[Antiracism] Tent State University Community Meeting

[lerussel at student.umass.edu]

TENT STATE UNIVERSITY
COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT MEETING
Sunday Feb 26, 2006 - 5pm
4th floor Open Square - Holyoke

We would like to invite you to a community meeting to help plan a Tent State
University at UMass Amherst in April 2006.  The event will be a step towards
clearing barriers between the Pioneer Valley communities and The
University.  This is not the begining or the end of the process---it is a
moment to stop, take a breath and look at the probelm that's in front of us.

The problems may seem obvious, but the solutions are difficult to achive.
How can we make the educational system more fair for working people?  At the
University, some students and progressive professors have ideas, we need to
hear what workign people think... what high school students think.  If we
work together, we have more power and it takes a lot of power to fix the
problem.

Tent State University (TSU) is a week-long, outdoor university shaped by
community members; students and workers.  TSU calls for equal access to
education and it exempifies what a university should be: an accessible and
democratically controlled public space that brings together diverse groups
to exchange ideas, art, and culture. (Visit www.tentstate.com or
www.tentstate.org for information about Tent States on other college
campuses).  The campus will be opened up: teachers will invite community
memebers into their classrooms, musicians and preformers will attact a
diversity of people to the campus, workshops and skill sessiosn will be
taught by experienced community members, bus-routes will be exteted to
Holyoke and Springfield, and anyone is welcome to rent or borrow a tent to
stay on campus for the week.

Never has the time been so ripe for an event like tent state --
Massachusetts ranks 47th in the nation on spending per capita for higher
education; workers face tough challenges trying to get ahead with the high
cost of education; and the diversity of UMass's flagship campus is slowly
slipping away.

Volunteers and organizers from all sectors of the community can get
involved!  We need people to perform, teach workshops, help with food, make
t-shirts, produce literature or help coordinate logistics for this week-long
event.

Directions and map online at http://www.uaw2322.org/node/207

> To learn about possible cancellations due to snow or inclement weather
please contact Megan McDonough at mcdonough.megan at gmail.com

> For more info or to get involved in Tent State e-mail
TentStateUMass at gmail.com
<TSUumass at gmail.com>

> Leaving from UMass Amherst?  Carpool from lot 63 (on N Pleasant St, next
to Skinner Hall, across the street from Hasbrouk Lab) at 4pm.

--
Daniel A Bender
(413) 256-1830
UMass, Amherst