I do not feel many student voices are being heard by your body — or for that matter, administrators. This requires your undivided attention.

During your last meeting I heard three blatant falsehoods.

First, although we wanted to speak with you in a “town hall” format, we were given a vetted show. A trustee stood at the podium and said that our student governments had collected questions beforehand. I nearly buckled in my seat when I heard that.

There were only four questions asked. Our questions and concerns were not even touched on. That is hardly allowing you and the student body to get to know each other.

There should be a better avenue to communicate with us.

If students are not included, the entire community loses out on what could be a very constructive conversation. Simply saying that one or two students who actively attend your meetings represent a lion’s share of those who attend Guilford College could not be further from the truth.

Second, where the presidential search is concerned, there is not adequate student representation. This is one of the most crucial decisions that the College will make in the coming years.

Those who line the hallways of this school care about where the next leader will steer this ship. We need a leader who we can connect to and believe in.

As it stands, it seems like this whole business of transparency is a sham. Please, if you have to use the “hybrid” process to hire the next president of the college, do not say that we students have proper representation. Rather, say there is a student who sits on the committee.

Also, for the students who are fed up with our professors coming in dead last for pay, saying that we should air those grievances through our student governments is not helpful.

When I reached out to my student government, I was told they had better issues to deal with than faculty pay.

Professors have not put us up to saying this. They still hand out assignments that make my brain pop. However, they deserve a fair wage for the hard work they give. This should not be something reserved only for administrators.

Simply saying that the budget cannot handle the weight of this issue undermines the institution. All that tells us is that you haven’t worked hard enough to make sure administrators get creative and come up with a way to compensate the lifeblood of this institution.

We have students who are beginning to wonder if Guilford is taking on the Wal-Mart philosophy when hiring professors. If you don’t listen to the students, they will go to places where the people with power embody their mission statement. And by shutting out voices you purport to include, you are shunning the very ethos you claim to uphold.

Where students are concerned, our voices are not represented accurately. This must change, or you should acknowledge that you are going forward without the input from those and the families of those who invest money, semester after semester, to this community that we love.