Dear friends, and those we’ve yet to meet,

Over the past months, we, the workers, students, and faculty of this campus, have shown the world that we can shut this university down.

Now, we show that we can run our public university the way it should be — by the public.

Starting Monday, December 7 on the steps of Wheeler Hall at 2:30 p.m., we will transform Wheeler Hall into a 24-hour open university. We will open the space for anyone in the community to come and go as they please, to organize study sessions, teach-ins, concerts, forums, club meetings, dance parties, and anything else our creative minds dream up.

Live Week is a time for us to open this university to all people and to all forms of expression and education. Our university is not only a space for hard work and practicality; it is a place for fun, fulfillment, and happiness. Our university is not only a space for people of privilege; it is a place for all of the community: young and old, rich and poor, majority and minority, teacher and student, on-campus and off-campus. Our university is not only a space to learn from books and lectures; it is a place to learn from each other’s experiences and expressions, and to create new knowledge and build a new future.

This university is yours! We shift competition to cooperation. We replace stress and anxiety with compassion and joy. We transform the traditional balance of power of this institution to create an education that includes the interests, concerns, and passions of all of us, and embodies the true ideal of democracy.

It’s time to reinvent public education together, So come one, come all to your university!