By ABBY BRAVO
Editor-In-Chief
A Saint Rose student has started a Change.org petition calling for the College of Saint Rose to be investigated for fraud by the New York State Attorney General. Chandler Hickenbottom, a criminal justice student with a concentration in victim advocacy, said she believes that the College has not been clear in terms of both their course offerings and their financial status.
Hickenbottom has been involved in her local community for years, co-founding Saratoga Black Lives Matter and Saratoga Youth Safe Space.
“I want to make sure that what is happening here doesn’t happen elsewhere,” said Hickenbottom. “What happened to our school was extremely disheartening, the students deserved better, the staff, the parents, we all deserved more than what we got,” she said.
The creation of the petition comes after months of research on Hickenbottom’s part to make sure what she was finding was accurate. One of her main motives is the lack of programs promised to students when they arrived on campus.
“Some students were promised programs that did not exist at the school when they arrived or were discredited after they arrived,” wrote Hickenbottom in the petition description. “Other students were promised scholarships that were never fulfilled or said no to a scholarship opportunity at another school, only to face college closure in their first semester of study,” she said.
She has been in conversation with individuals at the attorney general’s office, lawyers, people in the campus community as well as those in the surrounding Pine Hills neighborhood.
“The College of Saint Rose is not upholding their contractual obligations to me… which is to uphold my scholarships and that I was able to have the proper education that I came here for which didn’t end up happening.”
Hickenbottom is shooting for 1,500 signatures on the petition and until then is working with the local community to spread the word.
Scan the QR code above to view the full petition.
