Friday afternoon, in the face of a gray sky, cold winds and the threat of rain, members of Students for a Democratic Society protested a perceived lack of transparency from the Corporation. They also demonstrated for a tuition freeze and better compensation for student workers.
About 50 students marched around campus, ending their parade in front of University Hall, where the Corporation - Brown's highest governing body - holds its meetings. A few students addressed the crowd of SDS members with a megaphone while the rest chanted, banged on drums and waved signs, including a cloth banner that read "Open the Gates" with a picture of the Van Wickle Gates.
Former Herald Staff Writer Sophia Lambertsen '11, who addressed the crowd, said that SDS believes in the "radical idea" that Brown exists for its students, so students should have a say in the decisions that affect them. The group wants students, faculty and staff to be able to participate in Corporation meetings and have access to their minutes, she said. Protestors chanted against the classification of Corporation records for 100 years.
According to the University Archives Web site, the minutes from meetings are actually released 50 years after first recorded. Lambertsen said SDS believes minutes should be accessible to students "as soon as they're recorded" because the Corporation's decisions affect students in "an immediate sense."
Alexander Wankel '11 said the Corporation, which will hold its fall meeting in early October, "operates outside the student eye, without any check on its decision-making." He didn't know that the Corporation existed until a few weeks ago, he said.
"We want to be able to see what they do, to know what they're discussing and to have a voice in the decision-making for a really democratic education," Wankel said.
Brown should be "democratically student run," Lambertsen told The Herald, meaning that there shouldn't be "a bunch of old white men" who are running the school and making decisions about how to spend students' money.
The Corporation has shown indifference to SDS protests in the past, Lambertsen said. During the February 2008 Corporation meeting, two members of SDS delivered a petition with more than 600 signatures on it to a meeting, but were ushered out of the room and received no follow-up, she said.
Lambertsen said that they also "loitered" outside of Corporation gatherings and handed out letters to members asking for various reforms, including public release of the minutes and student access to the meetings, she said.
The Corporation members "for the most part, ignored us," she said. They received only two responses, she said - one stating that members would like to get more information and another from Chancellor Thomas Tisch '76, the University's highest officer and the Corporation's leader, who said that he appreciated their concern.
During the protest, SDS students also called for a tuition freeze and better compensation for student workers.
Education is a "human right and every single person should have access to it," Lambertsen said. Students at the protest chanted that they "just want some of that free education."
"Brown is in a position where it has a huge amount of money that it could be using towards things like financial aid that it's not and it's ... building things like the Walk," Lambertsen said.
SDS wants to attract attention to issues of transparency and tuition costs, Wankel said, adding that the group is also looking to recruit more members.
The group will also protest in October, when the Corporation has its first meeting of the school year, he said.
Some Department of Public Safety officers were posted outside of University Hall during the protest, but didn't do anything other than observe.
