Boston's Alternative Source! image!
   
Feedback

[This Just In]

FOLLOW-UP
Students keep on keepin’ on

BY KRISTEN LOMBARDI

While Harvard students celebrate victory after their 504-hour protest for a living wage for campus workers (see “The Wages of Sit-in,” This Just In, April 26, www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/this_just_in/documents/01426017.htm), things look pretty much the same across the river at Northeastern University. Indeed, it’s day 28 — day 28 — for the 30 students who have come to epitomize the word “persistence” by quietly and less prominently occupying that school’s John D. O’Bryant African-American Institute to protest its possible relocation (see “Hotel Northeastern,” This Just In, April 19 www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/this_just_in/documents/01562643.htm). Students want President Richard Freeland to guarantee that the historic institute — smack in the middle of an area targeted for construction — won’t be demolished.

Last Thursday, a much-anticipated meeting between students and university officials fell flat after tensions flared over the institute’s future. “There are still a lot of unresolved issues concerning the building,” says Ibiere Seck, a senior who has slept at the building since April 12. Seck explains that students, who have pushed for a “freestanding institute in its present location,” were upset that some administrators at the May 3 meeting continued to promote moving the institute to another facility as an option. “Students are unified in a desire for a freestanding building,” Seck adds. “We feel our demand should be considered [by administrators] above all else.”

Students will find out just how much their demand matters this Thursday. That’s when Freeland has promised a decision on the institute. Students don’t know at what time on May 10 the president will render his determination — or how. “We think it’s necessary that he speak with us face-to-face” rather than via telephone or email, Seck says.

In the meantime, students try to stay positive. When asked whether the sit-in action has been worth it, Seck replies, “Absolutely. If we didn’t, the institute would have come down without our knowledge. I have no doubt about that.”

Issue Date: May 10 - 17, 2001