UNION — While students staged a mock funeral for their school outside, Kean University’s president and trustees held an emergency meeting today where they vowed to do “everything in their power” to help the institution keep its accreditation.

The board convened the session a week after its accrediting agency, the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, put the Union Township-based university on probation for allegedly failing to meet its standards in issues related to integrity, student learning and other areas. Two days later, President Dawood Farahi and the head of the board of trustees released a joint statement accusing the accrediting agency of violating its own procedures in a “staff-driven agenda” to discredit Kean.

More than 100 students, professors, parents and alumni packed a conference room in Kean Hall for today’s trustees meeting while dozens of others listened in from the hallway outside. Ada Morell, the head of the trustee board, tried to reassure the worried crowd that Kean was not about to lose its accreditation.

Several speakers at today’s meeting called on Farahi and the board to step down.

“The harm that has been done to Kean’s reputation lies solely on your doorstep,” said Kathleen Henderson, president of the adjunct faculty union at the university.

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