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[This Just In]

PROTEST
Hotel Northeastern

BY KRISTEN LOMBARDI

As of press time, 30 students at Northeastern University were still occupying that school’s John D. O’Bryant African-American Institute after President Richard Freeland failed to guarantee that the popular student and community center would stay put. Students want promises from the administration that it will not demolish the long-standing building, thus jeopardizing the future of what many regard as the center of black student life on campus. But university officials have identified the land on which the structure sits as a possible construction site for additional academic and residential facilities.

Last Monday afternoon, students renewed their demand for a “freestanding building in its present location” once a meeting with Freeland and other officials fell flat. Students also announced a list of issues that African-American students have voiced to the administration for months — including the need to expand the institute and to increase its budget and staff.

Students say they see no immediate end to the impasse. Justin Brown, 19, a sophomore who has slept in the building for six nights now, predicts that the situation will escalate because “the university is trying to appease us without giving us any answers.” He explains that students had been willing to halt their protest April 16, as long as the administration promised not to relocate the institute. “The president said he could not do that at this time,” Brown says. “Basically, he said no.”

In the 30 years since it opened, the squat three-story block of bricks currently adorned with a save the institute banner has been what Northeastern sophomore Saiffa Golafie calls “a beacon of light” for black students on campus, as well as for the myriad community groups that make use of it weekly.

As the 26,000-student university expands, however, the property surrounding the institute has become increasingly prime for development. Northeastern officials have considered razing the building and using the land to build something else, such as a residence hall or a parking facility — although the administration has not confirmed specific details. In a March 8 editorial published in the student newspaper Northeastern News, Freeland did write that a recent analysis “has concluded the land occupied by the institute’s building would help support a much larger structure” for the university.

Northeastern students first took over the school building — essentially sleeping in it, as it remains open to the public — on April 12 after a tense meeting with Freeland and officials about its future. Although the administration has offered to move the institute, students say they feel “insulted” by the range of options the university is considering. The administration has put forth five of them, one of which would keep and then renovate the structure. But the remaining four scenarios would cram the institute’s three floors of offices, its computer center, and its 6000-book library onto one floor in another building on campus. “We feel the university is just trying to get rid of us,” Brown explains. Moving the institute, he adds, “insinuates that we’re not good enough to be part of any new development” on campus.

A university spokeswoman said officials have no comment beyond the March 8 editorial, in which Freeland pledged to honor the legacy of the institute and insisted that any new space would “serve to enhance the programs and reflect our commitment to quality.” Although the administration has scheduled two open forums to discuss the issue next week, students and university officials are not expected to meet again until May 3. On May 10, Freeland plans to make a final decision on the institute’s future.

For students, though, that decision must not include a move. Some fear a relocation would mark the first step toward phasing out the three scholarship programs now housed at the institute. Others fear it would halt the institute’s growth overall. “There will always be the programs,” says Golafie, who has spent every night at the building so far. “But what kind? They would be greatly minimized if we lost the institute.”

More importantly, he says, a move would forever strain relations between black students and the administration. “That would totally disregard the historical significance of this building,” he says. The institute was founded by five black students, who lobbied hard to get the facility after racial tensions erupted on campus in the late 1960s. Given this struggle, he vows, “I’m ready to stay here as long as it takes to get what we want.”

In other words, stay tuned.

Details on the open forums have yet to be determined. For more information, contact the director of university relations, Sandra King, at (617) 373-5449. Or check out the “What’s New” section of the university’s Web site at www.northeastern.edu.

Issue Date: April 19 - 26, 2001