While the majority of the city enjoys the last of a three-day weekend, American University president Ben Ladner will be facing a Board of Trustees charged with deciding whether or not to end his tenure at the university’s helm. Since August, Ladner has faced increasing questions concerning almost $500,000 in spending charged to the university, and as students and faculty have organized against him, he has stridently defended his leadership and criticized the media coverage against him.

Hoping to push the university’s trustees into firing Ladner without severance pay and looking to implement various reforms, students have organized a protest tomorrow at 9:30 a.m. on the main quadrangle. In an email to DCist, student organizer Kristin Rawls wrote:

…the organizers of tomorrow’s event hope to send a clear and decisive message from the American University community that Ben Ladner must be terminated from his position immediately without severance pay. Given that a majority of AU students and faculty members are now united in opposition to Ladner, we believe that this University cannot possibly begin to repair itself from the damage to its morale, integrity, and reputation until Ladner is gone.

Fellow organizer Lyndi Borne, who addressed the Board of Trustees in the past, described a proposal students would be pushing:

…that the Board be restructured so that at least 40% of the Board is composed of students and staff with voting rights — this means 10 seats out of 25: e.g. 5 faculty and 5 students.

DCist will be on hand to take pictures and report back on the day’s events.