Protest scheduled for Wednesday’s Board of Trustees meeting

By Kristina Aiad-Toss, Photo Editor

Protesters in the hallway on the third floor of the Student Union during the previous protest held on October 14th.
Kristina Aiad-Toss
Protesters in the hallway on the third floor of the Student Union during the previous protest held on October 14th.

Undeterred, relentless, and ready to make their voices heard yet again—students from the Ohio Student Association (OSA) are holding another protest outside of the Board of Trustees meeting this Wednesday from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. The meeting will be held in Room 339 on the third floor of the Student Union.

The student group — along with UA graduate student Tom Guarino and Facebook groups Graduates over Greed, Olive Jar, and Save the University of Akron from Scott Scarborough — also organized a protest at the previous Board of Trustees meeting on Oct. 14.

With nearly a hundred attendees last time, composed of students, faculty, staff, and alumni, OSA has reached out to individuals throughout the university and the community to come and express their concerns with the recent changes made by President Scarborough and the Board. The organization hopes to draw more student participation in the upcoming protest.

Along with expressing disapproval over a perceived deterioration of education quality, lack of attention to cultural and arts programs, rebranding, service outsourcing, and bad transparency, the protest was organized to address new issues that have drawn criticism.

Among these issues is the eliminating of graduate assistantships, the possible reinstatement of the $50 per-credit fee on upper level courses, and class unavailability due to a lack of professors.

“The same issues as well as new issues have continued and surfaced since the last protest almost two months ago,” said Kelsey Watson, Akron OSA president. “There has been no increased effort of transparency.”

Leading up to the protest, OSA is using the hashtag #UAhasmelike for students and other concerned individuals to express their concerns with the University’s leadership on social media.

Watson says the OSA will continue to organize protests in the future until “justice is served at The University of Akron and decisions are made to protect the reputation of this place of higher learning.”

A Facebook group entitled “Mistakes Were Made -at U of A,” is circulating ads in local newspapers asking for signatures of students who are “concerned with the direction the University is going and actions that the administration is taking.” Current students can sign the ad at goo.gl/YFDlqg

In addition, an ongoing change.org petition aimed at the resignation or removal of Scarborough from UA has gained 667 supporters out of the desired 1,000.