TSU responds to concerns students have with campus

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- Texas Southern University's Board of Regents spoke for the first time Saturday about the growing list of complaints bombarding social media from students.

"I'm a full-time enrolled student who is also homeless. I live out of my car," says TSU transfer student Brett Lincoln.

A new found friend has opened her couch to Lincoln, who transferred to TSU last month. But he tells us most nights he sleeps in his car because the university hasn't been able to get him into campus housing.

"A couple of nights I was at the H-E-B. But you get a knock from the police saying hey they just shot a guy sleeping here with his wife and kids, people are walking up knocking people out who are sleeping in their cars and robbing them, you may need to move around," he said.

We've heard from several students that Lincoln is not alone.

Glenn O. Lewis, the Chairman of the Board of Regents, told us Saturday that he knew some housing issues existed.

He says delays to the 800-bed dormitory that was supposed to open this semester left the Housing division scrambling.

"But some of these other things, I was not aware of until I started to pick them up on the social media," he said.

Lack of housing, problems with financial aid, a loss of connection to TSU's history and traditions are just a few of the issues raised on #TakeBackTxSU.

One student tweeted, "How am I paying a library fee and 65-percent of the computers don't work."

Another tweeted, "$130 library fee per semester but the printers don't even have paper in them."

"This movement is not to bash our university," said junior Sociology major Mary Rucker. "We love our university. If we didn't love it so much we wouldn't be here. We love it enough that we want to change it."

Board Chairman Glenn O. Lewis says he's contacted the administration, including President Dr. John Rudley, to find out the basis of the complaints.

"We picked up some piecemeal information. But what I told him was rather than deal with this piecemeal, what we need for them to do is find out all of the complaints," Lewis says. "Compile all the concerns into a comprehensive report for the next Board meeting in October telling us what they found out and present a plan for addressing those concerns."

Students have a town hall Monday afternoon.

"I'm frustrated but at the same time I'm hopeful that through this whole movement, that something can happen," Lincoln said.

TSU's entire updated statement is below: