Barriers to Entry

A new year, a new round of elections, a new faculty, and a new committee.

Freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, and graduate students were spotted frantically rushing to the Dean's office to get their applications for running in the student elections in on time.

To add on to the massive excitement, this year, the Business students have been given the luxury to relax and to be the masters of their own election battle. With the establishment of a new faculty of Business, a new student representative committee was tailored especially for Business students.

Is the establishment of a new SRC worth it? Are euphoria and excitement, which are inevitably coupled with the election campaigns, bold slogans, and rounds of heated arguments at West Hall worth the trouble?

Some "pundits" would answer with a definite yes. Others would shrug, complaining of the lack of existence of other "intellectually stimulating" activities. Still, others would reply with a definite no.

This academic year is my fourth year at AUB. I have seen all sorts of things and incidents that I am sure have shaped my life in one way or another. I have witnessed many student groups who were attempting to create a strong impact concerning some nationalistic issue or another through impressive marches, sit-ins, and press-aided campaigns. I have also realized that students at AUB, and in Lebanon in general, are over-saturated with energy, enthusiasm, and stamina, to the extent that makes them act out their full potential.

Yet, during the past three years in this University, I must say, (I shall disregard small successful endeavors on the part of our respectable representatives and transcend to look at the matter from a broader sense) that the representative committees are somewhat of a flop.

I can sit down and cite millions of reasons that drove me to such a conclusion, but the two most important reasons of all are the ones that I shall share with you. The first and most apparent reason is that the elections, with all the student activities it includes, is stuck in a whirlpool of inefficient aimless philosophizing and theorizing about the world and its what-ifs. This process of theorizing leaves, in practice, the poor student body to enjoy a prison at West Hall and a minefield at the Green Oval for the whole year. Is philosophizing what the representative committees are all about?

There is another reason that I would like to share with you. There is a phenomenon called Barrier to Entry. This term is used usually in the business world where new traders face a barrier to enter into an already established market. The barrier is mainly financial but could extend to legal and bureaucratic factors. In our example of the student representative committees, the ones facing the barriers to entry are the hard working serious students who happen to think that the University is not in its best shape, and that it could use a little shaking up, a little change, some new "ruling" blood. These barriers to entry are not financial, though. They are not legal or bureaucratic either. These barriers are summed up in the general lazy, laisser-faire attitude of all the representative committees, in addition to the campaigns that precede the elections, and the work that is never done.

What is the incentive for a student to leave a club or society - which might be doing a commendable job in serving the student body -- to run for an election that would serve only as an ego boost and some additional used up ink on an exaggerated curriculum vitae?

It should be clear by now that if one were to have an impact in this University, cause a change, or simply hold a successful activity, one would have to work within societies or clubs.

My conclusion is that if it is "prestige" that the nominees are after, I suppose one can not even begin discussing the matter due to the drastic difference in the plane of thought. But, if it is "change" that these nominees aspire, then I have one piece of advice: Work within a faculty society or a club, it is more efficient, more serious, and by far much more rewarding.