Students at Bethune-Cookman University are demanding action from school officials, continuing their protest against school conditions into day three.
The students started their protest on Monday following the news that the university was not going forward with hiring Ed Reed as head coach. His departure seems to have sparked a movement within the students, giving them a platform to bring awareness to the issues they face at the university.
On Tuesday, they hosted a “Whitehall Takeover,” where they performed a lock in at the chapel in the Whitehall building, then marched to Daytona Beach City Hall the next day.
“Today we marched to Daytona Beach city hall from White Hall, we delivered letters to city hall to express our concerns as students of Bethune-Cookman to grab the attention of city officials,” Tyler Kelly, the 12th Mister Bethune-Cookman University said.
The students are protesting a variety of issues, including housing conditions like mold in dorms, as well as a lack of hot water and air conditioning.
Bethune Cookman’s interim president Lawrence Drake said that the university is “working on the issues.”
In an interview with journalist, Roland Martin, Drake claimed that he “walks the campus every day” and that the students are experiencing mildew in their dorms, not mold. Drake blamed the recent hurricanes in Florida for the cause of the mildew and revealed that he has invested a quarter of $1M in one of the buildings for the remediation of it.
However, students contested Drake’s claim of having a presence on campus in a separate interview with Roland Martin on the “RolandMartinUnfiltered Daily Digital Show.”
One B-CU football player said that his first time seeing Drake was in his interview with Martin. “I’ve never seen him in person, in the flesh, walking on campus, I’ve never spoken to him, ” he said. Two other players agreed and said that they first met Drake at the Florida Classic banquet in November. Drake was appointed interim president in June.
Students are addressing the school’s Board of Trustees, financial issues such as a lack of available scholarships and high tuition, a lack of renovations and improvements to student life, a lack of transparency between school officials and students, and sexual harassment from cafe workers, as per a story post to B-CU’s protest Instagram page, @bcu_protest.
