On the LAKE Front

I would certainly encourage you to speak your mind —VSU Pres. Levy

Henry Calhoun asked VSU Interim President Louis Levy where are the free areas on campus? Dr. Levy answered:

Right outside of Palms Quad there's a free speech thing, but, as you can see, uh.... [gestures around]
[laughter]
You know, like I said. If someone's violating the law here, and creating a dangerous situation by, uh, physically disrupting the students or faculty, that's one thing, we deal with that....

But if it's, even this gnat, we will allow this gnat to....

We tend to promote free speech —VSU President Levy

Henry Calhoun found VSU Interim President Dr. Louis Levy, who came over to the Occupy Valdosta meeting 27 October. Erin Hurley invited him to come to the mid-November Teach-In. He replied:

...as long as it's legal and non-obstructive in terms of people getting in and out of buildings. We tend to promote free speech. And if we don't, we'll pay the price for it later.

...

We actually encourage free discussion and debate. Besides, I'm a sociologist. We can take what everyone knows and put them into four different kinds of perspectives and lenses just to do battle with each other.

He thanked Erin for the invitation.

VSU students, staff, and faculty who want their next president to hold positions like that on free speech might want to get involved with selection of the next VSU president.

Here's the video:

We tend to promote free speech.
Information and Organization,
General Assembly, Occupy Valdosta (OV),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 27 October 2011.
Videos by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

-jsq

Planning meetings, Occupy Valdosta @ VSU 27 October 2011

Yesterday's Occupy Valdosta organizational session went faster than expected, and resulted in adding some events to the upcoming list:

• Sunday 30 October 2011 12:30-3:30PM: General Assembly at the MLK Memorial
• Friday 4 November 2011 9AM-3PM: Voting Booth Basics at Goodwill Career Center
• Friday 11 November 2011 (date to be confirmed): Showing the movie Inside Job in November, prob. at VSU University Center.
• Friday 18 November 2011 (date to be confirmed): Teach-in with professors, students, and members of the community.

Here's Erin Hurley talking about two of those events: