Dear student,YOU ARE POWERLESS. That’s right, powerless. Without even realizing it, you have turned over the keys to your campus to the administration, and no one seems to notice.

It is really tragic that a campus of over 10,000 students cannot seem to find within its ranks the courage to stand up and speak out. But there is hope. Once you manage to break out of your shell of oblivious living and open your eyes, you can see that the solution has been resting in your hands all along.

But to speak against something, you must first know what it is. Here is the problem:We quickly pride yourselves on the revolutionary and groundbreaking history of our campus, throwing the names of the A&T Four and Jesse Jackson everywhere we go, yet we cannot find a way to verbalize the names of the administrators that systematically hold us back.

We complain and mumble about how funds are unequally divided amongst the different disciplines, but no one asks the University for a copy of the budget, something the school must provide in a reasonable timeframe upon request.

Instead of researching the proper method to obtain the information, or find the supporting laws that give the students power, we allow administration to tell us the files are “classified” or not for public disclosure.

How many times have you wondered how much your professors and administrators get paid? The Vice Chancellor for Information Technology makes over $175,000 a year and considering the condition of the technology at our “technical” University, are you really getting your money’s worth?

What we have on our hands is the suppression and assassination of both students’ power and voice. It is truly a sad when a student organization cannot freely change its name to reflect the growth and change of the campus because of the non-transitional mentality and self-satisfaction of the campus administration and when people have lost all definition of what governance truly is and settles for programs and cease to demand action when it is needed the most.

We can find the voice to complain amongst ourselves, but all we ever do is talk. We talk about what we would do if our money comes in late, or how we plan to “fix” the grades we feel were wrongfully given.

Every year we talk about how this year will different from the previous year. How student injustices and a lack of student leadership will not exist. Talk is cheap and no matter how much talking we do, we will never be able to talk our way into fixing our problems.I commend the students of Howard University, as they have done what we should have long ago.

When they returned to campus, students with full scholarships were not validated, students did not have housing, faculty and staff were not properly getting paid and the quality of the education became an issue. They stopped talking and took action.

Students marched on the administration building, defied the campus police trying to lock them out of a public space and forced their way into the administration building. They demanded that the University take action and fix the numerous issues they had, many similar to our own.

Students at HU who did not have housing were quickly offered an appropriate solution. When A&T students came back and did not have a place to stay, you did not hear about outraged students. Did you even know?

Howard students demanded the financial aid office relocate to a more convenient location to validate students and it was done. Aggies, we could not even get the secretary of the financial aid office to come to the lobby of Dowdy, let alone force the entire office to move to Corbett at our request.

It was amazing to see the formal list of grievances the Howard students were able to create and put in the hands of administration. The University president even addressed each issue on the list line by line in the student paper. A&T students have not been able to get a list of grievances together since the refund check “uprising,” and I use the term lightly.

The one time we planned to take action and speak our minds, we allowed a little bit of rain and cold weather to completely derail the motivation and drive for the cause. We just let the leaders of the movement “handle that.” What if they had not been able to handle it? Now that you have become aware of the problem, here is the solution:

Consider this your call to action Aggies. You want change? Be the change you want to see. If you are questioning the rules, carry yourself to the SGA office in the union, find your elected officials, and demand they do something about it. Do not get it twisted; SGA’s only agenda is the people’s agenda.

The entire purpose of SGA is to represent the needs and concerns of the masses, so think of them as your platform to get your point across.

Instead of administration telling you when the gym you pay for is going be open and closed, why not tell them when you want to go? Do not let someone sell you a parking pass that costs you more than the insurance you pay for the car in the parking space. Most importantly, remind them that if we were not here, they would not be either.

It is funny that you are letting the same people that shook the frameworks of our nation, tell you not to be civilly disobedient when they actually wrote the book on rebellion. North Carolina A&T is YOUR university. Take it back.

Good luck, the movement. 

• Dexter R. Mullins