Environmental group locked out of sit-in

BGSU students hold a sit-in, Friday, April 19, 2013, on the first floor of McFall Center on the campus of Bowling Green State University. (Photo: J.D. Pooley/Sentinel-Tribune)

BGSU students intending to perform a sit-in were instead locked out of President Mary Ellen Mazey’s office today.

Members of the BGSU Environmental Action Group had planned to sit in Mazey’s office all day in another effort to convince the university to transition to 100 percent clean energy by 2020. But university police kept the students from going to the second floor of McFall Center, where Mazey’s office is located.

The first students to arrive were allowed to take flowers up to Mazey’s secretary, since she took more than 500 phone calls this week generated by the environmental group’s “call-in” campaign.

But then the students were escorted back to the first floor of McFall. “They aren’t even letting us in the office,” said Josh Chamberland, president of the environmental group. “Every door is locked and requires police escort.”