By ANDY GARDNER

POTSDAM -- A student-led protest group at SUNY Potsdam that blocked traffic on Dec. 4 has released on social media a list of changes at the college they are demanding.

The group calling themselves P.O.W.E.R., or Potsdam’s Oppressed Working Every Resource, are first calling the school to fire Dean of Students Chip Morris and Director of Student Conduct and Community Standards Annette Robbins.

The group says after their removal, they want amendments to SUNY Potsdam policies to have the dean position picked by “a collective of students, staff and faculty of diverse backgrounds.”

In Robbins’ case, they are calling for a new SUNY Potsdam judicial system policy “to advocate for more fair practice and procedure.”

In addition, 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.”

The group are also demanding 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,” POWER’s statement says.

Group officials did not respond to a request for comment sent via their Facebook page.

On Dec. 4, the group staged a protest where more than 200 students and faculty marched from campus, blocked traffic for several minutes where Market Street connects to the Sandstone Drive bypass.

Links to the stories posted on the NorthCountryNow Facebook page drew many angry and sometimes racist remarks from followers, some of which were taken down.

“What a waste of our troopers and all.....they all need to grow up or go home,” Cindy Edwards wrote.

“Should have ran them over,” Tavis Patraw wrote.

“I am so ashamed of my neighbors in the North Country showing this much hate,” Eric Hanss wrote.

The protests were sparked by a third death threat described as racist and homophobic received by a black professor on Nov. 24.

By the time the week was over, students had confronted the dean of students in his office and conducted a sit-in at a basketball game, SUNY’s chief diversity officer appeared on campus, police and security presence was increased and the demonstration briefly blocked traffic downtown.

“A passionate group of students of color … joined together and held an impromptu demonstration” on Nov. 30, said school spokesperson Alex Jacobs Wilke. “To my eyes as I was following them around I’d probably say 100 if you add them all together, at one time 50 or so.”

“I think many of them are tapped into national movements, Black Lives Matter, other campus movements throughout the country.”

The group marched through campus to the registrar’s office where they requested documents necessary to transfer out, then marched to Dean of Students Chip Morris’ office. Also in attendance was Rick Miller, executive vice president for institutional effectiveness / enrollment management.

‘Scared For Our Lives’

“We’re scared for our lives,” one student yelled out during the rowdy session with Morris, which was captured on video and posted on Erika Gabrielle Plaza's Facebook page.

“We’re here asking you to get some protection for us. That’s all we ask. We’re not going to attack you, ruin your day… but something needs to be done.”

The protestors pointed out minority students total about 1,200 of SUNY Potsdam’s total enrollment and threatened to ask for transcripts so they could transfer from the school.

“If you can’t promise me that something major is going to happen to make me feel safe, I want my refund for the exact amount of money I paid,” one angry student told Morris.

“One of the difficult realities here … I don’t know that there is any one or collection of things that we can do that would absolutely guarantee that what has happened would not happen again,” Morris told the students after listening to them patiently.

“If there was a way to do that, we would have done it.”

Most agreed with Morris’ assessment that the protestors agreed the best course of action was to cancel classes and send everyone home.

That never happened, but Jacobs Wilke noted SUNY Potsdam instituted “a new process for students who do not feel safe to be able to return home and finish classes in a different way (online or written exams, papers, etc.). They can request this through the Provost’s Office.”

Later, Jacobs Wilke said “there have been no increases in the number of withdrawal requests over the past week” although a number of requests for transcripts were honored.

She said Pres. Kristin Esterberg met the students in the Barrington Student Union and talked with them as a whole and in smaller groups for two hours.

Third Threat

The threat was the third received by Prof. John Youngblood this year. A former student, Amjad Hussein, was arrested and charged Nov. 12 with felony harassment as a hate crime for the first two threats.

Jacobs Wilke said police are looking at Hussein as a possible suspect in the third threat.

“My family and I are devastated. That’s the best I can tell you. We are simply going through the pain of processing another death threat,” Youngblood said Dec. 1. “We are a close campus. The students’ response and support has been overwhelming, as it usually is. And so has the support from my colleagues as well.”

The threats come at a time where SUNY Potsdam is enrolling markedly increased numbers of minority students. The number of freshmen who identify as non-white has grown from 18 percent in 2010 to 42 percent this year.

Jacobs said the school has been looking at beefing up University Police’s presence on the campus. SUNY police officers have authority to conduct investigations and make arrests just as state troopers do.

She said the school has ordered more UP officers on duty, as well as requested retired officers to return in a security officer role, and are requesting others to come help from surrounding campuses, such as SUNY Canton.

“We’ve put in a formal request with SUNY to get other officers from other campus to bolster security, possibly today,” Jacobs said.

She said federal authorities, including the FBI and Homeland Security Investigations, are now involved, along with state and local police

“The third note, like the other two, included … more general vague threats against students of color, LGBT students and in general against people of the liberal political persuasion,” Jacobs said.

“I have full faith in the UPD and state police investigating,” Youngblood said. “They are easily accessible for me and I have full faith in the job they're doing.”

Jacobs said police did not deem the threat to be an imminent event, such as when SUNY Canton canceled classes and locked down their campus last year after a threat was made on the social media app Yik Yak to shoot at students in classrooms.

“It’s abhorrent, it’s awful. It didn’t have that level of information deemed an imminent threat by law enforcement when they do their threat assessment,” Jacobs said. “Students of color and LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender), they feel particularly worried about what’s been [happening] on campuses across the country. Many of them feel scared and uncomfortable … many students are looking over their shoulders and wondering at who may have done this thing.”

“Clearly, one of those leads is a person of interest would be the person arrested for those last two hate notes,” she said, referring to Hussein.