Students from Ferguson, Florissant allowed early move-in at university

A letter from Southeast Missouri State University president Dr. Kenneth W. Dobbins was emailed to students who live in the Ferguson and Florissant areas of St. Louis, offering them an early move-in on Tuesday.

Dr. Bruce Skinner, assistant vice president for student success and auxiliary services, said the early move-in date was decided in a meeting Monday morning.

The Missouri communities of Ferguson and Florissant and the surrounding areas have been faced with turmoil since Michael Brown, 18, was killed by a police officer Aug. 9 in Ferguson. Since then, people have been protesting and there have been riots.

"The president and the executive staff, we met this morning, and one of the conversations, one of the topics that started really this weekend was, 'Is there anything we can do for our students in the North County area, when they get back to campus, to be helpful?'" Skinner said. "It started more as a question, then it was, 'Here are some solutions,' and the discussion said, 'Well, if there's any students interested in coming back early we could certainly make that available to them.'"

By press time, 16 students had called with questions and 10 indicated they would like to arrive early, said Kendra Skinner, director of Residence Life. Two of the students were set to arrive Tuesday, four today and four more Thursday, she wrote in an email.

"We don't really expect that there would be a large number of students that would take us up on it, we just wanted to make the offer in case there were any that were interested in coming back early," Bruce Skinner said.

Skinner said he met with all of the resident assistants from Southeast at 3 p.m. Monday to speak to them about how to handle conversations about Ferguson with residents on their floors. He said he told them some students will be more affected by this than others and that they need to be on guard for situations that may be problematic between students with differing opinions or

beliefs.

"My conversation today was more along those lines of, 'I'm not asking you to have a certain opinion, I'm just asking that you be aware of what's happening and that for some of your students this is a very, very big deal; therefore they may be very sensitive to it and you just need to be aware of that happening in your floor, in your classroom or here on your campus,'" he added.

Southeast Missourian reporter Ruth Campbell contributed to this story.