If a student has a concern regarding the university, he or she should have a place to go for that concern to be heard.

Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the case for every college on campus. An MSU student who filed a grievance within the College of Engineering expected his concern to be heard, but there was not a board in place to fulfill that task.

With a university as large as MSU, there has to be an avenue for students to be heard by officials. By not having a specific process for each opinion to be voiced, a roadblock is placed between the students and the administration.

The Spartan Life student handbook guarantees all students the right to have their grievances heard by a board composed of equal parts students and faculty.

Although there is a small number of grievances each year, the guarantee made by the handbook needs to be upheld.

The handbook says that the grievance boards are created at the department, college and university level at the beginning of each school year. But it seems some units are a bit behind.

Student problems are supposed to be addressed by an informal resolution between the parties involved. But if no resolution is arrived at, an ombudsman can be brought in to work through the problem between students and a specific department.

And if the problem remains unsolved, the grievance process begins at the departmental level and continues on through the college and university.

But this process is void when there is no group to even look at the problem in the first place.

Many colleges say that such boards are created only when necessary. The inconsistency in policy shows that the departments are taking a reactive approach to filed grievances rather than using proactive and preventive procedures.

Departments should be training employees how to handle grievances so that the speed and accuracy of handling grievances is improved as well as the university's student-faculty relations.