NYU is a wonderful school. It is expansive, it is abundant with educational and professional opportunities, and it is plentiful with great social experiences. But it has some problems that deeply affect the core of what this institution really is, and those problems hinder the well-being of the students that choose to pay and study here.
One of the biggest issues I have realized that this school has is that students actually have zero power in the decision making process at the highest level- the board of trustees. At the very top, the school operates as it wants with little to no say from any student or faculty members. In fact, it isn’t very clear when these board members meet and what they actually talk about. The board of trustees section of the website does not show any actual students that at least observe the decision-making process or any of the main meetings. Aside from those random and lengthy memorandums from President John Sexton, we never really know what goes on behind closed doors, which all adds to the troubling notion that this school really just seems to be run as more of a corporation than a nonprofit institution of higher learning.
Why shouldn’t we have any say in what actions this school takes as a whole? Why shouldn’t students, the real reason why this organization exists, not have any part or impact on what the board decides to do with the very dollars the students themselves contribute to this institution? It is troubling that we can meet up all we want, gather in Political Unions and reform organizations, discuss reformative action and tuition reduction, and have basically no power to make any of that happen.
Perhaps I am wrong; perhaps that is the way it is meant to be. We pay, we take our experiences and education, and we leave without question because that is all we really came here to do. But then why encourage us to “build our own communities” and take our own steps as a student body? Why build clubs and causes if we can’t actually create change? I don’t believe that students can do all of these things for a reason. I think it is time we thought hard about the reason we came here and the shape we want to leave this place in when we leave.
Akbar Hassonjee is the Vice President of Student PAC at NYU.
One of the biggest issues I have realized that this school has is that students actually have zero power in the decision making process at the highest level- the board of trustees. At the very top, the school operates as it wants with little to no say from any student or faculty members. In fact, it isn’t very clear when these board members meet and what they actually talk about. The board of trustees section of the website does not show any actual students that at least observe the decision-making process or any of the main meetings. Aside from those random and lengthy memorandums from President John Sexton, we never really know what goes on behind closed doors, which all adds to the troubling notion that this school really just seems to be run as more of a corporation than a nonprofit institution of higher learning.
Why shouldn’t we have any say in what actions this school takes as a whole? Why shouldn’t students, the real reason why this organization exists, not have any part or impact on what the board decides to do with the very dollars the students themselves contribute to this institution? It is troubling that we can meet up all we want, gather in Political Unions and reform organizations, discuss reformative action and tuition reduction, and have basically no power to make any of that happen.
Perhaps I am wrong; perhaps that is the way it is meant to be. We pay, we take our experiences and education, and we leave without question because that is all we really came here to do. But then why encourage us to “build our own communities” and take our own steps as a student body? Why build clubs and causes if we can’t actually create change? I don’t believe that students can do all of these things for a reason. I think it is time we thought hard about the reason we came here and the shape we want to leave this place in when we leave.
Akbar Hassonjee is the Vice President of Student PAC at NYU.