Curators plan an audience for MU student groups on Friday

The University of Missouri Board of Curators is devoting an entire meeting on Friday to listening to the concerns of students on the Columbia campus.

In light of recent events, the board said it wants “to hear directly from students...about the climate experienced by minority students there and the problems and issues raised recently by graduate students.”

The more than two-hour meeting at the Reynolds Alumni Center, on campus, starts at 3:30 p.m. Curators will give each group 20 minutes to address them.

By Thursday afternoon four groups —MU Policy Now, Racism Lives Here, the Graduate Professional Council and the Sociology Graduate Students Group — had signed up to speak.

“The most important task at hand at the moment for our UM System leadership is to rebuild trust amongst all our campus constituencies, including students, parents, alumni, and our employees,” said John Fougere, system spokesman.

Curator John Phillips of Kansas City said the board “hopes to gain more direct insight as to the issues on the campus and take any constructive suggestions students may have to bring greater diversity, inclusion and equity to the Columbia campus and all the system campuses.”

Friday’s meeting is the result of a series of student protests, a weeklong hunger strike, and a brief football players’ strike last week that led to the resignation of university system president Tim Wolfe and chancellor R. Bowen Loftin. What happened at MU has set off student protests against race hate on campuses across the country.

This story was originally published November 19, 2015 at 6:24 PM with the headline "Curators plan an audience for MU student groups on Friday."