OK, fast, name the Surgeon General of the United States.

Tick, tock.

Time’s up.

No answer? You’re not alone.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, for the seniors, by the end of commencement they will be all too familiar with Dr. Richard H. Carmona. He will be the next in the long line of perennially disappointing choices for commencement speaker.

It’s no secret what students want when it comes to attending major events. Ice-T packed Blackman and before its postponement, the Ludacris concert was also anticipated to attract a large Husky crowd.

A few years back, Harvard brought Bono of U2 to speak, and even Northeastern mustered up a future two-term president in Bill Clinton in 1992.

So what’s the problem? Money and student representation.

As it stands right now, five students are included in a 15-member commencement speaker selection committee, only two of them undergraduates. Still, at one-third, the students aren’t getting the kind of representation they need.

Don’t blame the delegates though, as they try to do what they can with their budget. Which is a whopping zero dollars. Surprised? Considering the recent list of speakers, you may not be. Besides providing airfare and accommodations, NU doesn’t give the speaker a dime. But for a university so concerned with image, they can’t cut one cent from the budget to allow its graduating class to have a more memorable day?

The problem should have easily been solved this year. With the postponement of the Springfest concert, the seniors were promised “a little something extra” from the administration. Would it have been that difficult to allocate $10,000 to 20,000 of the money over to the selection committee to get a well-known name?

As long as the commencement speaker budget remains nil, Northeastern will never get someone from the field of entertainment to speak at graduation. It’s as easy as that. Like anything in this world, you have to pay for what you get.

And since the budget is absolutely nothing, why aren’t the students allowed more than one-third say? We could understand if it were the alumni forking over money and they wanted to choose how it is spent, but can’t students even choose their free speakers around here?

This is just another blow to the students around here who have already had such a disappointing year. With all due respect to Dr. Carmona, the students made their voices clear around campus that this is not what they wanted. And as usual, they were ignored.

The babysitting has to stop. Students pay too much money around here to not get one thing that they want, or deserve. The student voice is loud and clear, Northeastern just needs to take out the earplugs.