But others, including those crowding the steps of Memorial Hall with signs in protest, came with different agendas.
Some held signs protesting the role of Sen. Tony Rand, D-Cumberland, in the recent passage of UNC's Development Plan, an eight-year plan for campus growth, while others spoke out against the death penalty and tuition increases.
Junior Brock Towler, a member of Campaign to End the Death Penalty, was protesting the execution of David Junior Ward, to whom Gov. Mike Easley denied clemency. "We want to make everyone aware of what happened last night in Central Prison," Towler said. "We want to do this as an accountability check on (Easley) and to publicize what he did."
Others protested the recent passage of the Development Plan and the role that Rand, who received a Distinguished Alumnus Award during the convocation, played in it. "I feel that Tony Rand is one of the people ... who really hijacked the Chapel Hill government," said Anita Wolfenden, a Mason Farm resident, as she held a sign that read "King Tony, can we have our town back?"
The plan is the first installment of the Master Plan, a blueprint for campus growth during the next 50 years, and calls for the construction of a road through the Mason Farm area.
Tara Purohit, a junior from Mount Pleasant, S.C., said she was protesting Rand for a different reason. "He supports corporate loopholes that raise our tuition," she said. "(We are) just calling this to his attention and making him aware that he can't get away with this any more."
Rand said he noticed the protesters and respected their right to be there. "People ought to do what they feel motivated to do," he said.
But even as she stood among signs reading "Tony Rand steamrolled our town," Wolfenden said she was not sure of the effectiveness of the protests. "I have really given up trying to accomplish anything," she said. "I just want Tony Rand to know that we are humans that live here."
