Tuition is high. Your preferred program is strapped for cash. Administrators seem distant from the needs of students.

The university seems to be spending all its money in the completely wrong way.

At the Board of Trustees meeting Thursday, you will have a chance to say it to Trustees’ faces.

The meeting, at 9:30 a.m. Thursday in the Bovee University Center President’s Conference Room, is open to the public, and it’s a rare opportunity for students to make themselves heard. There is no middleman: The Trustees all are in the same room. It’s direct contact.

Even if students are not upset with the university’s current status, the meeting still is an opportunity to keep tabs on the Board’s actions, and to weigh in as is necessary. Open meetings are valuable as a way to keep informed as well as to lodge complaints.

Items on the agenda include the purchase of a spectrometer for the College of Science and Technology, a collective bargaining agreement and a partnership with Adidas for athletics apparel and shoes.

For those interested in the medical school, the meeting will include discussion from the AdHoc Medical School Committee. This is a chance for students to hear first-hand the latest developments in one of the university’s largest projects in its history.

The journalism department also has announced its willingness to reconsider accreditation, and the Board meeting is a chance for students to impress upon Trustees the importance – or frivolity – of the credential.

A student-Trustee liaison meeting at 5 p.m. today in the UC Auditorium is an especially strong opportunity for students to make themselves heard.

Two new Trustees, John Hurd and Sarah Opperman, will attend their first meeting Thursday. It is essential that they become familiar with the university. They should hear students’ voices from all perspectives. A strong student turnout would provide this.

As the university approaches a tight budget, it is important that administrators have an understanding of what students want.

And on Thursday, students can make clear what that is.

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