Angry AU Students Lash Out at Trustees

"This was the first time the board realized that all the ground we were standing on was clay," he said.

Carmen said American could move forward and become a national model for good governance; as the climate changes for nonprofit organizations, he said, AU could lead the way.

Again and again, those in the room told the trustees they don't trust them to make those changes. In the first question, graduate student Monica Price listed all the groups that had protested the board's decisions and asked, to cheers and sustained applause: "What is your planned action in response to these no-confidence resolutions?"

Trustee John R. Schol, bishop of the Baltimore-Washington Conference of the United Methodist Church, said he invites the campus community to hold the board accountable for what happens in the future.

Pamela M. Deese said the trustees already had begun talking about reforming the board. "Today we had our first governance committee meeting . . . and we set a timeline" and will ensure that it's an inclusive process, she said.

But that shocked some students, who said they had been told they could be a part of those meetings -- and had no idea the process had started without them.

Some thanked the trustees for coming and said the session was helpful.

"You got a sense that they're really committed to the university," said Prof. John M. Richardson Jr. "I don't think they changed their point of view much, but they certainly heard things -- and were aware of feelings on campus -- in a way that would have been unimaginable six weeks ago."

But many of the students left madder than when they arrived.

"They spent more time blaming other people for the bad things they've done than fixing them," law student Ryan Butler said.

"We're tired of the spin," said Matt Barkan.

Staff writer Valerie Strauss contributed to this report.