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The student government at Idaho’s Boise State University has passed a resolution asking BSU’s faculty senate to amend a proposal that would reportedly end student participation in the academic grievance process.
Under current procedure, if a student’s complaint about an academic issue cannot be resolved through discussions with his or her professor, the chair of department, or the relevant dean, the dispute is brought to an Academic Grievance Board composed of seven faculty members and seven students.
But under a proposal currently under consideration by the faculty senate, students would be removed from the grievance process entirely.
Under the new setup, the final decision on any academic grievance would be made by the provost’s office, with the provost empowered, “at his or her discretion,” to “convene a panel … of three deans or associate deans” to assist in making a judgment.
One BSU administrator called the existing process cumbersome and antiquated, with a vice president of the university’s faculty senate saying that it is often difficult to find seven student members to sit on the grievance board.
But student government leaders rejected the idea that students should be removed from the process entirely, proposing that a six-member panel, including three students selected by the BSU student government and three faculty members selected by the provost, be given ultimate responsibility for grievance appeals.
Hat tip to the National Student News Service for bringing our attention to this story.
The student senate of the University of North Texas last week rejected a bylaw amendment that would have allowed same-sex couples to run for king and queen of homecoming.
Student government regulations at UNT do not bar LGBT students from running for homecoming king and queen, but they do provide that the court be elected as a male-female couple. The proposed bylaw amendment would have eliminated that restriction.
The bill, which had been introduced a week earlier, generated a strong negative response from UNT parents and alumni.
Debate on the proposal lasted for an hour, and at times grew heated. The final vote was five in favor of the change, ten opposed, and eight abstentions.
One student who voted against the bill said that he had been swayed by threats from alumni to end charitable donations to UNT, and from parents of students who had gone so far as to threaten to force their children to withdraw from the university.
Student government interns conducted an informal poll of two hundred students before the vote, and the UNT student newspaper, the NT Daily, said the results were “generally negative.” Comments on the Daily‘s coverage of the vote have, however, been mostly supportive of the defeated amendment.
(Thanks to @ericstoller on Twitter for the heads-up on this story.)
Police forcibly dispersed a student demonstration in the northern Indian city of Allahabad on Wednesday, sparking a retaliatory riot and two more days of protests.
Students from the University of Allahabad, one of India’s oldest universities, were protesting the administration’s refusal to hold elections for AU’s student government, which was dissolved two years ago. Police charged the crowd wielding long wooden canes known as lathi, injuring more than a dozen demonstrators.
Students later took to the streets, vandalizing a number of cars parked in the area. On Thursday police returned to campus in an attempt to arrest 12 of the participants in the Wednesday protest, but left having taken only two into custody.
Students burned a minister in effigy on campus today as protests against the university and the police continued.
Sunday evening update: Protesting students briefly blocked railway tracks in Allahahabad on Friday, and demonstrations continued over the weekend.
On the first day of classes since last Friday’s protest at Howard University, journalists from the Hilltop, Howard’s student newspaper, sat down with university president Sidney A. Ribeau.
Ribeau went through the protest’s demands point-by-point. He said he would implement a couple of them, and that a few had already been addressed. For most, though, he said that he needed more information, or that the proposal wasn’t feasible for logistical or financial reasons.
Leaders of the Howard University Student Association (HUSA), which helped organize the protest, were invited to meet with Ribeau yesterday as well, but they declined, saying that public dialogue, not closed-door meetings, were what was needed.
Last week the protesters set today as Ribeau’s deadline to respond to their demands.
See bottom of post for updates.
The first major American student protest of the new academic year has erupted at Howard University.
Hundreds of Howard students gathered outside the historically black university’s administration building on Friday, demanding that Howard address problems with financial aid, campus housing, and other issues. Rapper and entrepreneur Diddy, a Howard graduate, urged the students on via Twitter, telling them to “Do what we did and take IT OVER!!!!”
Classes began nearly two weeks ago at Howard, but many students say their financial aid is still in limbo. Students also complained about a shortage of on campus housing and about administration censorship of the student newspaper, the Hilltop.
The Hilltop reported on Twitter that after campus security locked the administration building down the protest moved on to the university chapel, where Howard student government officers addressed the crowd.
A thirteen-point list of demands presented to the administration included
- The resignation of the leadership of the Office of Student Affairs.
- Immediate reforms to financial aid policies.
- Bringing campus buildings into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
- Budgetary transparency within the university.
- Expansion of on-campus housing.
The protesters asked that the administration respond to their demands by next Wednesday, September 9.
More on this story as it develops…
Update: Here’s a YouTube clip from the protest, and a longer, edited YouTube vid, which includes an explanation of the demands.
Tuesday morning update: The Hilltop, Howard’s student newspaper, is going to meet with university president Sidney Ribeau at 12:30 pm this afternoon. Today’s Hilltop reports that more protests are planned if Ribeau does not adequately address the students’ demands by tomorrow.
studentactivism.net 
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