Marching to Strike Headquarters

By Allen Mills, Vice President

That march to strike headquarters on the Monday before the strike deadline was something I will not soon forget. It was easy to worry about its possible success. Had it been too hastily organized? Had the message gotten out in time and had the messengers gotten the word out to everyone?

We needn’t have worried. It was likely that all that needed to be done had indeed been expertly done by all the messengers. But even so, there was a sense of the existence of a galvanizing resolve among the Members who in their respective ways had decided that the issues were big enough to take a stand upon. They needed no encouragement. They were ready to go. Everyone was one and the planets were aligned. Even the police cooperated. They hurried to make the permit for the march an immediate reality and even though we had trained everyone to respect the traffic lights crossing Portage Avenue there were the police cruisers, unannounced and unrequested, stopping the traffic at the intersection. That long line of people made an even stronger statement as we walked without interruption.

I like to think that in the midst of it all there was a conviction that this university is worth preserving as a place of liberal arts and critical values. Maybe we have had our view of knowledge pragmatized to death by those who govern us. Maybe amidst the snow-muffled, marching feet they heard some refrain about free knowledge for free knowledge’s sake. I like to think so.