried the legitimate way, we’ve tried the legitimate routes. We made an appeal in front of the University Senate and it was dismissed.”

Stony Brook University spokeswoman Lauren Sheprow issued a brief statement on the hotel, and the ongoing litigation.

“The University and the developer are interested in proceeding with the hotel project, but as yet have not discussed the court’s most recent decision,” she said via email Wednesday evening.

Reporting was contributed by Adam Peck; Photography by Klara Huszar for Think Magazine.

Did you miss any part of the rally? Want to go back and listen to the interviews we did? Click on the link below the video to watch all our coverage on demand.

Video footage not loading? Please be patient and try to reload the page. Still nothing? Footage will be available on demand this afternoon.

Over 100 protestors picketed an April 1 Democratic fundraiser attended by President Barack Obama at Boston’s 60 State Building.  As the last of the $500-a-plate guests were being admitted and the streets of Beantown were being prepped for the presidential motorcade, 10 protestors remained.  They hoisted handmade signs and decried the president’s conduct.

They did not wear tricorn hats and condemn healthcare.

They did not decry taxation.

There was no Tea Party in Boston.

Protestors from the organizations Citizens for an Informed Society, the Socialist Worker’s Party and TeamGood.org, with other non-affiliated individuals, demanded Obama end the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and stop off-shore oil drilling. They wanted to get some more of the hope and change Obama’s posters had advertised.  These activists are a petite part of the growing trend of presidential disapproval.  Obama’s overall approval rating at the time was 48 percent, according to Rasmussen Press polls.  It has since dropped to 47 percent.

“We’re disappointed with the Obama administration,” said Howard Hayward of the Citizens for an Informed Community of Bridgewater, Mass.

“He promised hope and change and all we’ve seen is a worsening from the Bush policy. He’s been elected for a little over one year and we don’t expect everything overnight, but he has had ample opportunity to make some changes.”  Hayward’s sign, painted in blue, read, “Foreign Policy=Murder for Profit.”  Hayward said that the Obama administration had done little to end the war in Iraq, for which Iraqis are paying the ultimate price for the benefit of American corporations.

“The only crime Iraqis committed is that they are Iraqis, that they live in Iraq, that’s all,” said Hayward. “Just think of how many people are profiting from this war—the Raytheons, the General Electrics, Boeing.  How many senators get campaign finance contributions from these corporations?  They profit from war. It’s unjust.”  The Department of Defense awarded Raytheon contracts totaling over $30 million in the most recent deal between the defense company and the U.S. Government. General Electric and Boeing were awarded $3 billion and $2.2 billion contracts in 2008.

America’s casualties are not limited to the borders of Iraq.  “We’re out here to stand up against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and for the U.S. withdrawal from Pakistan—to stop the bombing,” said Laura Garza of the Socialist Worker’s Party.   The continuing struggle against the Taliban in the frontiers of Pakistan has prompted the Obama administration to use drones to destroy militant strongholds. The use of drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles, in Pakistan has killed 687 civilians, according to Pakistan’s International News.  “We’re killing innocent people,” said Hayward.  “Why in America are we so appalled when someone attacks us, but look at what we do to everyone else in the world.  We have to consider consequences of our actions.”

The combined effect of military action is neither helping the American people nor furthering the spread of democracy, argued Garza.   She came to the demonstration with a card table from which she distributed the Militant Newspaper, a newspaper published by the Socialist Worker’s Party, and sold copies of the speeches of Malcolm X, Che Guevara and Nelson Mandela.

“I believe the policies that [Obama is] enacting are inimical to the interests of the working people in the United States,” said Garza. “I think people are being bombed and people are being sent to fight, and not for the furtherance of democracy or anything like that.”

Obama’s recent opening of offshore drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the northern coast of Alaska also prompted the wrath of protestors.

“Drill, baby, drill,” Robyn Su Miller, an unaffiliated protestor, shouted at fundraiser attendees as she craned over the police barriers.

