The nation­wide move­ment known as Occupy Wall Street has been grow­ing since it started in September.

Occupy Wall Street has been defined as a “lead­er­less resis­tance move­ment with peo­ple of many col­ors, gen­ders and polit­i­cal per­sua­sions.” The com­mon­al­ity between all sup­port­ers of the move­ment is they con­sider them­selves as the 99 per­cent that will no longer tol­er­ate the greed and cor­rup­tion of the 1 per­cent,” accord­ing to occu​py​wallst​.org.

The move­ment has spread to cities all over the coun­try, includ­ing Grand Rapids. Facebook pages such as “Occupy Wall St.,” “Occupy Michigan” and “Occupy Grand Rapids” have been cre­ated to raise aware­ness of the movement.

Occupy Wall Street has spread to col­lege cam­puses across the nation as well. An arti­cle from the New York Times reported that tents recently went up at Harvard in Cambridge, Mass., and at the University of California at Berkeley, stu­dent pro­test­ers said they have “vowed” to occupy dozens of other cam­puses in com­ing days.

Dr. Donald Roy, asso­ciate pro­fes­sor of polit­i­cal sci­ence, said Occupy Wall Street is a pop­ulist movement.

“Populists are against some­thing big and con­trol­ling, and so the tea party is against big gov­ern­ment, and these peo­ple are against big banks and cor­po­ra­tions,” Roy said.

Roy said move­ments like this give peo­ple a chance to choose between Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party move­ment, which is cur­rently going on all over the country.

“It’s kind of a delayed reac­tion to this global finan­cial melt­down, which we could argue started on Wall Street,” Roy said.

Some Ferris stu­dents sup­port the move­ment and some oppose it.

“I 100 per­cent sup­port the move­ment. We’re in one of the worst reces­sions in a long time and I think that it’s our job as the ‘99 per­cent’ to have a voice a take some con­trol. I think that the Occupy Wall Street move­ment is fan­tas­tic,” LaBreonna Stori, a senior in health care admin­is­tra­tion said.

Nate Kunnen, a junior in pro­fes­sional ten­nis man­age­ment, does not sup­port the movement.

“Us demand­ing so much from our gov­ern­ment is what got us here in the first place. Yes, cor­po­ra­tions are greedy, but so is every­one else. Government should give us equal oppor­tu­nity, not equal con­di­tions,” Kunnen said.

Anthony Godinez, a junior in weld­ing engi­neer­ing, said, “I def­i­nitely do not sup­port Occupy Wall Street. Our coun­try is so great because of the way it has been gov­erned for hun­dreds of years. Our finan­cial dis­trict is the pin­na­cle. We as Americans have the abil­ity to make as much money as we want to.”

Jordan White, a junior in facil­ity man­age­ment, said he is really split about the Occupy Wall Street movement.

“On one hand, you’ve got the indi­vid­ual who is doing what they have to to sur­vive. On the other, you’ve got the gov­ern­ment try­ing to keep the econ­omy afloat by giv­ing all these tax breaks to big busi­nesses. I do under­stand the frus­tra­tion with how the CEOs han­dle the breaks they’re given,” White said.

Roy said a lot of this move­ment has to do with jobs as cor­po­ra­tions and banks con­tinue to make a lot of money and lay off people.

He said the one per­cent is the mil­lion­aires on Wall Street, and the 99 per­cent is the rest of the country.

“They aren’t cre­at­ing jobs; it’s pretty bad out there for a stu­dent grad­u­at­ing or about to grad­u­ate,” Roy said.

Roy also said, “This is democ­racy in action, and stu­dents should pay atten­tion to it and decide for them­selves. They’re (Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party) both move­ments. We have a long his­tory of this too; this is just not some­thing contemporary.”