Traffic Detours in Place Near UCSC - Central Coast News KION/KCBA

SANTA CRUZ, Calif. -- Santa Cruz Police are warning of traffic delays and detours surrounding the UCSC Campus, after Occupy Protestors have made camp at the entrance to the campus.

Officials say the detours and delays are in the areas of High/Cardiff, Bay/Meder and Western/Empire Grade.

Santa Cruz Police say travellers can expect traffic delays and detours in area throughout the day.

A group of students and Occupy activists arrived at the University of California Santa Cruz early Thursday morning in hopes of shutting the campus down as part of a nationwide protest movement bringing attention to rising tuition costs.

Protesters began gathering at entrances to the school as early as 4:00 Thursday morning.  By 4:30, they had blocked vehicle access to the west entrance and the intersection of Coolidge and Hagar.  Students said they would not prevent emergency vehicles, Health Center and campus child care workers, or residents of Faculty Housing and Family Student Housing from accessing campus during their day-long protest.

According to a website set up for the March 1 strike, protesters plan to build a tent university in front of the school's iconic redwood sign to "create a space in which we can come together and collectively imagine an alternative to what this university is becoming."  Emails circulated by some students said there would be classes on topics ranging from student debt and revolutionary China to horror films and belly dancing.

UCSC Chancellor George Blumenthal and Campus Provost/Executive Vice Chancellor Alison Galloway told students in an email sent Monday that they support advocacy in support of education, but took issue "with a protest that simultaneously denies students access to those classes for which they have paid."

Blumenthal and Galloway wrote that legislators remained "the audience that most needs to hear the call for greater state invesment in public higher education."  To that end, students and activists are preparing for a day of action in Sacramento on March 5, with some planning to spend the night there and return on buses the next day.

School officials have set up a website where the Public Affairs Office will provide updates on how the protest is affecting campus.  Santa Cruz police issued an alert Wednesday night advising residents that delays were possible on roads in the western portion of the city.  Santa Cruz Metro buses are expected to unload passengers at stops near the main entrance, rather than driving onto campus.