At the start of every school year, every student has a $109 fee - known as the Student Activities Fee (SAF) - tacked onto their tuition bills in order to fund events and programs on campus. Because every student is required to pay this fee, it is meant to fund events that all students can attend, and is not to be allocated toward events that are partisan in nature, whether religious or political - unless these events are educational.

During my periodic check of Northeastern University's College Structure Initiative webpage (http://www.northeastern.edu/collegestructure/), I discovered that the university has launched interim websites for the three new colleges. After perusing the three websites, I came to realize a rather glaring contradiction between Northeastern's description of these sites and my own assessment. According to Northeastern, “these sites illustrate a distinctive character already taking shape for each of the new colleges.”

Can you imagine having to train the person who is taking over your job before you are fired? Losing your livelihood, your security, and the food from your children’s mouths? This scenario has gone far beyond imagination for 98 former Hyatt housekeepers. It is their every day reality.

Many people think that the status quo in health care is sustainable. They are wrong. Per capita health care costs in the United States rose to over $8,000 in 2009, and at their present rate of increase will surpass $16,000 by 2019. Without the passage of comprehensive health care reform, the number of uninsured, inflation, unemployment, bankruptcy rates, taxes, trade deficits, and budget deficits will all be increasingly higher than they would otherwise be.

The attendance of forums for the restructure of the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) and College of Criminal Justice (CCJ) last year was terrible despite vocal student protest. It was partly because the forums were poorly timed and poorly advertised.