GW announced Monday it will keep residence halls open Sept. 27-Oct. 2 after the International Monetary Fund and World Bank officially postponed their meetings and Metropolitan Police decreased their expectations for demonstrations that weekend.
Students may stay in their rooms during the five days GW originally planned to close the Foggy Bottom campus because of security concerns surrounding protests at IMF and World Bank meetings.
“Obviously the circumstances changed, and there would be no reason to keep (residence halls) closed,” said Robert Chernak, vice president for Student and Academic Support Services.
Metropolitan Police requested that GW close in anticipation of 100,000 protesters at the meetings but now anticipates about 4,000 to 5,000 demonstrators, said Sgt. Joe Gentile, MPD’s chief public information officer.
He said MPD has not advised GW to close or remain open during the weekend but gave estimates of protesters expected after the World Bank and IMF announced Monday they would postpone the conference, which was scheduled for Sept. 29-30.
“We don’t know definitely what groups may or may not come,” Gentile said.
University officials said they consulted MPD in deciding to re-open residence halls.
“It would be, in their opinion, safe for the University to be back in operation,” Chernak said.
“We look to them for guidance because they’re the ones that have information about what to expect,” Director of Media Relations Gretchen King said.
King said GW will provide buses, originally available only to students with financial need or disabilities, for any student to certain locations. A schedule is available at www.gwired.gwu.edu, the Marvin Center Scheduling Office and the Student Activities Center, King said.
Student Association President Roger Kapoor said he has met with University administrators ever since they made the decision to close, a decision he said was made without student input.
“As soon as I found out that that’s what they wanted to do, I quickly set up meetings with all the administrators to try to remedy it,” Kapoor said. “We wanted to make sure that one way or another, GW students had a place to stay whether or not the University closed.”
He said this decision is an example of GW meeting students’ needs.
“Students that want to stay have the option of staying, and students that want to go have the option of going,” Kapoor said. “The only reason this was so successful is because so many students came up to me and told me what they wanted.”
After terrorists attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon Sept. 11, D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams and MPD Chief Charles Ramsey asked the IMF and World Bank to postpone their meetings because of security concerns for the city.
Gentile said activist groups such as Mobilization for Global Justice and the AFL-CIO have informed MPD that less than expected or no demonstrators will represent their groups the weekend of the scheduled protests.
“The safety threats had diminished,” Chernak said. “I’m clear that every organization that had planned to be involved with the IMF meetings has withdrawn.”
He said the Black Bloc, an anarchist group, is the only group that has not publicly withdrawn from protests that weekend.
“Hopefully, because of the whole tone of everything that has happened over the last week, people have realized that violence is not the answer,” Kapoor said.
