As students at the linkurl:University of Puerto Rico;http://www.upr.edu/ have now blockaded some of its campuses for as long as three weeks in response to a proposed tuition hike, professors are seeing their supplies dwindle and an effect on their ability to conduct research.
"The university is grinding to a halt," said linkurl:Carlos Rinaldi,;http://academic.uprm.edu/crinaldi/rinaldi.html a chemical engineer at the Mayaguez campus who works on biomedical applications of nanoparticles. "For me, even a shutdown of a week is unacceptable," he said, explaining that it can jeopardize his ability to be the first to publish an important finding in this competitive field. In the first week of the strike at Mayaguez, researchers' access to their labs depended on the whims of students manning the gates, but after negotiations, students have a list of researchers they are allowing inside. Even so, with the university switchboard down, support staff out of the...
 |
rdst
stEditor's note (June 17): Last night, the two sides reached an agreement, one part of which states that students will not have to pay an additional quota in August. Each campus must now decide if they accept the agreement -- but if all goes well, the strike is, essentially, over.
 |
Interested in reading more?
Become a Member of
Receive full access to more than 35 years of archives, as well as TS Digest, digital editions of The Scientist, feature stories, and much more!
Already a member?
