Dear reader,

When I suggested to veteran journalist and BPR advisor Susan Rasky that the September 24th UC Walkout — 5,000 strong, according to local newspapers — was Berkeley’s biggest protest since the sixties, she felt the urge to slap me across the face. “I don’t buy that for one second,” she told me. “There was the protest against Cambodian Genocide in the seventies, the South African divestment campaign in the eighties…” Her list went on for a while. Okay fine, it may never be appropriate to compare the September Walkout to the Free Speech Movement. But even so, the incident has altered the mood of the campus and encouraged students to be more vocal about issues affecting their lives. Following this change, we have devoted this issue of BPR to identifying the unique challenges facing our students this year and finding ways to make sense of them. We don’t have all the answers, but I think you will enjoy reading the sharp insights of our authors and guest contributors.

One piece attempts to place the Walkout in the larger scheme of things and suggests that the UC’s problems run much deeper than the Regents’ financial mismanagement — it’s the perpetual budget impasse in Sacramento that needs fixing. To better understand the legislative gridlock that plagues our state and the nation, readers should look to “Obstruction 101,” a special guest column by UC Berkeley Professor and politics guru Bruce Cain.

But in addition to the Walkout, we get to hear from students on other crucial topics like health care reform. Ashley Lystne tells us about how SHIP saved her from mountains of medical bills and says we ought to consider adopting a similar plan for the nation. Emmeline Sun responds to Ashley’s challenge with a careful analysis of whether or not a plan like SHIP can be realistically applied to the entire country. Finally, Dan Foster sits down with three student veterans, who share their thoughts on US foreign policy and the hard transitionfrom soldier to student.

Although this issue reveals many troubling concerns, it also demonstrates that students are playing an active role in solving problems by making their voices heard. For this reason, I continue to have high hopes for the future of the university despite the challenges it now faces.

Sincerely,

Kevin Chen
Editor-in-Chief
bpreds@lists.berkeley.edu