“We’re disappointed because the president’s environmental policy promised all of this, promised all of that…he is now proposing offshore drilling?” asked Hayward.  Obama’s drilling is not going to completely alienate his constituency, said Stony Brook University Political Science Professor Helmut Norpoth.  They are less likely to remain supportive of Obama if he, like President Lyndon B. Johnson, continues support of a long-term foreign war.  And for all their bluster, explained Norpoth, the protestors are not representative of the majority of voters.

“It doesn’t have much effect in the end,” said Norpoth.

“[Obama still has a] pretty good [rating] among the Democrats….I don’t see any drop off there yet.”  There is, however, more anti-authoritarian energy on the Republican side, said Norpoth, but the Tea Party’s highly-publicized and radical conservatism could alienate Republicans come election time.

“There is no Tea Party movement equivalent on the Democrats’ side,” said Norpoth.  “If Republicans get into a situation where they are undermining their mainstream candidates, it will be more of a problem for Republicans than for Democrats.

Liberal disappointment in Obama is largely a product of voters’ inflated expectations of sweeping change during his presidency, said former President of the College Democrats Alex H. Nagler. “A lot of people projected onto him,” said Nagler.  Over a year into his presidency, liberal voters are finding that Obama is not as liberal as they had thought.   “Obama was always a centrist,” said Nagler.  “You can’t run unless you are centrist, unless you’re Sarah Palin.”

The U.S.’s continued military presence in Iraq does pose a problem, explained Nagler.  His vow to withdraw U.S. troops within 16 months of his election has yet to be realized, though the 16-month mark was passed in March.  Former President George W. Bush also failed to fulfill the terms of his war plan, which intended to reduce ground troops in Iraq to 30,000 by 2003.  When Bush left office, there were over 120,000 U.S. soldiers in Iraq.

Michael Ippolito of TeamGood.org said that Obama, through his policies, is not the break from the system Americans needed.  TeamGood.org promotes the creation of a people-centered society, a movement that was hit hard when the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision which struck at the spine of the McCain-Feingold legislation and gave corporations the right to political speech.  Ippolito argued that Obama should prevent corporate personhood and corporate welfare.

“We believe in the constitution,” exclaimed Ippolito. “We want democracy and real capitalism—not corporate welfare and capitalism hijacked by these corporations.”  As the group of protestors hoisted their signs on Congress Street, Ippolito said he hoped people were informed by his fellow protestors.

“People just need to get informed and stop thinking that people who are spreading information are commies,” said Ippolito.  “We believe in America—in patriotism.”

The most enthusiastic of the protestors was Miller, who argued with a suited passerby about offshore drilling.  She protested to change the view of liberals’ relationship with Obama. “My hope would be that the media narrative would change so that it’s not like ‘Oh, these crazy right-winger Tea Party people’ are out here protesting Obama,” said Miller.   She clutched her collection of signs, one for each issue.

People, not exclusively organizations, were being represented in the protest, said Miller.

“I would hope that [the Obama administration] would see that we are all not from organizations and that each one of us out here is representing a lot of other people with our same concerns,” said Miller. “There are a lot of people on the left who are criticizing Obama, too and I would hope that that would become more known.”

Why do we allow this? It’s not a secret that university life should be more than books and tests. It’s understood that developing social skills and networks, taking on responsibility and developing autonomy are key to growing as a person and that these are four (or more) key years in anyone’s life.

I want to talk specifically about the concept of responsibility. Starting an organization, filing paperwork and coloring inside pre-established lines is not being responsible. It’s being obedient. Being responsible is having free reign and deciding what’s best to do with that reign. It’s not being guided, like sheep or show horses, over grassy knolls or hurdles. Most of all: responsibility requires the ability to fuck up. I don’t mean fuck up in an “oh, man, I should have filled out that paperwork in time” way. Those fuck ups are artificial. They’re established to prevent real fuck ups. What they actually do, though, is shield us from reality and shut down the motivation and ability to reason within the wider boundaries of existence.

