Protests don’t change financial truths but I expect we’ll see more protests like this at other schools in the coming months.

Sam Hill of the USM Free Press reports.

Over two hundred students protesting university budget cuts at Woodbury Campus Center

Students and faculty listened to several speakers at the Woodbury amphitheater, including state Representative Ben Chipman, who vocally supported their efforts and said that the school needed more from the state.

One of the students who organized the protest efforts, Meaghan LaSala, also addressed the crowd of more than 100 students and faculty, asking for protesters to take what she saw as the next step forward.

“It’s not enough to understand the problem,” she said. “We need to take it one step further and get organized. We need to talk about what are our next steps are.”

With LaSala moderating, students broke off into six committees that had been formed during Friday’s protest.

The committees are in media and messaging, letter writing, legislative outreach, political education, USM community outreach and research.

Over a hundred students have gathered outside of the University of Maine School of Law building to protest recent faculty cuts and budget decisions.

Students, faculty and alumni have set-up a podium outside of the law building’s main entrance and are taking turns speaking to the crowd. They have been shouting because they don’t have speakers and microphones available to them.

“This is is not just a budget issue, this is not just a USM issue, this is a human issue,” said senior English major Martin Conte to the crowd.

Women and Gender Studies major Jules Parnell has been helping to organize student protest efforts as a part of a group called Students for #USMFuture.

“The faculty layoffs are unnecessary. We do not support them. We demand transparency from the administration,” she said in a press release issued this morning.