A few bats in the attic of his traditional mansion are not reason enough to spend $1.2 million on a new residence for Ohio University's president, students say, and several hundred of them showed up on Thursday for a protest outside the historic Park Place house to protest what they view as a wasteful administration of their tuition dollars, the Chillicothe (Ohio) Gazette reported.

University President Roderick McDavis moved out of the building after a surprise encounter with a bat left his wife with a broken ankle. The couple has since resided in a posh rental a few miles away, which the school now wants to purchase; at the same time, Ohio University plans to repurpose 29 Park Place.

Trustee chair David Brightbill said in a March 19 news release that the vermin infestation only sped up a plan that was already in place. In 1995, 29 Park Place, which was built in 1899 for a coal-mine owner and bought by the university in 1951, was extensively remodeled and is valued at $931,120, according to the Cleveland Plain-Dealer.

"The bat incursion has merely accelerated a decision-making process that was already under way," Brightbill insisted. "By freeing up a centrally-located facility for academic or student support usage, 29 Park Place will better serve the objectives of our Campus Master Planning process," he detailed.

But the effort's $1.2 million price tag does not sit well with students or faculty, Cleveland's Fox 8 noted. The Ohio University Student Union, which organized Thursday's rally, relayed a long list of complaints on the Facebook invitation to the event.

"There are decaying residence halls, classrooms, poor student wages and rising tuition costs," the organization noted. "Why should students have to struggle to get by on loans while our highly paid administrators live in gross luxury?" the post wondered.

Protester Kalten Walter, a sophomore philosophy major, attended the rally wearing bat wings and a cowl fashioned from plastic garbage bags, the Chillicothe Gazette detailed.

"This is just an absurd example of the radical disconnect between the administration's actions and the needs of students and faculty on this campus," the 19-year-old argued.