I Accuse!

I accuse the AUB administration of putting student clubs under the control of political groups.

I accuse the AUB administration of opening student clubs to serve political purposes.

I accuse the AUB administration of defying the purpose of student clubs and obstructing their work.

I have the proofs for all that I say.

If you just take a look at the list of student clubs available at West Hall and in all AUB handouts, you will quickly understand what I am saying.

Some clubs have overlapping purposes and have the same mission. Some other club is a real intruder in the AUB community.

I will make myself clear: I am referring specifically to the Civic Welfare League that has the same purpose the Social Service Club" (at least this is what their names suggest). Isn't doing civic welfare the same as serving society? Why don't those who are interested in civic welfare register in the Social Service Club? How could this happen in the first place? Why were those clubs opened?

The answer is very simple. Political activity is forbidden on campus. Distributing a political flier is simply not permitted. That's why student politicians distribute their political handouts off campus, usually at the Main Gate. Due to this fact, the AUB administration found a compromise for political students: it gave them student clubs and allocated a club for each political group. If you want to assume a political role in AUB, you can do it legally under an official cover, which is the student club.

Another observation: why among all Lebanese schools, only the Makassed School has an alumni club in AUB although the number of Makassed students who enter AUB is not large compared to that of other more prestigious private schools? The answer is again a political one: some political group wanted a base in AUB in order to promote its political agenda. The AUB administration found a good cover in opening a new club. All that the political group has to do is to make all of its members register in that target club and thus it will take it over through "elections." Naturally, all other independent students will quit the club since they know that all credit for any activity will go to that specific party.

This scenario has been repeating itself for years. It led student clubs to the miserable condition they are in today: clubs with overlapping purposes, others with the sole mission of providing a legal cover for a certain party to be active on campus and others who hold activities that are normally under the responsibility of other clubs.

This also led to some serious fights among political parties. Some famous fights are those related to the Student Co-op Club or the Cultural Club of the South. The only solution the AUB administration found was either to stop the electoral process in clubs and to appoint their committee members or simply to close the club and freeze its activities.

This is the case of most of the active clubs today: they are simply covers for political parties. Those clubs are the Arab Heritage Club, the Civic Welfare League, the Communication Club, the Cultural Club of the South, the Debating Club, the Human Rights and Peace Club, the Social Service Club and the Makassed Alumni Club.

Lately, the electoral process has been gradually restored to student clubs. Another good step was to appoint a Director of Student Activities who is responsible for clubs. But all these steps are not enough; they are not solving the problem from its roots. Bigger steps have to be taken.

But what is the solution? Is it by closing clubs and merging others? Not exactly.

I think that the solution should come in two phases. Phase one would amend club bylaws to prevent any political party from taking over a club. Phase two would give political parties the freedom of action on campus just as they used to have before the Lebanese civil war. Phase one was proposed by student representatives through the 1999-2000 USFC and through previous USFCs, but it has never led to the radical solution needed.

The amendments proposed may be summarized as follows:

1. No two clubs shall have overlapping purpose statements to make sure that no clubs are arbitrarily opened for political reasons.

2. In order to make it impossible for someone to register his friends in a club for the sole purpose of having them vote for him, thus allowing him to take over the club, restrictions should be imposed on the members who are eligible to be nominated and who are given the right to vote in the election of the committees.

3. Dissolving a club is a decision to be taken by the AUB president himself and not by anyone else, in order to ensure some kind of independence for student clubs and not put them under any kind of continuous threat of closing by the Office of Student Affairs as is still the case.

Several funding procedures were resolved by the 1999-2000 USFC in order to strengthen the position and the role clubs play in AUB. For example, a resolution stipulates that at its first activity, each club will get a sum of $500 as a startup to provide it with the means of good operation. But the real problems in student clubs remain unresolved.

Student clubs are major assets for AUB students. Student clubs, absent in most other universities in Lebanon, play an important role in shaping community life in AUB and contribute enormously to the prestige of this institution. Their status should be rearranged in order to ensure their maximum efficiency and to encourage students to participate in the community life of AUB. I think that the student body has, through its successive USFCs, done its part of the job; the rest is in the hands of the AUB administration.