By ANDY GARDNER

POTSDAM -- A second administrator who SUNY Potsdam student protestors wanted removed from the school is keeping her job and reporting on an interim basis to the director of residence life. Meanwhile, school officials refuse to say what led them to decide to keep one administrator and shuffle another to a different post, both of who the protestors called upon to be fired.

“Nothing has changed with Annette Robbins’ employment or duties at the college, except that due to this realignment, she now reports to Eric Duchscherer in the interim,” said SUNY Potsdam spokesperson Alex Jacobs-Wilke. “In the interim, he now also oversees the offices of Residence Life, Student Conduct and the Counseling Center and Student Health Services.”

On Jan. 22, the school announced Dean of Students Chip Morris decided to take a leave of absence for the spring semester. Upon his return, he will be moved to handle the school’s risk management instead of his former job.

“Chip Morris requested a leave of absence this semester. I cannot speak for him or his personal motivations. In addition, I cannot discuss confidential individual personnel matters. This applies to both Chip and Annette. We are not providing any information about what led to the decision regarding Mr. Morris’s transition to a new role at the college,” Jacobs said.

The student protestors, calling themselves POWER (Potsdam’s Oppressed Working Every Resource), blocked traffic 200 strong during a downtown protest and confronted Morris en masse in his office in December. They were responding to what they saw as the school’s inadequately handling racial tension on campus in the wake of death threats made against a black LGBTQ professor, John Youngblood, as well as minority students on campus.

The school described the threats as racist and homophobic in nature. Youngblood was targeted by such threats twice last year. Former SUNY Potsdam student Amjad Hussain was charged with for felonies for allegedly leaving the initial threats in the spring. No arrests have been made for the second instance in November.

The POWER group made several other demands when they released their call for Morris and Robbins to be fired.

They want 10 percent more black staff members campuswide by 2018 and a “strategic five-year plan by May 1, 2016 that will increase retention rates for marginalized students, sustain diversity curriculum and training, and promote a more safe and inclusive campus,” their Dec. 10 statement said.

They want more on-campus mental health professionals of color and in general improved mental health outreach and programming.

They also want a more transparent hiring process for professors and staff, as well as a hate crime protocol that treats them differently than ordinary harassment.

“Finally, we demand security for the jobs of the faculty, staff and administrators that support our list of demands. Such threats will result in an escalation of our response,” the statement said.

On Jan. 22, when SUNY Potsdam Executive Vice President Rick Miller announced Morris’s reassignment and decision to take leave, he said there would be other changes on campus starting with the spring semester. That includes:

• University Police will now report directly to Miller.

• The Center for Diversity will report to Miller on a temporary basis, until a chief diversity officer is appointed. The Chief Diversity Office will then assume the supervisory responsibility of the CFD.

• After “a careful analysis of organizational structure,” the school president has moved the Student Success Center and the Educational Opportunity Program to the provost’s responsibility.

• Eric Duchscherer and Ruth Policella have agreed to divide the remaining dean of students responsibilities in the interim, reporting directly to Miller.

• Director of Campus Life Policella will oversee the offices of Campus Life, Campus Ministries and Career Planning.