In 2003, the Princeton Review ranked UC Santa Cruz as having the ‘most beautiful campus’ in the nation. This year’s rankings are in and UCSC placed 8th in the ‘most beautiful campus’ category for “The Best 366 Colleges: 2008 Edition.”
Since November 7th, 2007, Coast Redwood trees on UCSC’s Science Hill have been bases of resistance to campus expansion with students sitting on platforms situated in the crowns of numerous trees. Many students, staff and faculty at UCSC, as well as residents of Santa Cruz County, feel that UCSC’s campus expansion plans are anything but beautiful. UCSC’s 2005 Long Range Development Plan (LRDP) includes an additional 4,500 students by 2020, the destruction of 120 acres of forest, and a Biomedical Sciences Facility engaging in controversial, corporate-driven practices such as biotechnology, nanotechnology and invasive experimentation upon living animals (vivisection).
On December 25th, I explored a little bit of the UCSC campus and stopped by the parking lot on Science Hill to see if anything was going on at the tree-sit. This contentious parking lot is located where UCSC plans to build their Biomedical Sciences Facility. The facility would be the first project under UCSC’s 2005 LRDP. During my brief time on Science Hill, numerous people brought food to the tree-sitters, including Michael Urban, a professor of politics at UCSC. Read More and View Photos
On December 21st, security guards at the Physical Sciences Building diligently watched over the parking lot on Science Hill where tree-sitters have been occupying Coast Redwoods since November 7th in protest of UCSC’s Long Range Development Plan. Someone up in the cluster of trees dubbed “Tree 1″ confirmed what Grrr reported in a comment on SC-IMC, that on December 20th, two carloads of cops accosted the Raging Grannies in the parking lot and then arrested a young woman who allegedly attempted to climb a tree. Despite UCSC’s recent actions against perceived protesters, people continue to bring bags of supplies to either the base of the trees or directly to the sitters in the platform high above the ground.
On December 6, University of California employees represented by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 3299 held statewide pickets at all five UC medical centers and 10 campuses to express their concerns with current working conditions and their effect on patient care and student services. At UC Santa Cruz, approximately 200 students and workers from AFSCME and other Monterey Bay Area unions participated in a rain soaked picket and rally in the Bay Tree Plaza.
Students at University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC) have been occupying spaces high up in redwood trees and on the ground since November 7th on Science Hill, site of a proposed Biomedical Sciences facility. The space below the redwoods is transforming from a parking lot into a temporary autonomous zone. Meetings are events take place every day and students enjoy the space for doing their school work. This year, anti-colonialists plan to celebrate an all day Thanks-Vegan Holiday Sit-in and Potluck at the liberated community space in resistance to UCSC expansion.
Early in the morning of Wednesday, November 7th, activists opposed to UC Santa Cruz’s Long Range Development Plan (LRDP) launched a tree-sit in redwoods near Science Hill. UCSC plans to develop the occupied site into a new Biomedical Sciences Facility.
