Bashar Al-Janabi 

At UNC Greensboro, students pay tens of thousands of dollars for an education. We sacrifice our blood, sweat, and tears to be here, but have you ever stopped to ask why? Why does the cost of attendance keep rising? Why is parking so expensive? Why is housing treated like a luxury when it should be a necessity? Every time we ask why, we run into layers of barriers. Complaints pile up, but what will we actually do about it? 

Scholars like Norman Hill point out that for decades, universities have often granted participatory roles that look fair but leave ultimate authority with faculty and administration. Students may sit on committees, assemblies, or governing boards, but those structures rarely shift who truly decides. Instead, tuition and parking prices continue to rise, while students are left with symbolic gestures of inclusion. The cycle repeats: we are invited to speak but not to decide. 

Faculty and administrators dominate these spaces because of their experience, their institutional memory, and the authority that has been delegated to them. That does not mean students lack power. It means students must learn to organize, build courage, and present clear demands together. If you want to influence how money is spent, you need a united front with a concrete plan. 

The problem is that we have been conditioned to advocate separately, to fight in isolation, big or small, which keeps us from achieving meaningful change. 

We are conditioned to be prideful the moment we get a position. Suddenly, you have status. You feel seen. You can add it to your résumé, and it looks good for you. Who are you really representing? A student leader should be speaking for hundreds, maybe thousands. Yet too often, that role becomes about personal recognition instead of collective responsibility. Some of us are fine with that, and some of us are hypnotized by it.  

Leadership as a student holds weight. There are no excuses. The structures already in place give us the potential to organize, but we are rewarded for silence. I know because I have lived it. I have been praised when I challenged authority, and I have received pushback for it. A mentor once told me you cannot crucify everyone. It is tempting to fight each person head-on, but strategy requires knowing when to cut someone out, when to challenge indirectly, and when to leverage relationships so the outcome benefits students. True advocacy means creating opportunities that are not selective, temporary, or exclusive, but open for everyone permanently. 

Meanwhile, we cannot ignore that funding is scarce. Most of us are trying to fund our futures while drowning in debt. So why not support each other now? Why not shift the status quo together and condition ourselves for the battles we will face later? This is what it looks like to be prepared, to turn the student experience into a training ground for real advocacy. 

I know the reality. You have assignments due and tests to prepare for. We all do. Advocacy requires sacrifice. It requires stepping into discomfort, because if we remain conditioned to refrain from challenging authority in college, then we will carry that same attitude into our professional lives. That cycle teaches us to take the bare minimum instead of negotiating for the experience we deserve. 

Do you ever wish your perspective carried more weight in your education? Do you wonder what comes after graduation? The truth is you can create opportunities for yourself simply by challenging authority. Go into every situation with a plan. Identify a problem. Propose a solution. Imagine if ten other students did the same. Chances are they already share your frustration. They just need the courage to speak. 

I have been knocked down. I have been silenced. I have walked away without the result I wanted more than once. I always walked away with a sharper understanding of how power works. That lesson is worth so much more than comfort. For those who claim to be advocates, this is the call: make your advocacy have a pulse. Normalize and establish a student-first environment for the present and the future. 

This is not just about right now. You are training yourself for the future. You are conditioning yourself for the systems of power you will face after undergrad. Authority figures do not define you. They do not permanently define professionalism. They do not permanently define respect, you do. Remind them that there is no university without you.