MSU President M. Peter McPherson’s visit to Emmons Hall was supposed to address student concerns Thursday night, but the event focused on the status of minorities on campus.

Many of the questions came from the Emmons Hall Black Caucus.

“In our community we strive to make sure everyone has equal opportunity - to not discriminate on race, religion, sexual orientation and other factors, to be sure that individuals have equal opportunity,” McPherson said.

The Emmons Hall Black Caucus touched on issues ranging from student-police relations, minority retention rates and the lack of black professors.

Terrance Wilbert, a racial ethnic student aide from Emmons Hall said in 1989 members from a black student organization conducted a sit-in at the Administration Building. Wilbert said the reason behind that event was the number of negative racially-motivated incidents occurring on campus.

He said the sit-in lasted eight days. After the sit-in, black student leaders and university officials negotiated 36 demands that the university must fulfill by 2002.

Wilbert said that less than half of these demands have been met.

Communications freshman Indira Pierce said the Emmons Hall Black Caucus is forming a petition to keep black professors at MSU.

“These are not just Emmons Hall black Caucus issues, but community issues as a whole at MSU,” she said.

Some students felt that McPherson did not directly address the issues brought forth by the organization’s members.

“I feel like he gave us a run around,” no preference freshman Khori Cannon-Gwin said. “We asked him a various questions and it took him about five minutes to answer each one.”

Another issue that the organization’s members felt passionately about was the development of a free-standing Multicultural Center.

“We really want to see a Multicultural Center,” Pierce said. “If not in the years we’re here, the years to come.”