When English professor Joseph Thomas got back to his car on Monday he was pleasantly surprised to find his green Mini Cooper, located in Lot B-2, covered with Post-it notes. His car gained a lot of attention with the colorful array of Post-it notes which had quotes handwritten on them. The car’s windows were covered. Some of the quotes included , “Terminate the university,” “Professors, you make us grow old,” “Alcohol kills. Take LSD,” “J. Edgar Hoover sleeps with a night light,” “Boredom is counter revolutionary,” “To be free in 1968 means to participate,” and “Don’t consume Marx, live him.”
“It was a pleasant surprise. I was pleased,” said Thomas. The notes were on his car since 10 a.m. until around 3 p.m. Thomas’ Eng. 436 Critical Theory class put the Post-it notes on his car as part of their Situation Construction class assignment. Thomas still doesn’t know which students actually put the notes on his car but he joked, “A’s for everyone.”
The students got the quotes from a student strike in France that was on May 16, 1968. May 68′ is when student strikes broke out at a number of universities and high schools in Paris, following confrontations with university administrators and the police. With today being May Day and the same day last year that the immigrant groups decided to strike and protest against H.R. bill 4437- The border Protection Anti-terrorism, and illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005, the students used what they learned in class and the right moment to put the Post-its on the professor’s car.
” It’s a really great statement to say the least,” said junior English major Angela Maer who was making sure some of the Post-its stayed on. The wind blew many of them off, by the time Thomas got to his car.
Thomas said that there was also a big poster on his office door that had something in French that read, “The old silence the young.” It was a famous poster from the 1968 revolution with a picture of a French police officer silencing a student.