Mizzou’s new leadership says they’re listening now.
Interim Chancellor Hank Foley embraced marchers Friday at the campus’ main academic hall.
“They have done absolutely nothing violent," said Hank Foley, interim chancellor. "All they’ve done is asked for us to consider them more and to make them feel included and not to leave them out and to really live up to the principles we stand by.”
“Today our main goal is to shared governance, getting that meeting with the board of curators, which we have," said Shelbey Parnell, organizer of Concerned Student 1950. "But, also making sure everyone has a seat at the table.”
Students from other schools joined in Mizzou’s “We’re Not Afraid March.”
The protests ousted Mizzou leadershipover failure to address racial tension.
Now the movement has spread to other campuses.
And at Mizzou, administrators are trying a more open approach.
“First of all we’ve got to say we support them," said Foley. "We can absorb this and get better. And we will get better. We’re in a period of what scientist call a kind of punctuated equilibrium. Which is to say, we had a long period of slow change. And then some things built up and now we’re in a period of rapid change. But it’s change for the better, not change for the worse”
