More than three months after the end of the General Student Strike at the University of Massachusetts, a final proposal from the administration will be released tonight.

In early November of last year, 45 students formed a coalition demanding the administration rollback of student fees, give students control over student space, increase funding for and focus on campus diversity programming, and the removal of police officers from dorms.

Graduate and undergraduate students boycotted classes on November 15 and 16 to raise awareness of their cause.

After the strike Interim Chancellor Thomas Cole agreed to meet with

ten student representatives weekly to negotiate around these demands. Members of the United Student Action Coalition drew up a proposal detailing possible steps the administration could take to meet each of their demands.

“I think the negotiations started smoothly,” said Ruth Thompson, student trustee and member of the negotiating team. According to Thompson, the negotiations have been “picking up high speed” towards the end of the process.

The University administration, according to Thompson, is “still very much scared of the power students have.”

The administration refrained from commenting on the proposal.

Thompson said she feels the students have earned a number of victories through the negotiation process.

According to Thompson, so far the administration has essentially agreed to spend $900,000 on student demands. She said the student body has demonstrated a mixed response, with some students impressed by how much the University has given students, and some students anxious for more.

One demand from November was “student control over student space.” Students felt that the Student Union and Campus Center are too expensive for most student groups to use, and the rooms charge for equipment in the space. The administration is expected to help reduce those fees.

Students also demanded increased funding of diversity programming, including support services, and services designed to attract more diverse applicants to the university. One example of such programming is transportation.

“There’s a lack of transportation for students coming from Holyoke and Hadley,” said Thompson.

The university has agreed to help with transportation in the future. The students and university officials are still negotiating over increased funding for other diversity support services.

Thompson said that the demand to rollback student fees was definitely the most difficult to negotiate, mentioning that while the negotiations continue, there is a proposal

to raise student fees by about three percent.

The student proposal asked the administration to find areas on campus where spending could be cut back while the administration searched for a new source of revenue. The student proposal also called for reductions in fees as early as next year. Fees are the same across the UMass system, and Thompson said that the negotiating team knew that this would be a difficult issue at the start.

The administration is expected to provide assistance for a student lobby day April 16, according to Thompson. Students would travel to the Massachusetts State House to lobby for more funding towards public higher education.

“I think the cops out of the dorms was the easiest [issue to negotiate],” said Thompson, in part because the UMass Police Department denied allegations of undercover police officers going into the dorms in the first place.

Thompson said that once Thomas Cole stepped in as interim chancellor, it was easy to negotiate a Police Community Advisory Board, which will allow students to have a voice with the UMPD.

The final report was supposed to be released last Friday, February 22, but it was postponed “primarily because we didn’t feel we had enough time” Thompson said. This was in part because a few meetings were postponed due to weather.

By Monday, Thompson hopes the final proposal will be easily available to students. There will be a vote on whether to accept the proposal March 5. “If [the students] do accept, we’re just gonna celebrate,” she said.

If not, another strike may be on the way.

Elizabeth Hawley can be reached at [email protected].