The demonstration will begin at 9:30 a.m. when students gather at the Old Well. The group will then march to the UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees meeting in Morehead Faculty Lounge.
The main topic that will be discussed at the meeting is a one-year, $400 increase recommended by the Task Force on Tuition on Jan. 15, which Provost Robert Shelton will present to the board.
Student Body Vice President Rudy Kleysteuber said the rally was organized to get a message across to the BOT. "Our main objective is to remind the BOT who they are," he said. "We entrust our University to them, and we expect them to act in the best interests of the students."
Student Body President Justin Young said the demonstration will have a calm atmosphere, and the protest will be a silent symbol of student concerns.
"The demonstration will aim to show that students really do care, so they can be vocal on the whole process," Young said. "Students really do want to be involved, and they will show this through their silent presence."
The predicted atmosphere of today's rally stands in contrast to the heated anti-tuition protests that took place at the October 1999 BOT meeting. Then, more than 400 students gathered on the steps of the Morehead Planetarium shouting phrases like "We Shall Overcome" and wearing signs around their necks.
Young said students will be carrying signs and banners with slogans such as "Speak Out or Pay Up" in today's rally. He said students also will sit in on the BOT meeting, where he and Mikisha Brown, president of the Graduate and Professional Student Federation, will give presentations to the BOT.
Kleysteuber said today's demonstration will differ from those in 1999 because of the circumstances causing them. He said the proposal two years ago shocked students into action because the proposal could have doubled the cost of tuition.
Young said he is not sure how many people will participate in the rally, which was organized early last week. Organizers say they have been working feverishly to post fliers and to inform students about the demonstration.
