Congratulations J.J. Raynor. I'm sure you will be all that a student body president can be. But what does UNC allow a student body president to do?
About 40 years have passed since students held sit-ins protests and other demonstrations to clearly let it be known that they deserved and desired better. Yet little is done today as students remain effectively complacent with the authority above us and the scraps of authority given to us.
Student government highlights this. During my time in student government two years ago I found that various campus departments were more than open to discussions but it was nothing that any other student or group couldn't go out and do. Student government does many great important things but it should be able to do more.
As adults we contribute to the state appropriations given to the University which comprise about 25 percent of UNC's revenue. Yet University administration treats the campus like TV-designated market areas with rights given to people by age range.
We all know a 40- to 65-year-old adult can be just as irresponsible ignorant uneducated and bad at policymaking as can an 18- to 24-year-old or a 25- to 39-year-old. Why is it OK to discriminate by age but not race or gender? We can't help our age. All adults regardless of age are fully equal under the eyes of the law as are people of all races.
Even if it's representation via those in their 20s who were at least recently in school students need and deserve a more integral part of bigger-issue decision making. Our presence tuition and fees are the foundation for this University.
Of the 12 members on the Board of Trustees (excluding the student body president's ex-officio seat) only two received their undergraduate degrees after 1980 (1983 and 1984). The average graduation year for them is 1972 and plenty of them are old enough to be our grandparents. What kind of connection does that demonstrate with today's student? Back then tuition and fees were only a few hundred dollars.
For the Board of Governors the situation is even worse and more disproportionately representative. The average age goes up and students only get one seat which belongs to the head of the Association of Student Governments out of a few dozen.
So what is the result from administration and the boards? We get a bunch of unanimous votes from a marketplace of ideas about as diverse as the Soviet Union would have ever wanted. While we get to elect the student body president we have no say in electing any University administrators. Not the chancellor. Not the Board of Trustees. Not the Board of Governors. We've gained little more responsibility since high school and we're adults now - tax-paying voting adults worthy of a more representative presence.
In trying to maintain more accurate equal representation how about mandating that a few board members be no more than X years out of college or no more than X years old? Maybe younger administrators and board members would dig a little deeper and try a little harder to develop policy of which students can be a bit more supportive.
Do I want to incite a riot and encourage students to lock themselves in South Building? Well" not unless the right moment and issue were to come about. Maybe people will come to demand ""no tuition without representation."" Or maybe this country will develop a youth movement to address this age discrimination.
Next time the administration makes (or fails to make) a policy move" and it gets under your skin remember that you can't do anything about it. But you or someone you elect should be able to.
