A Suggested Platform

Student candidates bombard their fellow students with the so-called electoral platforms during the week of elections. Most of these platforms are written in weak English and they are all similar in content with some minor differences. GPA scores, the financial aid program, student facilities, student representation, and freedom of speech are the basic points of the said electoral programs.

The problem with these two to ten page documents is that they never tackle University issues critically, nor do they give fundamental solutions to problems that they attempt to solve.

Platforms must take into consideration what, within the capacity of the representative committees, the elected candidates can do. Promised treatments for student problems, which these platforms usually suggest, fall far beyond the prerogatives of the elected candidates.

If I were to write a platform, I would try to answer two questions: (1) what can students do in order to help their fellow students (student-student relationship), and (2) what can students do in order to help the administration solve some University problems (student-administration relationship). By solving some University problems (which include student facilities), the University's reputation would improve and would benefit both the students and the administration.

On one hand, the issue of the student-student relationship does not appear on any of the platforms except in the context of defining the relationship between two student political groups. This student-student relationship also appears when candidates, who are running for election, promise to consult their supporters on student issues if they are elected to the committees. Consequently, solutions for issues such as financial aid and student facilities will turn into a promise that a representative will do anything within his/her own capacity in order to pressure the administration for it to comply with student demands.

The University Student Faculty Committee, even with its limited prerogatives, seems to be dependent on the administration to solve the student's problems. Take the problem of financial aid, for instance. Students ask the administration to increase the financial aid budget in order to help more needy students. Except for the proceeds of the Graduation Party, no attempt whatsoever is made on the part of the USFC or the SRCs to raise money and to establish their own scholarship fund.

As a leading student institution, the USFC must, first of all, lead the student community. Raising funds would be then the top most priority. Money collected would be invested in renovating student facilities and in partially funding the education of qualified and needy students. The transformation of the USFC into a fund-raising committee rather than begging the administration to give more budget concessions would surely give the students more independence in leading themselves. The student-student relationship would be the first priority in my platform.

On the other hand, in the various platforms, the student-administration relationship is more thoroughly discussed. Over the past years, student representatives have developed an attitude of blaming the administration in their pursuit of the support of more voters. Student platforms thus take the following shape: they attack the administration, defame the University, and promise that the representatives will pressure the administration so that the administration will click a button to solve University problems.

Students miss one fine detail, however; when they defame the University, they fail to keep its reputation in mind. They also fail to notice that if the administration could click a button and solve all the problems, it would certainly not hesitate to do so. This last statement is not meant to defend the administration where, in many situations, its self-interest overrides the University's best interest.

If we take a look at the attitude of the AUB Alumni-administration relationship, for instance, we discover that the main concern of these ex-AUB students is to maintain AUB's fame and reputation. This is not to say that the Alumni never criticize the administration for its performance, but whenever they do so, they do it constructively. The administration, on its part, always keeps in mind that some Alumni are major donors and fund-raisers who contribute to this University. Facing this fact, the administration shares its decision-making with the Alumni Association by granting it two seats on the Board of Trustees.

Similarly, the administration would find itself forced to take student opinion into consideration when it comes to decision-making if the students prove that they speak out of concern not out of self-interest. If students put forward their constructive criticism and contribute in solving problems by actually working on the solutions that they propose, then their word would be certainly more heard.

On the issue of student-administration relations, I can cite many examples. The privatization of some University facilities provoked a negative student reaction. Yet, students never thought of supporting these facilities before AUB had to put them under outside management. One of the University's problems, which students fail to notice is the retrogression of the Publications Office. With this problem, I will try to illustrate how students ought to tackle and to solve University problems.

The University Publications Office is currently facing serious problems. Written by faculty members and published by the University, AUB books are not well marketed. First of all, these books do not have a bar code or an ISBN number. AUB has been trying to circumvent this problem by letting the University of Syracuse publish AUB books. If you visit the famous amazon.com web site, you will notice that AUB titles, published by Syracuse University, are out of stock.

Amazingly, however, when you go to the Publications Office, you find these same titles stacked under the dust. Secondly, whereas the books are available on the AUB web site, one cannot order them on line but has rather to order them by mail. Thirdly, faculty members are not tempted to make use of the said Office. Fourthly, the Publications Office is terribly understaffed.

In the light of all these problems of the Publications Office, what the students can do is to "give a hand" in marketing AUB's books through holding book fairs, circulating brochures and fliers, and even introducing an on line purchasing system. These proposed solutions need no authority or prerogative (at least minimal coordination with the Office itself would do) and are within the capacity of most students. Why would students want to solve the Publications Office problem? The answer is simply because by solving such a problem, students will be contributing to the development of their own university.

When students invest their effort in solving such problems, the administration will surely lend them an ear at the level of decision-making. Then students may start questioning the administration about its performance and they may then unfold many other topics. AUB's bureaucracy, high salaries that are being paid for senior administrators, and senior administrators who handle a job other than that which they handle at AUB, are all topics which should be discussed once the administration trusts the student loyalty to their University.

This Publications Office difficulty is an example, in my opinion, of how a problem must be diagnosed and then solved. Most other University facilities such as the College Store, the Bookstore, and the few miserable canteens (which students always fail to notice but rather focus on the reopening of the old Milk Bar), can also be included in student electoral platforms. The student-administration relationship would be the second priority in my platform.

Of course there are many other student problems "which can be hardly fitted in a given platform" such as graduate assistantships, over-crowded classrooms, grade deflation, ... etc. Yet, the way to solve such problems should follow a pattern similar to that which I have suggested above. Students must reassume their historic role of helping themselves, as well as helping their University and their community and electoral platforms must reflect that appointment. Otherwise, students will never have serious representative institutions nor will they be able to tackle and to solve student problems.

By Hussain Abdul-Hussain