The sixth Student-administration committee meeting to discuss the coming tuition raise was held on April 28. However, the continuous conflict between the students and administration reached no agreement.
The administration tried to convince students that a raise is inevitable, and tied the increase to promises of improved facilities for the students, but the Student Government Association (SGA) remained skeptical because the administration did not come up with specific plans.
Protests hosted by the SGA have been ongoing since the beginning of the semester, when the administration announced 8 percent tuition increase, and the SGA has tried to involve the student body in voicing demands to lower the rate of increase through various activities in April.
April 1 was ?lack Clothes Day for Ewhaians. Students gathered in front of the Student Union Building and walked to Pfeiffer Hall to express their opinions. From April 8 to 14 students performed one day fasts wearing yellow handkerchiefs as a sign of their protest and drinking water. Numbers participating in the fast grew from 28 on the first day to over 150 people on the last day. April 14, in Azalea Festival commemorating the 4.19 protests against Rhee government in 1960, students dealt with the tuition raise again as the SGA and the students who participated in fasts announced their opinions in front of the Student Union Building.
Students at other universities are protesting against the same issue. On April 24 the SGAs of many universities, including those of Ewha and Sogang, participated in an educational protest. Korea and Yonsei University have occupied their university administration buildings.
Kim Kyung-hee (Health Education, 4), president of HubHerb (the current SGA group) says, ?o many students asked if we are going to continue our protests. Of course we are going to. We don? have any achievements yet, so we will keep on protesting to stop the raise in tuition.
The SGA? latest moves has been to provide postcards for students to write their opinions on, and badges with the phrases ?reeze the raise in tuition and ?acilities for students in the Ewha Campus Center Project. After one week of evaluation of the actions taken so far, protests will continue in May.
springi02@ewha.ac.kr
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