Whose Mess Is It, Really?

Every evening and on weekends, my Level 300 Sales Management students walked into classrooms that required them to pick up litter before class began. They found littered floors, untidy washrooms, and plastic waste pushed into corners, which wore on their comfort and concentration. I asked them one honest question in a survey: what problem hurts you most on campus? The answer came back clear and unanimous. Sanitation.

That answer forced a bigger question, the one this whole piece turns on. Whose mess is it, really? Does a clean environment rest only on management and cleaning staff, or does everyone who uses the space share the weight? My students and I landed firmly on the second answer, and that conviction shaped everything that followed.

Rather than letting them stop at naming the problem, I challenged them to solve it. Because they are sales students, they solved it the way salespeople do. They built persuasive pitches, approached potential supporters, and mobilized cleaning tools, waste bins, and hygiene supplies by explaining, again and again, why a clean campus is worth backing. Along the way, they discovered that selling reaches far beyond products, because the same skills that move a product can move people, resources, and support behind a cause that matters.

The lessons hit hardest when the work got difficult. Not every donor said yes, and each rejection sent the students back to sharpen their message, clarify their purpose, and try a new door. That is the real education. In sales and in life, rejection is ordinary, and the people who succeed are those who stay professional, learn from the pushback, and keep going. Beyond persistence, they practiced teamwork, negotiation, ethical selling, and accountability, and they came to understand that leadership begins the moment a person takes responsibility for the space around them.

Their effort spanned the full picture of campus well-being, from waste disposal and reducing plastic use to proposals for tree planting, handwashing stations, and beautification. That range taught them and reminded me that sanitation is never only about sweeping floors. It lives in our daily habits, in whether we properly bin a bottle, leave a lecture hall clean, or protect a green space rather than ignore it.

At the end, the students formally handed everything they had gathered to the University of Professional Studies, Accra, and that handover carried a message bigger than the tools themselves. It said that students are not passengers who only receive university services. They contribute ideas, resources, and action, and when classroom knowledge meets a real social problem, education stops being theory and becomes meaningful.

Here is the truth we all need to sit with. Management can buy every bin on the market and organize clean-up drives from dawn to dusk, yet the mess returns the moment we litter, misuse the facilities, and look the other way. A clean campus runs on shared responsibility, which means lecturers must model it, students must protect it, staff must respect it, and visitors must honor it. Every bottle in the right bin matters, every clean classroom matters, every tree planted matters, and every student who refuses to litter makes the place better for the next person who walks in.

Our campus is a shared space, and its condition reflects our values, discipline, and respect for one another. My students proved something simple yet powerful this semester: change begins when you notice a need and decide to act. Whose mess is it, really? It is ours. All of us.