Weekly News Briefing: governor affirms that cuts to the UPR are inevitable, RUM concludes 36-hour conditional strike and more

Here’s what you might have missed last week:

• Governor affirms that cuts to the UPR are inevitable

The governor of Puerto Rico, Wanda Vázquez Garced, confirmed that the cuts to the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) are necessary. Her comments come up at the same time as a project that aims to increase judge’s salaries. Regarding this, the former secretary of Justice denied that it is an attempt to benefit her husband, judge Jorge Díaz Reverón.

• RUM concludes 36-hour strike

During the second extraordinary assembly of the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) Mayagüez campus led on Wednesday, November 13,  the students approved a 36-hour conditional strike, which began at 5:00 p. m. that same day, to demand that the president of the institution, Jorge Haddock Acevedo, make his plans to stop the budget cuts, which he had handed to the governor, public. The students had agreed that, if documents are not received within 36 hours, the strike could become an indefinite one. However, the strike was officially terminated on Friday the 15^th after Haddock Acevedo conceded to the student’s demands and handed in the requested documents.

• Student organizations from the diaspora oppose cuts to the UPR

More than thirty-one Puerto Rican student organizations in universities across the United States have expressed solidarity with the students of Puerto Rico and the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) in the past week. The expressions issued warn about the danger of an additional $71 million budget cut to the country’s first teaching center for the next fiscal year.

• Puerto Rican students at Iowa State University oppose budget cuts to the UPR

The Association of Puerto Rican Students at Iowa State University (PRSA) declared their opposition to the $71 million budget cut that’s expected to impact the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) and urged others to support the university with the hashtag #SaveUPR.

• Carjacking occurs at the IUPI

A carjacking was reported last Wednesday at, around, 9:45 a.m. inside the University of Puerto Rico (UPR), Río Piedras campus. The victim, an unidentified young woman, was forced to stop her car inside campus premises after two men, driving a white Nissan Sentra, hit her car at a nearby traffic light between Barbosa Avenue and North Street. Once inside campus, one of the two men got out of the vehicle and approached the victim, threatening her and taking off with her vehicle, a Nissan Rogue, soon after.

• The most outstanding strikes of the UPR

Over the years, the students of the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) have excelled in their fights to obtain an accessible, quality education, and representation in the institution’s decision making, among other things. Luis D. Alfaro Pérez highlights the most important strikes in the history of the institution of higher education.

AMRC