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In the first week of the strike at Mayaguez, researchers' access to their labs depended on the whims of students manning the gates, but after negotiations, students have a list of researchers they are allowing inside. Even so, with the university switchboard down, support staff out of the office, and vehicles being barred from entry, getting supplies requires ingenuity and manpower.
The indefinite strike began on April 23rd at Rio Piedras, the largest campus in the capital of San Juan, and has since spread to all 11 campuses. Students are protesting a proposed $50 increase in the per-credit cost of summer courses and demanding greater transparency in the university's finances, which they believe are being misspent. The per capita income in Puerto Rico is $19,600 -- less than half of the US average -- but most students qualify for Pell Grants, which easily covers the $1600 annual tuition in addition to some living expenses.
In the larger context of Puerto Rico's melodramatic political stage, the strike was also born of dissatisfaction of the largely left-leaning students with the current governor, Republican Luis Fortuno, who supports statehood for the U.S. territory. The Rio Piedras campus has shut completely until July 31st, and is not letting in any professors. It's not clear if other campuses will follow its lead or reopen to finish the semester, leaving thousands of seniors in limbo, including students hoping to take part in the Research Experience for Undergraduates program sponsored by the National Science Foundation.
Outside the Mayaguez campus over the weekend, hand-painted banners declaring education a right hung from chain link fences surrounding the campus. Near the entrance to the biology building, students had barricaded the university's gates with wooden pallets, and were camping out under tarps and nylon tents, sipping iced tea as they surfed the internet on their laptops. A uniformed officer sat outside, powerless to do anything in light of the UPR's no confrontation policy. After flashing press credentials, I was shepherded past two Great Danes and brought into a circle of a half dozen students badly in need of showers.
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That response is not good enough for Franklin Carrero-Martinez, a neuroscientist who studies synapse development in fruit flies. He said his environmental chamber broke down and the regular technician refused to cross the picket line. He finally found one willing to sneak through the forest and fix it last week, but now he is now worried about getting 200-pound canisters of carbon-dioxide he needs for experiments. He had to postpone a delivery scheduled for this week because the distributor cannot bring the special cart needed to move the tanks up to the building.
Rinaldi said that his dynamic light scattering instrument used for measuring particle sizes broke down before the strike started, but the purchase order to get a new one has not been processed. He's having fluorescent markers and other supplies delivered to his home, and is personally carrying out medical waste so a company can pick it up.
Come June 1st, Carrero-Martinez is heading to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for the summer, but may have to interrupt his research there and fly back to Puerto Rico if the semester starts up again. "I think it's cool that students are striking," he said, "but the problem is when they prevent other people from getting their work done."
Editor's note (June 17): Last night, the two sides reached an agreement, one part of which states that students will not have to pay an additional quota in August. Each campus must now decide if they accept the agreement -- but if all goes well, the strike is, essentially, over.
Related stories:
[14th May 2010]
[21st April 2004]
[6th January 1997]
[Comment posted 2010-05-21 11:18:36]
As a student who has been in the areas of the gates, notably in those who give access to researchers, whenever a strike is declared the lists of the names researchers and their team (means students) are delivered to the identified access gates. It has never been refused access to researchers, and if misunderstandings have occurred have been due to lack of information. I understand that as a researcher, and seeing a need for certain instruments and reagents or technical support, the duty of the investigator who was interviewed for this article was to report the arrival at the gates of material, and the students will allow access to technical or supplier. It is not the aim of the strike trample investigations raised at the university. Students at the gates "do not bite", so if the researcher have not reached the necessary material and is in that situation is because it has not been responsible for informing their need to the strikers.
On the other hand, I really do not understand at what point the author wanted to take this news: it was rather informative, or rather it was a mocking, political and sensationalist tone . In college, huge events are happening that have nothing to do with the governor's political preference. The simple reality is that the government is using the fiscal crisis to abandon the commitment to higher education in the country (as one professor said), and see it as an expense and not as an investment for the future of our Island. The strike is not only because of the rise in enrollment in summer, it is something beyond that, since the way in which government is pretending to go, higher education will be possible for the few. While many have the benefit of the scholarship that we recieve from the United States government, for which I am very grateful because I am a recipient; here are many students to wich the check of the grant is not enough to defray their lodging and food expenses and have to make loans.I read in a local newspaper about two or three years ago that the average income per capita is 10,000 and not about 20,000 as is mentioned on the article, and is less than the income per capita of the poorest states on the USA. Yet life at Puerto Rico is more expensive, and as we know every crisis is a cycle because of the corruption and the opression the working class recieve from the government.
In fact the author did well to point out the contradiction that is the opposition to strike if many researchers complain that order the search tools for their investigations and unfortunately the orders go out very late, and researchers are forced to use other methods to be able to get these instruments.
I think so far there is nothing more to say. In short, the strike is a claim to the right to have the opportunity to obtain a higher education excellence and accessible to all, the purpose for which the University of Puerto Rico was founded.
Please excuse me for my English, is a little difficult to write in a second language.
[Comment posted 2010-05-20 06:21:30]
[Comment posted 2010-05-19 22:32:03]
The UPR operates as an autonomous public institution under the PR law, and this is so to ensure and warrant that ALL political-economic-cultural views are granted access to it. However this time, we ALL (students and society members at large) have observed what can already be considered the most blant and direct intromission of any Executive Branch Members (the Governor and the State Secretary included) among all the political Administrations ever since the University Law came into action (a big while ago).
We must keep in mind that the students are not denying nor can they prevent the access to anyone to the Campus as per the UPR ruling. But for the first time in the UPR history, the University Administration has been the one closing the University, and calling upon the local police force to guard the gates with instructions to impede the access of essentially anyone (lab researches included).
So, I guess it will be a good idea to expand our info review and sources to avoid getting lost in the translation...
LiSA Ruiz-Cardona, MS, PhD Cand.
Pharma Scientist & Consultant
[Comment posted 2010-05-19 19:42:28]
Don't take me wrong, I strongly believe that anyone (majority or minority, right or wrong) has the right to demonstrate and express his or her views. After all, the free flow of ideas (and ideals) should happen freely at a University. However, in their right to express their views, no one should be allowed to prevent others to carry on their responsibilities.
Basic supplies are not being delivered, student?s research stipends are not being processed, everyday purchases stuck somewhere along the purchasing process, travel advances and reimbursements are not being processed.
In the meantime, the whole world continues to move along with their research. Research is much more complex and requires a lot more than just allowing someone to enter a laboratory. This fact transcends all political views and motivations and should be seriously considered by all if we are to remain competitive and continue to educate the next generation of STEM researchers.
[Comment posted 2010-05-19 15:43:39]
[Comment posted 2010-05-19 13:28:30]
But the information provided is too simple. The problem is that the University should receive 9.6% of the PR budget, but the Governor and local Congress cut the % to about 8.4, and the "pie" the University will receive in 20110-2011 is smaller than what the law requires. On top, the new University administration (Junta de Sindicos and President) are selected by the Governor (even in the States, Governors don't interfere with University administration), so they are not defending the University budget but rather implementing unbalanced cuts: The University Central Administration receives a large budget for functions that should be carried out by each Campus.
This is only an overview, the subject is much more complex.
I am a member of the Mayaguez Campus, my name is on the list and I can enter every day to do research on Campus.