Student representation need to be reconsidered

BEIRUT - Student representation has dominated almost all forms of student activity and the student movement.

One can barely notice any other activity that draws more attention than student elections in the different private universities and the Lebanese University.

But those of us who run for elections, manage electoral campaigns and draft platforms, feel to an extent guilty after elections because of the incompetence of our councils and the inability to score even minor achievements.

After giving it much thought, and four months after serving in the highest student representative position at the American University of Beirut, I came to the following conclusions:

1. The structure and prerogatives of student councils especially at AUB tie student representatives to their chairs. In the University Student Faculty Committee, the highest student representative body in AUB, we strive to convene a meeting as we sometimes fight to fix an agenda that has items of our concern that are not deemed "sensitive" by the university administration such as tuition increase.

2. As we feel tied with the feeble prerogatives given to us by the university senate, we feel also in a week position thanks to political parties bickering and rivalry. Furthmore, supporters and those students who elected us at the beginning of the academic year, have abandoned us. Student councils, if we can call them councils in the first place, fail to muster student support. Suppose we have a deadlock case with the administration, how can we pressure officials? What means do we have at our disposal for compromise? I can assume we have almost nothing.

3. Incompetence and lack of commitment of some representatives also contribute to the student committees failure in AUB. Elections have become a popularity contest for the past few years thanks to the undue priviliges that the administration has given (upon committees request) to student representatives. The graduation speech, for instance, serves as the first motive for students who do not care for serving student interest in as much as they, and the political parties who nominated them, are hungry for headlines expected to appear in the day after the graduation event.

4. Conflicting interests of political groups have also hindered healthy representation. Since most groups at the university are like muppits with threads moving them in the hands of outside political parties, and with these political parties having agendas that do not necessarily confirm with student interest, political parties have made most student efforts fail.

I have to note here that I am a member of one of the political parties on AUB campus, No Frontiers, and that I have an army of former student representatives and activists in my group who always bring advice on student issues to my ears, but I also have to note that No Frontiers, unlike all other student political parties on campus, does not have an off campus authority ordering its steps.

The group is an independent group composed of students only who take their decision democratically. The only difference from other independent student representatives is that No Frontiers members also take political stances and do not stand indifferent to what happens off campus.

Last but not least, I have to note that a general apathy mood has taken students for a while now. Whatever activities groups organize or sponsor, they strive in convincing students to participate or to give feedback. For the most part, most students have forgotten about their duty to follow up on their issues, and this has given parties a safe haven to do whatever fits their interest with the student electorate constituency absent from the scene, at least for some years.

Youssef Haddad is the Vice President of the University Student Faculty Committee at the American University of Beirut. He wrote this commentary for Alternative