READY TO WALK!

GSS (Graduate Student Senate) and UMass grad students propose to
protest the UMass fee increase by walking 110 miles over a four day
period. We will walk from UMass Amherst at Haigis Mall at 9am on
Monday, February 23rd, and we will arrive at the Board of Trustees
meeting at the UMass Dartmouth campus on Friday the 27th. We see our
journey as a physical representation of the struggles that students
will face if the fee increases are ratified — an increase of $1,500
for Undergraduate students and up to $1,020 for Graduates.

We need your support. We are not asking for you to join us on our
walk, rather, to meet us and add your voice to ours at the Board of
Trustees meeting at UMass Dartmouth on Friday, February 27, at 9am.
There are buses available, leaving from Haigis Mall at 5am

5am!

This is in all of our best interests. There is a significant chance that this
fee increase is not necessary, that President Obama’s stimulus package
will make up for UMass’s massive deficit. The actual amounts
available to UMass from the stimulus package will be revealed over the
next couple of months, but the Board has chosen to vote to try to
increase fees regardless of this possibility…and the cold fact is
this: Fees never go back down. Once this increase is implemented, it
will become a way of life for us. We must stop it now.

Once again, the buses to the Board of Trustees leave Haigis Mall at
6am on Friday, February 27, 2009, and will return to Amherst by 1pm.
Meet us at the Board of Trustees meeting…with water.

For our complete schedule and for updates from the road, see:
our website – umassgss.org
our twitter – twitter.com/UMASSGSS
our facebook – facebook.com/home.php?#/group.php?gid=49073237425