The students gathered from various on-campus groups, including Undergraduate Alliance, Alleft MSU and Real Chicano and Latino Studies, and attempted to highlight numerous concerns, such as tuition increase and cuts in teaching assistant and undergraduate programs.

The problem is not the fact that students protested — it’s the sheer number of issues they protested at one time.

Protesting can be good in moderation. And it’s not as if the students were trying to turn MSU into the historically activist University of California at Berkley, but with the amount of problems they wanted to fight, their concerns will not be fixed with just one protest. Protests only are going to be effective if the group has one central focus. MSU and Michigan officials would not be able to make everyone’s worries disappear.

Although administrators and lawmakers are unlikely to focus on so many different problems, there is no sign that MSU is being negligent toward the protesters. MSU has a difficult obligation in attempting to run a university that pleases everyone. Saving top programs should be a priority, but in the current financial climate, some programs will have to be cut, leaving some upset.

Saving every program and providing everybody with jobs would be ideal, but attempting to do so with an unorganized gathering is a juvenile and simplistic view of the situation. Cutting different areas is something MSU can’t avoid.

If students want responses to their concerns, yelling for change at the steps of the Administration Building isn’t going to accomplish anything. Instead, concerned students should go to the avenues and means that are available — such as the Council of Graduate Students, ASMSU and Residence Halls Association — to listen and ask questions to learn about the issues important to them. It is important to know why and how programs were cut before running to the people who had the tough task of making the cuts and complaining.

MSU administrators appear as if they are being as transparent as possible with the financial status of the university and nothing points to them being unsympathetic and overlooking concerns, so students shouldn’t be afraid to let themselves be heard.

It is the students’ right to protest, but in order for such protests to be successful, they need to have an organized stance. Different concerns shouldn’t be downplayed, but they can’t be promoted all at once in a cacophony of hoots and hollers. In the future, protesters should consider better organization and coming up with different ways to achieve their goals. It might be wise to direct frustration toward the state Legislature, as it makes much of the education funding decisions, while the university reacts to them.

Protesting has long been an effective way to initiate change. But to do so, students should remember to remain respectful and clear in their goals — all without losing their convictions.