On Wednesday, April 8th, four representatives of Living Income for Vanderbilt Employees sat down with Chancellor Zeppos to discuss the job security of Vanderbilt’s workforce and our “No Cuts” movement. Our request for the presence of a worker was denied by the administration, but we did not let this stand in the way of civil and sustained discourse.
America’s primary and secondary education systems need fundamental reform. Unfortunately, it seems inevitable that this much-needed change will come in the form of charter schools and universal voucher systems, given the political momentum of the privatized education movement.
On April 7th, several student groups co-sponsored a showing of the Michael Moore documentary piece “Sicko” followed by a panel discussion on the deteriorating state of the American health care system. While the movie’s message about the dangers of our for-profit health care model tugged at the viewer’s heart strings, Moore spent very little time discussing how to implement systematic reform nor the practical implications of such reform on our economy and existing health infrastructure.
We are now in the midst of one of the worst economic downturns since the Great Depression. Daily headlines rail against speculative culprits and scapegoats. America, once the world’s most prosperous and secure nations, is suffering one of the worst consumer crises we have ever seen.
The contrast to previous years could not have been greater. Addressing a crowd of an estimated 30,000 in Prague, President Obama seemed to have briefly returned to his old campaigning mode. He outlined his plans to combat climate change and reduce the world’s arsenal of nuclear weapons, eliciting enthusiastic applause from people who were not even eligible to vote him into office.