While resistance can and often does have an end (restore state funding to the public education system, remove private interests from the public sector etc.), resistance in and of itself is an end. It is a transformation of thinking and being. It is developing a sense of autonomy that breaks norms and sometimes laws and allows one to become truly human. It is liberation. Resistance for the sake of resistance is obviously a bit too abstract and, to be frank, dangerous. The merits of resistance, though, remain regardless of whether or not the demands made come to fruition now, one hundred years from now or never.

Students lined the hall outside of President Stanley's office to protest PHEEIA and tuition hikes

Days after staging protests on campus as part of the national March 4 Day of Action, a small group of students at Stony Brook University sat down in the hallway outside of President Stanley’s office for hours and begged passersby for spare change to cover the rising costs of tuition.

Kevin Young and Nick Eaton (who is a contributing writer for Think) organized the event today, and were accompanied by roughly a dozen other students with jars and signs.

“I can’t afford to pay for tuition,” said James Ging, a freshman Engineering Sciences student. Ging’s concerns are with differentiated tuition, which would set varying tuition costs based on departments within the university.

“PHEEIA is going to make it harder for students to pay for tuition, especially for the engineering students,” he said.

PHEEIA, or the Public Higher Education Empowerment and Innovation Act, is the SUNY-backed proposal to reinvent the tuition model for the 64 member campuses that comprise the State University of New York. One potential affect of PHEEIA would be the implementation of differentiated tuition.

The students timed their protest to coincide with a press conference with President Stanley for campus media. President Stanley did not step outside his office to address the protestors, but several campus media stopped on their way out to speak with students.

During the press conference, President Stanley was asked about these student protests, including the one that was ongoing on the other side of the wall.

“I take it very seriously, obviously.” He said. “Whenever the students are speaking, I’m listening and I hear what they have to say.

“Hot air. Empty rhetoric,” says Nick Eaton. “If President Stanley was really interested in student protests, he wouldn’t send the chief of police outside and charge us with disorderly conduct.”

Campus police were dispatched to the Administration building when the students arrived. According to Ging, at the offset of the protest, there were five officers in the hallway with just 8 students.

Robert Lenahan, the chief of police for the University Police Department, was stationed outside the door. He would periodically step inside the office and speak with representatives from the president’s office.

According to Eaton, the plan was to have two shifts of protestors, one for before the press conference and one afterwards. After the arrival of the university police however, they “refused to leave on principle.”

“This event was supposed to be small and shed light on PHEEIA,” said Eaton. “It was escalated by the presence of the university police department.

The University Police Department was not immediately available for comment.

March 4 Day of Action at Stony Brook from THiNK Magazine on Vimeo.

Ahead of a nationwide day of action on March 4, hundreds of students at Stony Brook University took to the Student Activities Center Plaza on Wednesday to protest budget cuts and tuition increases recently proposed by the State University of New York.

Colorful signs and rhythmic chants lured passersby into the rally, which featured speakers from the United University Professionals and the student body.

After almost an hour on the SAC Plaza, the protest organizers took the rally mobile. A group of roughly 75 students marched to the Administration building loop to board a rented school bus that took them to the Center of Excellence in Wireless and Information Technology complex where university President Samuel L. Stanley was wrapping up a meeting.

Students continued the protest at CEWIT for another hour, with heavy police presence looking on. President Stanley emerged from the building and was bombarded with chants demanding his support for keeping tuition costs low and fighting budget cuts. After quickly taking a letter presented to him by one protester, Stanley was ushered to a car and back to campus.

SUNY Chancellor Nancy Zimpher was also at the meeting at CEWIT, but left shortly before protesters arrived.

The rally had been organized to shed light on proposals by the state and SUNY administrators to overhaul the tuition process at the 64 campuses that comprise SUNY. Those proposals could nearly double the current tuition rates in 10 years, in smaller annual increments.