The prevailing images of college protests over the Israel-Hamas war in the past few weeks have been of escalating

tensions, students clashing with police, and mass arrests.

But students and administrators at at least six schools from Rhode Island to California

have found common ground and negotiated agreements to close tent encampments.

Aaron Gretzinger is a reporting fellow at the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Aaron, what do these agreements look like?

What have schools agreed to do?

Yeah, so at the schools who have made agreements so far,

we've seen distinct stipulations, but common themes in each of those agreements.

At Northwestern, which made an agreement early last week, we saw several steps toward what

students viewed in the groups there as moving toward their major

demand of divestment. So there we saw the make agreements to have a committee that

will look at divestment. Northwestern agreed to disclose investments to all internal

stakeholders as well as some movement on agreements that have been in the

works for longer for students who are Muslim, who are from the Middle East, and are of

North African descent. So looking at student centers as well, we've seen similar

things in agreements at Brown, who will take a vote on divestment this fall.

And overall, I think the main themes to take away here

are that these encampments have been really

central for administrators who've wanted to focus

on de-escalating the situation.

That's been the main mantra of these administrators.

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