Empty Bullets Fly At Rally

There was a lot of heat, both outside and within the crowd, at Wednesday's rally in the quad at California State University Sacramento (CSUS). Despite the heat, however, there was no fire. Approximately 150 students, professors and faculty attended the rally to voice their opinions about the recent student tuition fee increases, pay cuts for professors, and unpaid furlough days for faculty and staff.

The State Capitol has took it upon themselves to sort out the deficit in the budget, making CSUS a target in their rampage. The student fees for this fall semester have rose a grand total of 32% since last semester. Students within the crowd are feeling the pinch in their pockets. Some students stated that although they do not have to pay the fees directly, being supported by their parents, they still felt that the fee hike is excessive. The universal complaint being that students were getting less for their money.

Speakers included Student Association President, Roberto Torres and members from the California Faculty Association (CFA). There were chants that got the crowd pumped up such as "they say cut back, we say fight back!"

From some students perspectives in the crowd, the rally is not going to make much of a difference. There's a quiet consensus that most of what was said at the rally is just the reaction to the drastic changes at the campus. Some also related it to the bad economic times - excusing the rate hikes as being part of the grand scheme of things that need to be done to recover the economy.

One of the more concerning parts of the rally was the speakers' failure to mention anything about the next steps. None of the people sent out a call of action to march at the State Capitol. The CFA seemed to be more interested in collecting "complaint forms" that would be submitted to some higher power that would stop increasing fees and do something about the pay cuts and furloughs. What they should have been saying is when and where they should be meeting as a large group at the Capitol's lawns. There were calls to the students to "go talk to the legislators" or "write to your legislators;" however this was not followed up with a formal plan of action.

The rally seemed unorganized in what it was trying to accomplish. It seemed more like a awareness rally for the students that the fees had increased - as if they had not realized their empty pockets or declining bank accounts already. All the 'we should's' that were being said became tiring after a while. One of the speakers mentioned that at CSUS, fees had increased 187% in the past seven years. So what makes them think that the increases will not continue?

Some students in the crowd were optimistic; throwing out phrases like "every voice counts." Seeing the way that the rally turned out, fuming participants and no flames, its difficult to predict if anything would happen with the budget problems anytime soon.