Board of Trustees Votes Unanimously to Increase Tuition

By Shawmaf Zane Khubba

On July 26, 2012, the Board of Trustees of Montclair State University unanimously voted to increase tuition (including the “elected” Student Trustee Alex Bychkov) by 3.9%, making tuition over $11,000, and increasing the trend of making education a privilege of the wealthy and not a right of citizens of a democracy.

This decision would have passed over in silence—as intended by the administration, who barred students from speaking at their meetings—were it not for members of the student activist group on campus, Students for a Democratic Society, and several of their allies, who voiced their opposition. The activists showed up at the meeting with dissenting picket signs in their hands and black duct tape over their mouths, in accordance with the no speaking rule. They waited as each of the trustees voted until Alex Bychkov, the student trustee, showed his loyalty to the administration by voting in favor of the tuition increase. At this point, the dissenting students, outraged (but not surprised), began to shout: “SHAME! SHAME! SHAME!”. They shouted until the board members adjourned the meeting early and slithered out of the room. Susan Cole, the President of MSU, left the quickest, before any light was cast on her extravagant salary and benefits, which have been increasing just as steadily as our tuition. On her contract for the year of 2011, a $125,000 bonus was justified as an “incentive” for her to stay. Apparently the incentives of our educators are of no comparable import, as their salaries and benefits have stagnated, despite inflation.

About a week following the meeting, several members of SDS, some of whom were not even at the meeting, received a letter from Dr. Karen L. Pennington, rebuking them for their protest and admonishing them that further such actions would result in “disciplinary action”. Moreover, in a comment infused with irony, Pennington informed them that their actions constituted censorship of the board members. Apparently it is not censorship to squelch the voice of students at meetings addressing matters which concern them directly, like where their tuition money is going to be spent.