What if you could decide whether to increase your tuition every year by hundreds of dollars? What if you could choose Penn State's next president? What if you could decide how much professors concentrate on teaching instead of research?

Funny thing is, you could have this power. But if Student Trustee Don Lamuth refuses to do what is in the best interest of your university, it may be too long before you or any other student has that chance.

I've never really liked drinking nonalcoholic beer. It looks a lot like real beer, smells a lot like real beer and tastes more or less like real beer. Nevertheless, nonalcoholic beer lacks a vital element -- ALCOHOL.

I realize that, technically, there is a little bit of alcohol in nonalcoholic beer. But we can all agree that it isn't enough to make it do what real beer is meant to do.

Let's be honest -- beer is not meant to be nonalcoholic. That goes against the whole point of drinking beer in the first place.

If all goes as planned, Student Trustee Don Lamuth will be the next nonalcoholic beer you're forced to swallow. Once Lamuth graduates in May, he may still look like a student or talk like a student. There may be a little bit of student still left in him.

But Don Lamuth will no longer be a student. Your common sense would make you think he could no longer be a student trustee. Well, welcome to Penn State -- check your common sense at the door.

Let's be honest -- student trustees are not meant to be nonstudents. That goes against the point of having a student trustee in the first place.

Drink up, oh innocent and apathetic students of Penn State. You are about to be made fools of.

You may have no clue who the University Board of Trustees are. I don't blame you; most people don't. You should know who the trustees are, though, because they are the ultimate authority of your Penn State.

They determine your tuition, they hire your University president, and they dictate whether your professors have to spend more time in the classroom instead of in research laboratories.

In other words, they run this place.

And guess how many students are allowed to serve on this extremely powerful, influential and vital board -- only one. Or when Don Lamuth graduates in May, zero.

Lamuth, now into his second year as the sole student serving on the board, is scheduled to graduate from the University this May. Technically, he can still serve a third year as a trustee because Penn State's rules don't require a student trustee to actually be a student.

The rules need to be changed. Students have very little power in this Pepsi-sipping, Barnes and Noble-shopping, AT&T-reaching-out-and-touching University where big business and Old Main administrators call the shots all too often.

Lamuth knows this. He says he thinks the student trustee should be a student, and he will eventually start a search to replace his trustee position with a student. But Lamuth wants to postpone a search for a new student trustee until he's done with his work on the Presidential Selection Committee.

That's a bad move on Lamuth's part. Because of the time it will take to select a new University president and the time it will take until a new student trustee is chosen, it's very possible that Don Lamuth may still be the student trustee at the summer trustees meeting -- the one where tuition increases are decided.

And that's where you -- the typical Penn State student -- get shafted. Not a single University student may have any say in how much tuition costs. I trust Lamuth, really I do. But I think any precedent that completely silences the student voice is very dangerous. We deserve to have a student involved in that decision. Now that right is in jeopardy.

So what can you, the average Penn State student about to be greatly affected, do about this? Probably nothing. Most likely, nobody on the board is going to listen to you, and there's absolutely nothing to stop Don Lamuth from taking as long as he wants to replace his position with a student.

There may be one person to help us from losing our student voice --Undergraduate Student Government President Mike King. When King took office, he accepted a responsibility to represent all students. What is about to happen on the board is as important as the borough-housing debate that King handled with tremendous leadership, skill, energy, creativity and poise.

The time has come for King to once again do what he does best --save our butts when other people take advantage of us. (Mike, I know you and Don have a lot of mutual respect for each other, but this is too important to be clouded by friendship's ties.)

I challenge King to take charge at a time when inane University rules are about to threaten every student. And I challenge others to lead the way with him.