UH Students for Fair Trade

The university president Renu Khator really really doesn’t like students. She doesn’t like seeing them, talking to them or answering their letters or addressing their concerns.

A few months ago she brought in one of her cronies from U of South Florida as the VP of Finance and Administration. He is a typical fourth tier administrator who thinks the university should be run as a dictatorship where the only thing that matters is profits for the corporations. Even though he said it’s business decisions that rule, when the faculty, staff and students decided through the shared governance process that they wanted an all fair trade vendor in the library, Carluccci said “NO.”

When we asked for a meeting to find out why, he sent us the the following email threatening one of our members with arrest. Check out his ignorance in the following videos also.

Part One

Part Two

On Monday August 11 we visited president Khator’s office to ask why she has ignored the letter we hand delivered her several weeks ago. Check out the video:

Dan Gardner, the head cook and bottle washer for UH President Khator got a little testy today when we stopped to leave a message with Carl Carlucci about the status of the all fair trade coffee kiosk they’re supposed to put in the library. You can hear him tell Brendan that they can step out in the hall. Gardner also took the poster board he was holding and covered Aaron Alexander’s face and camera. Next thing you know he’ll want to mud wrestle us.

On June 16 we did an action with the coffee bean of justice. On June 23 we met with Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Elwyn Lee (sometimes known as the wife of U.S. Congressman Sheila Jackson Lee). Dr. Lee was not a happy camper. In fact none of the administration are too happy that we got a story in the Houston Chronicle. Anyway although the administration likes to stall, steer clear of the truth, threaten, file unfounded disciplinary charges, we like to keep focused on our goal to make the University an all fair trade campus and in doing so making our world a better place. Here’s our letter to Dr. Khator as a follow up our meeting with Lee. SFT letter to Khator 6.30.08

After we whupped out the bean of justice on the president’s hopeless administrative staff all of a sudden things started rolling along again on our quest for just beans. We brought a 7 foot coffee cup to the president’s office back in March, a 4 foot coffee bean yesterday, what next? Stay tuned for the next episode. Gardner’s reply 6.17.08