This occupation, as I see it, is all about sharing knowledge and trying to make ourselves valuable to the communities that support us. Perhaps that's a point that is too often forgotten. At least at public universties, the fees are paid by the state. Private grants exist, of course, but their goal is to get some useful service out of the university. The public deserves the same treatment.

I'd like to go up to every professor at USF and say, "Okay, the state is paying you X amount of dollars. What are giving back to the state?" Teaching a few classes? How noble of you. What about all those copyrights you gave to a commercial journal publisher? What about that copyright for a textbook or scholarly monograph you sold to a commercial publisher? Then I'd like to ask the university presses, "Why the hell isn't this stuff available for free online? Who cares if you don't make money selling books anymore. It's not about selling books. It's about making scholarly work AVAILABLE." How can scholarship make an impact if no one reads the stuff?