TCNJ students hold sit-in protest
EWING >> ConorReid,asenioratTheCollegeof New Jersey (TCNJ), feels students have a preconceived notion about Trenton.
“There’s an idea on campus that you don’t want to turn left when you get out,” Reid said about driving toward Trenton after exiting the campus. “Student say, ‘It’s dangerous. It’s scary down there.’ That’s something that we really want to change.’”
To bring about that change, two dozen students held a sit-in next door to President R. Barbara Gitenstein’s office on Wednesday afternoon in a meeting room. The students belonging to the TCNJ Committee on Unity protested the college’s disengagement from Trenton and pointed to two main problems they would like to see addressed in the stuffy, packed room. The first is the name of Paul Loser Hall. Loser, a former superintendent of Trenton Public Schools in the 1940s and 50s, believed in segregation and lost a Supreme Court battle to allow it to continue in the district.
His family made a significant $1 million donation to TCNJ for Loser Hall to be built, and, in return, the college named the building after him.
Students protested the name last year, but the college has yet to rename Loser Hall.
The college’s president, however, did form a Commission on “Social Justice: Race in Educational Attainment” to research the matter, but students feel the board is dragging its feet on reaching a conclusion.
“The lack of response on that has been really awful,” said Reid, who is the impromptu leader of the Committee on Unity. “It just goes to show how disengaged the campus is from the larger community. If we really wanted to enrich the local community, if we really were invested in actions like that, we would have renamed it, no-brainer.”
Reid said the organization, which formed this semester, would also like for the president to reconsider closing the TCNJ Clinic. The clinic, which is slated to TCNJ President Barbara Gitenstein (center) speaks with students at Wednesday’s sit-in next to her office to protest the college’s dissociation from Trenton.
close at the end of the semester, is a mental health care facility that provides low-cost services to both students and members of the Ewing and Trenton communities.
“The decision was made last semester without any student input, without any sort of forum or communication,” said Reid, noting undergraduate and graduate students work at the clinic. “That provides essential mental health care to both students and the community. The fact that they’re closing it down without having any viable alternative for community members to gain access to that low-cost health care solution is a problem for us and it shows the idea that TCNJ doesn’t really care about serving its community.”
The college’s president briefly made an appearance at the sit-in, despite students ignoring her request to stop livestreaming
SIT-IN >> PAGE 17