Dive Brief:
- Syracuse University’s chancellor has issued what he is calling a final response to students staging a sit-in protest since Nov. 3 over issues of diversity and administration transparency.
- The protesting students, calling themselves THE General Body, called the chancellor’s statement “counterproductive to the negotiation process,’’ the Chronicle of Higher Education reported.
- In a campuswide email, the chancellor, Kent Syverud, apologized for the administration’s handling of certain decisions, but said that the two sides need to work through governing bodies, such as the school’s Student Association and Graduate Student Organization, to resolve the student concerns.
Dive Insight:
Now we see who blinks first. Syverud went out on a limb by claiming his response was final, and the student protest group is going to find it more and more difficult to keep the sit-in going as media attention fades. In THE General Body’s response to the chancellor’s email, the group said that it wasn’t satisfied with his offer and that it would continue to demand that the university’s administration “recognize our outcry against the rapid and undemocratic revision of university goals and missions,” the Chronicle reported.