Clubs and Conferences Committee Faces Student Scrutiny

Students are questioning the Clubs and Conferences Committee’s criteria for accepting applications to form new campus organizations.

In early October, the Clubs and Conferences Committee (CCC) announced the approval of eight new clubs to operate on campus.

But political science senior  Mohamed Fares, co-founder of the rejected Maghrebi Club,  says the CCC did not directly inform the applicants about their decisions. Fares says he only found out that his application was rejected from other students.

Fares added that he applied for the announced club vacancies in a bid to spread Maghrebi (West North African) culture at AUC, and give a voice to Tunisian, Libyan, Algerian, and Moroccan students in the university.

CCC chairperson Ismail Sweilam says it was made clear from the very beginning that there were limited vacancies.

“There are several confidential aspects that I cannot talk about,” Sweilam told The Caravan, “[but] we tried to assess our approval on the uniqueness of the [application], the experience of its co-founders, and its sustainability.”

With 29 clubs currently in operation, the CCC says it could only approve a fraction of the applications. Sweilam added that the approved clubs were informed of their new status first and that emails were then sent to the other clubs informing them that their applications were declined.

However, the rejected clubs maintain that they were not informed of the assessment criteria.

“Nobody communicated with us whatsoever, that’s my biggest problem,” Fares told The Caravan.

He and other students complained to the Office of Student Life that they were treated “unfairly an unprofessionally”.

“They told us to email the CCC, they did not reply, and they sent a generic email which  was like throwing dust in people’s eyes,” Fares said.

Nada Taher, who wanted to establish the AUC Talks club to provide space for students looking to enhance their public speaking skills, also feels she was treated unfairly.

“Just tell us why we were rejected. They made us put so much effort [into our applications], and it is almost like we didn’t do any kind of effort,” Taher told The Caravan.

She believes that the CCC gave candidates too little time – only two days – to prepare their presentations seeking club approval after submitting their prospective goals, mission statements and constitutions.

In a previously published article by The Caravan, Sweilam said that the committee approved new clubs on the basis they would benefit the entire student body.