Will our University ever become a research-oriented institution? Will we ever have Nobel laureates among our professors? Will our graduate programs thrive and our laboratories develop to meet international standards of research? Every member of the AUB community should have this ultimate goal or dream in mind. Nevertheless, I think the administration is taking an ambiguous approach towards achieving such an objective.
 Ever since the spring semester of the year 2000, undergraduate programs in math, biology, physics, chemistry, business and economics have been suffering from the "common lectures" policy. Merging sections into common lectures as is the case in the Civilization Sequence Program has been extended to the above-mentioned majors. The administration's justification was allowing faculty members to have more time to do research. Needless to say, this policy has resulted in over-crowded classrooms and a poor quality of education, especially in the freshman and sophomore classes. Thus, promoting research has become a threat to undergraduate programs, which have always been the source of AUB's reputation and position among other universities in the region.
 Undergraduate programs are the basis of this University. Arab and international students have preferred to join AUB rather than any of their local universities due to its promising curriculums on the undergraduate level.
Promoting research among members of the faculty should never jeopardize that essential part of the University's academic mission. But, what about graduate programs such as the master's and the PhD? I think those should complement undergraduate programs. Research should focus on the graduate level. 
Where do our graduate programs rank among other worldwide graduate programs? Why isn't AUB offering doctoral degrees anymore? Restoring PhD programs would be a major step in encouraging research. Some departments have great chances of becoming research centers.
I am referring to the Center for Arab and Middle Eastern Studies, the History Department, the Arabic Department and others. AUB is the place to promote research in those fields. A great potential exists for attracting international students to join those departments. Unfortunately, little effort has been made to improve those programs, some of which are now in crisis. 
CAMES, for instance, is still under the supervision of an acting director. Also, last year, several international students met with Provost Heath to complain about the CAMES curriculum, which was not up to their expectations. I bet that when these students return to their countries, they will not recommend AUB as a location for such graduate studies.
 I am not in any case ignoring the fact that every professor needs to keep up to date about the material he teaches. Students are not fans of 20 year old lecture notes. But what would be an appropriate procedure for evaluating professors? Would it be based on teaching or research capacities? As far as I know, faculty promotions are based on publications; thus, they focus on the research part of professors' duties.  
But are promising researchers necessarily good teachers? No! We all know of several cases of good teachers leaving the University due to  demotion. Their lack of research and inability to publish in internationally refereed journals resulted in their contracts being renewed on a yearly basis, thus putting them in an extremely uncomfortable and insecure position.
 I fervently wish we could have good teachers and researchers at the same time, but reality doesn't offer much choice in searching for such qualifications in a professor. The fact is that the administration evaluates faculty members according to research standards, demotes them to lecturers and then rehires them again due to the lack of professors. In other words, the University is hiring those it acknowledged as incompetent! 
 A solution for this problem would be to offer two distinct tracks for faculty members: a research track and a teaching track, both of which would benefit from the same job security. Those enrolled in the  teaching track would not be subject to the promotions policy; other evaluation procedures might replace it, such as an appraisal by students wider in scope than that applied currently.
 On the other hand, who would fund research in AUB? Can students who are already contributing by 60% of the University's total budget afford this luxury? Students cannot afford further tuition increase even if it were for the noble cause of promoting research. For students currently enrolled in AUB, more research would be a luxury. The solution is to provide external funds from companies, firms and NGOs, which is the case in most American universities and even in some faculties of AUB, namely the Faculty of Medicine.
 Widening the scope of research seems to be a very ambitious project for AUB, which would open new horizons for the institution, but given the current personnel and financial situations it has to be carried out in small steps. The priority should be given to the most likely programs to flourish under such a policy, namely those tackling Arab and Middle Eastern studies. Unfortunately, the CAMES experience showed that the administration is far from this vision.