Students occupy UPR Senate

March 12, 2010

by Jose Alvarado Vega

A group of students took over the Academic Senate floor at the Río Piedras campus of the
University of Puerto Rico on Thursday afternoon, calling on UPR President José Ramón de la Torre
to desist from making $100 million in budget cuts they say will drastically reduce academic offerings
and work programs.
The action prompted the Academic Senate, which includes representation from professors and
students, to cancel an extraordinary meeting to discuss the selection process for a permanent
chancellor. De la Torre was expected at the meeting but never showed up.
Minutes before the incident, which occurred at about 1:30 p.m., between 400 and 500 students from
“action committees” organized at the social sciences, humanities, education and natural sciences
faculties were picketing at the rotunda at the base of the emblematic campus tower, just a few feet
from the Academic Senate entrance, which was cordoned off by university police.
The protesters, who waited for De la Torre to hear out their grievances, started to force their way
into the perimeter around the Academic Senate building after noticing that academic senators were
entering the building through a back door. A group of about 50 students managed to get inside and
occupy still-empty floor seats.
“It’s unacceptable that the new president will begin to make cuts that will impoverish the conditions
for student education and for professors and workers,” said Waldemiro Vélez, Jr., spokesman for
the Social Science Action committee and one of the students who occupied the building. “This new
administration has shown that it does not want to improve the UPR, but to destroy it. This we
cannot and will not allow.”
Vélez, who is the son of a professor and academic senator of the same name who was present to
attend the scheduled meeting, criticized the certification issued by the UPR Board of Trustees last
month that put a moratorium on tuition exemptions for the children of UPR employees. He said that
the students were outraged that millions in cuts are being planned in money budgeted for books
and equipment, student employment programs, teaching positions and summer classes.
He said that while the UPR administration is considering these cuts, it is leaving out of the
discussion $164 million in operational costs budgeted for the Board of Trustees and the Central
Administration, which includes the office of the president.
Marcos Verdejo, 21, an alternate student senator from the social sciences faculty, said he was
concerned that De La Torre was being used as a tool by the Fortuño administration to carry out the
“dismantling” of the public university system, noting this was a “violation to university autonomy.”
The students who occupied the Academic Senate floor started an improvised caucus meeting in
which they agreed to hold a campus student assembly meeting on March 24 to discuss possible
actions, including a student strike, that could be taken against the planned cuts.
Gabriel Laborde, president of the campus general student council and a member of the Academic
Senate, said the general council will hold a meeting on March 18 at 5 p.m. to discuss whether this
assembly should be held and, if approved, where it would be held.
Guadalupe Quiñones said in a press release later in the day that she canceled the Academic
Senate meeting because she feared that with the “uncontrolled entrance of the students” there
would be “incidents that would affect the security of those present at the meeting.” She called the
take-over “shameful.”
De La Torre issued a statement Thursday evening in which he “lamented and condemned” the
incident. He said that it was “necessary to responsibly face the great challenge faced by the
[island’s chief university] in a calm manner and with the noble attitude expected by the people of
Puerto Rico.”
He said he was “committed not only with straightening out the finances of the institution but also
with protecting our university from some sectors or groups who attempt to destabilize it.”