Students at the University of Mary Washington will host an old-fashioned teach-in this afternoon, urging others to join a sit-in at the administration building. They want the school, based in Fredericksburg, to sell off any investments in coal as a protest against those who profit from fossil fuels.
The University of Mary Washington, named for the mother of America’s first president, was once the place for mannerly young women to attend college while their brothers went to the all-male University of Virginia. Today, the school is co-ed, and while the kids are still well behaved, they don’t mind rocking the boat. More than sixty of them have been sitting in outside the president’s office since Thursday.
“We’ve informed the Board of Visitors that we are not leaving this space. We are prepared to stay in this space until our demands are met.”
That’s Zakaria Kronemer, a senior who has been active in urging the board to sell any investments in coal because of climate change. But when the group made a presentation to the board, student Sabrina McNeill says they were quickly dismissed.
“I didn’t think that Holly Cuellar, our rector, would just say no and not even let the other board members even touch on it.”
Cuellar – a political consultant who once worked in the office of Governor Bob McDonnell – says the board is deeply committed to the environment, but any investments in fossil fuels are part of a larger fund. She points to a new, LEED-certified building on campus, and argues there were better ways to battle climate change than to sell holdings in coal.
The students are not persuaded, and they now hope to embarrass the board into taking action – if only to avoid bad publicity. Again, Sabrina McNeill.
“We are pretty good at social media at this point. We’ve reached almost a million people just since 11 o’clock yesterday morning. We released a video yesterday and like 15,000 people have watched that video at least once.”
“Look into my eyes and tell me that my voice doesn’t matter. Tell me that the rising tides flooding our coastlines and the record droughts crippling our communities don’t deserve your attention.”
Some students have missed class to be part of this event – inspired by the civil rights movement and previous campaigns that forced universities, churches, foundations and other institutions to divest. Kendall King-Sellars came to Fredericksburg from the University of Virginia to show solidarity and to say students at her school would soon ask UVA to divest.
“I mean UVA successfully has divested from the apartheid in the 80s, Unocal in 2001, Sudan in 2005, and a lot of what we talk about in the class I’m taking right now is SNCC and their peaceful, non-violent direct action. I mean think about that. That fundamentally altered our nation.”
Similar campaigns are underway at Virginia Tech, JMU, Eastern Mennonite, VCU, Old Dominion and Christopher Newport. But Mary Washington is the first to officially ask for change, and protestor Sarah Kinzer says she’ll stay indefinitely, even if it means missing meals.
“Yeah, we’ve been ordering a lot of pizza. Did you sleep here last night? We did. Pretty hard floor. Yeah, pretty hard and pretty cold.”
Administrators like Provost Jonathan Levin felt bad for the students.
“We wanted them to go home and get a good night’s sleep and come back rested in the morning, and they made it clear they would simply occupy the steps if they were put out of the building. We didn’t want them to be out in the rain last night.”
He says he’s proud of the protestors for researching a topic and taking a stand, and protest leader Zakaria Kronemer says the group enjoys support from many professors.
“A faculty member sent an e-mail to a student who was going to miss class for the sit in. The faculty member responded, ‘Don’t come to class. Sit in, divest!’
This afternoon, students host a teach-in, hoping to further educate others about the issues. Mary Washington’s Board of Visitors meets again in mid-April. If it were to dump investments in coal, the school would join 20 other U.S. colleges and universities, along with 34 cities and counties that have sold stock or changed funds to end their coal company holdings.
