Howard Students Want Demands Met Hundreds of Howard University students, who participated in a loud protest rally outside the main administration building at the historically Black campus on Friday, gave university officials until this week to respond to their demands. Among the diverse complaints lodged by students were the slow pace of financial-aid paperwork, too-little on-campus housing, poor student services and questionable labor practices. “We love Howard,” Corey Briscoe, a 20-year-old junior and the director of student advocacy for the Howard University Student Association, told The Washington Post. “But this impinges on academic freedom.” Protestors, who threatened to sit in at the administration building until they got acceptable answers from university leaders – a formal response, in writing – gave them until Wednesday. Classes at the Washington, D.C., campus began two weeks ago. “I can [now] go to class,” junior Vanessa Ray, told Myfoxdc.com. “But there will be a purge date, and, if I’m still not validated at that time – if they haven’t certified my loan by that time – I’ll be kicked out of school.” That was also Najauna Muschetta’s complaint. “I think… day to day, okay, am I going to be purged?” she said. “Am I still going to be able to go to my classes? Will I still be able to live in my room? And, you know, that’s stressful!” Britney Wilson, a sophomore from Brooklyn who has cerebral palsy, said that she finds it difficult to access most of the buildings on campus in her electric scooter because the power buttons to open the doors rarely work. Administrators have met with student leaders and said they are taking the students’ concerns “very seriously.” President Sidney Ribeau has promised to meet with some of the protesters today.