Occupy Wall Street: A Teachable Moment

Occupy USF sets up camp on lower-campus to raise awareness about inequalities in wealth in the U.S. Photo by Lily Rothrock.

The University of San Francisco has embraced the Occupy Wall Street movement as a teachable moment by creating new curriculum and organizing a series of town hall discussions. A student group has even pitched tents and peacefully camped out on lower-campus.

The rapid rise and nationwide spread of the Occupy movement over the last two months is an exciting and rare opportunity, said Joshua Gamson, USF sociology professor. So rare that Gamson and the university’s other Introduction to Sociology professors have redesigned their curriculum mid-semester. The new curriculum, which dovetails perfectly with the “social movements” curriculum usually studied during this portion of the class, requires students to delve into the root of the Occupy movement, analyze the media coverage surrounding the movement, and visit one of the Bay Area Occupy encampments to talk with supporters and others.

“It’s not often that so many critical sociological issues are brought to light at once, especially by a movement that grabs so many people’s attention, including our students’,” said Gamson, who is one of four USF Introduction to Sociology instructors teaching Occupy Wall Street curriculum.

Supporting the movement isn’t a class requirement. Instead, the new curriculum has students grappling with the U.S. economic situation that gave rise to Occupy Wall Street.

“Given that USF is a social justice-oriented institution, I think we want to challenge students to evaluate whether the claims the movement articulates about injustice are accurate,” Gamson said. “And, if so, to do something about it.”

So far, Leah Luebker ’13, a nursing major in Gamson’s class, has studied how Occupy supporters use symbols to communicate, how they mobilize collectively, and the intended and unintended consequences of their decisions.

Luebker, who visited the Occupy SF camp along the Embarcadero Nov. 16 and spoke with supporters and police there, witnessed protesters with very different agendas from Occupy Wall Street — which, at its core, aims to challenge America’s wealth disparity. “I saw more signs to legalize marijuana, to get the troops home, and to stop supporting terrorists than to stop capitalism, greed, or corruption,” Luebker said.

Studying Occupy in Gamson’s class has been eye opening in other ways, as well. For example, it has highlighted how communicating the ideas behind Occupy, or any movement, can break down, Luebker said. “One thing that really stuck with me from my visit was when I asked a group of police officers what they knew about the movement, and they really didn't know much about it,” she said.

The Occupy movement’s communications pitfalls haven’t kept it from growing in popularity at USF, however. If anything, those challenges have been a rallying point for supporters, faculty, and student clubs interested in spreading the word or studying the movement.

A number of clubs have banned together to sponsor town hall discussions. And Occupy USF, a student group that supports Occupy Wall Street, has pitched tents and camped out on lower-campus. Only current USF students have been among those to camp out, and there have been no disruptive activities.

The forums, one held Nov. 17 with about 65 students attending and another scheduled for Nov. 30, aim to help the USF community understand the movement by posing questions to a panel of faculty experts and student supporters, discussing the movement in small groups, and analyzing graphic art and other media to find clues to the socio-economic origins of the movement, said Evelyn Obama, president of the Culturally Focused Clubs Council, one of the student groups sponsoring the town hall forums.

Senior politics major Raffi Bezdikian ’12, a member of Occupy USF, said the group’s camp near Kalmanovitz Hall isn’t a protest against the university. Rather, it’s intended to show support for the wider Occupy Wall Street movement and raise interest on campus among students. The camp, which has been set up one or two nights a week since Nov. 16, has attracted as many as 20 students in a night, according to administrators. “I don’t agree with the socialist and anarchist messages of some Occupy supporters, nor do I really think that corporations are evil. But, I do think they need much more regulation,” Bezdikian said. “Ethical capitalism, along with responsive government, should be the way forward.”

Like many in the Occupy movement, Bezdikian believes that the money flowing into political campaign coffers at the national, state, and local levels has corrupted American democracy. “Money stops government from representing the will of the people,” Bezdikian said. “Instead, politicians only listen to the will of their donors.”

Many USF administrators see the message behind Occupy Wall Street as akin to the university’s mission to educate a generation of leaders who will fashion a more humane and just world.

“This is an educational moment for us all, especially in the context of possible cuts to the Pell Grant program and to education in general,” said Peter Novak, vice provost of student affairs, in a message to the USF community.