Fifteen students attended the Board of Governors meeting Thursday in Chapel Hill to show support of the chancellor’s recommendation increase tuition and fees by 2.7 percent.

According to Student Senate President Greg Doucette who organized the sit-in, two members of the Board of Governors had expressed concern over 2.7 percent being too small of an increase to him personally.

N.C. State had the ability to raise tuition and fees by a 6.5 percent for the second year in a row, a cap that is part of UNC System President Erskine Bowles’ four-year plan.

“We wanted to highlight the situation that was taking place with N.C. State,” Doucette said.

He said the sit-in was supposed to show support for the 2.7 percent increase rather than the 6.5 percent increase, but there wasn’t any argument about the matter at the meeting.

“A lot of what happened is when folks got wind of what we were doing, there were a lot of calls to try and stop us,” Doucette said.

Doucette said people from the General Administration and Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Tom Stafford called him to say the information he had was inaccurate and that no one was opposing the 2.7 percent increase.

Chancellor James Oblinger said tuition and fees have always been a “high interest thing” and said he thinks the board will approve his 2.7 percent recommendation.

“Almost on every dimension of tuition and fees, there are particular reasons why a certain campus does certain things certain ways,” he said.

Although Doucette was offered the chance to speak at the meeting before the board took a break, he declined.

“It was a strategic thing,” he said.

Oblinger said he remembers meetings that were a lot more contentious with much broader representation from the UNC system schools, but said the student presence showed the board their concern.

“We’re hearing about tough economic times coming,” he said.

Peter Barnes, senator and freshman in forest management, said he thought the sit-in was effective.

“Some people were pushing us to go in there and have a giant ruckus,” he said. “Our goal was to make sure the board took the chancellor’s 2.7 increase over the full 6.5”

According to Barnes, their presence was unnerving for some, but helped the students gain respect.

“We basically got the sanitized version of all the tuition and fee increases,” Barnes said of the meeting, but he did say he learned a lot about the process through it.