As the temperature dipped below freezing and clouds coughed snow into the air on Saturday, the change in weather was the biggest news to most students. But for about 180 students representing 14 colleges across North Carolina, snow was the least of their concerns. Rising tuition costs, online classes negatively impacting the learning environment and Gov. Pat McCrory’s comments about limiting funding for liberal arts programs took center stage.
The North Carolina Student Power Union, an advocacy group for students in the UNC System, met for its annual conference Saturday to generate student awareness on issues ranging from education to labor unions.
While student advocacy groups are often blemished with adjectives such as “radical” or “extreme,” we have to hand it to the Union. They are pushing beyond these labels and actually making a difference. Have they changed laws? No. But they’ve successfully done what Technician has long pleaded the student body to do: They make politicians and university administrations listen.
They’ve taken the complaints often murmured among students on campus and organized themselves as a potential liaison between these students and our Board of Governors. The fact that the Union brought 187 students together on a Saturday to make their voices heard is far more radical than any idea the group could have proposed. NC Student Power Union, take this as a metaphorical pat on the back. We couldn’t be prouder.
In our eyes, this group is the ideal version of the Association of Student Governors. In December, Technician reported rumblings of N.C. State leaving the ASG due to the association’s ineffectiveness. Last week, Technician reported on the history of the ASG and its falling out of favor among N.C. State student leaders. From what we can surmise, the ASG is simply going through the motions of representing UNC System student bodies because it has to. The Student Power Union has become an adequate substitute for now.
Our own student body president has only been to one ASG meeting, claiming he hasn’t been able to find the value in attending. Greg Doucette, a previous two-term ASG president, told Technician it would take effort to fix ASG, but the current ASG leaders haven’t tried at all. And in all honesty, nor has our student government. We’ll spare you yet another editorial completely decrying the ASG, but we’d be remiss if we didn’t point out that the Student Power Union is a strong role model for the ASG.
Though 187 students is a respectable turnout, we’d like to see more student participate in the Union’s efforts. The ASG may be a little too useless, and the SPU may be a little too radical, but if enough students join their causes, the Board of Governors is bound to listen to our complaints. When this happens, we may finally find the changes we’ve long called for start to become reality.
