Bergen Students Disrupt Meeting, Demand Vote On College Board

PARAMUS -- Students disrupted a  Board of Trustees meeting Thursday with a series of chants demanding a student vote on the college's governing body.

Wearing T-shirts that read "We Will Be Heard," students packed the Moses Family Meeting and Training Center to ask the board to grant the student alumni trustee voting power and to add a currently enrolled student to represent them on the board.

The alumni trustee, John Zeuner, is a non-voting member of the board, but the board can grant him voting rights with a majority vote. Much to the chagrin of the gathered students, chairman E. Carter Corriston tabled the vote until May.

Corriston said he wanted all 10 voting members to weigh in.

"As you can see, there are only seven of us instead of ten present who can vote, and that means if I were to conduct a vote this evening I don't know whether you or anyone else would have proper representation," Corriston said.

Kathryn Rodriguez is vice president and chairwoman of Student Government at Bergen. She wrote a resolution asking the board to grant voting privileges to a student and the alumni representative.

She believes Corriston is pushing the vote off in hopes that students will forget about the issue.

"It's just a tactic to see how willing we are to keep going with this," Rodriguez said. "I honestly don't think he's looking out for our interests."

During the meeting, Rodriguez led a chant: "We the students of Bergen Community College are tired of being ignored."

The Student Government Association plastered posters about the voting issue all over the school, and mobilized students through Twitter and Facebook. Supporters also took their message directly to classrooms, and distributed fliers with a pie chart displaying the college's revenue sources; 72% comes from tuition and fees.

Freeholder John Driscoll attended the meeting in support of granting Zeuner voting rights. Driscoll graduated from Bergen in 1995.

"Give this man the privilege to vote on what goes on at this institution," he said to the trustees, pointing to Zeuner.

Alyson Cina, a senator with student government, said students would have to escalate their tactics at the next Board of Trustees meeting, scheduled for May 1 at the Ciarco Learning Center in Hackensack. Students have asked for representation on the board since December, she said.

During the meeting, Cina asked her fellow students, "Who's coming to the next meeting?"

"I am," they shouted back.

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