Day Three: Athens

So we actually rolled into Athens the night before Wednesday just in time for dinner at one of my favorite restaurants in Georgia, the Grit! Mmmm...stuffed peppers and gravy with a side of succotash!

We were lucky to have several local folks that were down to put us up for the night, thank you Allie McCullen and Laura Estrada for being such gracious host:)
......although Mike was stalked and attacked by a cat who went by the name of Falcor, he's still recovering for the trauma.

Wednesday presented all of us on the tour an opportunity to have half a day to chill, take care of personal stuff, catch up on emails, and check out Athens. John got to catch up with sleep, Tameka got some studying in, Mike caught up with school work, Paul did some work work, and I got to check out the best comic shop in Georgia(that's right, Athens has the best restaurant and the best comic shop), Bizarro.

We also received some pretty troubling news. The Board of Regents decided to check the immigration status of all college students in the Georgia college system. Undocumented student already have to pay out of state tuition and have difficulty receiving. The move by the BOR will not only mean an end of higher education for thousands of youth in Georgia, it will also add another layer of bureaucracy to the school system that will cost tens of thousands of dollars to implement. It's a move by the BOR that appears to be purely punitive and racist in nature.

When it was time for us to head over to the miller learning center at GSU and set up we noticed a ton of buzz in the area. Apparently Ludacris had been hired to headline a concert for homecoming week. His sound check could be heard all over campus.

Turn out to our Athens stop was not our biggest crowd but it was a spirited one. There was no extra credit provided for attendence so we got only the most committed folks, folks that were for the most part actively engaged in campaigns on campus. Students fighting against education budget cuts, poverty, gender inequities, racial inequities, and more. The event actually ran longer then any of the other cities so far.

After the event Allie and Mitch Roper took us out for Jamaican food. Toward the end of our meal we somehow ended up going around the table sharing our stories of how we each have felt called speak out against oppression and exploitation in our perspective communities. What was it that opened our eyes to problems in our neighborhoods, in our world, and what are we doing about it.

Here's some footage of Mike Scott talking about his artistic process:



After dinner we said our goodbyes and hit the road to Milledgeville. When we pulled into Paul Place, which is part of the GCSU student housing(where Paul is on staff), GCSU student flocked around Paul with warm greetings for him, which thankfully extended to us as well!


Photos by,
John Reynolds
www.curiousjohn.com




Tim Franzen
American Friends Service Committee

Research Session Lays the Groundwork for Education Campaign

This Saturday the "Be the Change" Youth Education Campaign hosted a research session at the UGA library in Athens, GA to gain research skills and put together some solid facts for use in upcoming events, particularly the National Day of Action in Defense of Public Education on October 7th. We have been working in partnership with the Georgia Students for Public Higher Education to spread awareness about the value of public education and to fight the budget cuts that have threatened it.

We had about 10 folks--from Athens, Atlanta, and Statesboro--gathered with a librarian who walked us through some of the most useful websites and resources to get information on Georgia's education system and budget. She even made us a handy website, so we could share the most important sites with those who couldn't attend:

Research Guide on Georgia's Education Spending

After some initial direction, we decided we should aim to put together two items by the end of the session: a fact sheet on higher education and a fact sheet on the K-12 system in GA. The overall goal of understanding the education crisis proved to be pretty daunting, with different pieces of information spread all over the place. However, we learned a lot and made significant progress on our fact sheets.

For example, did you know...

...that during fiscal year 2011, the amount that GA is spending per student on K-12 education will drop to its lowest level in a decade?
...that in every county in GA, the K-12 system is one of the top 10 employers (and that in 27 counties, public post-secondary institutions are one of the top 10 employers as well)?
...that in 2009 Georgia State President Mark Becker made $325,000 and that a security guard at Georgia State makes $25,305 per year?

Thanks to everyone who came out to the research session and the potluck and poster-making session afterward. We still have a lot of work ahead of us, and we are looking for help! Please email me at erica.scap@gmail.com if you'd like access to our fact sheet material as it still needs some additions and clarification. As always, please visit GSPHE or "Be the Change" to get more involved in the fight for education as a human right in Georgia!

Special thanks: Librarian Amber Prentiss for a wonderful research guide, Liz Kinnamon for photos, and the Presbyterian Student Center for hosting our potluck.

Stay tuned for more as we approach October 7th!!

Erica Schoon
American Friends Service Committee-Atlanta