Administration, Students in Dialogue Over AUC Future

By: Basant Samhout

@basantsamhout

AUC President Francis Ricciardone has told The Caravan that communications between the administration and students need to be improved.

The president’s comments come amid a series of meetings initiated by student leaders with members of the Board of Trustees  and administration following the University Senate’s vote of no confidence in his administration.

“It’s not so much a dialogue if you’re thinking of dialogue literally with two parties. It’s a multi-party conversation that needed to be better, needed to improve and be more fruitful in terms of the output of the communications… the channels needed to be improved,” Ricciardone said.

On February 10, a scheduled invitation-only ‘Lunch with the Board of Trustees, Family and Friends’ was held in AUC’s main cafeteria, Abela’s Kitchen, which turned into a forum for student leaders across campus.

The BoT and administration have expressed interest in engaging in better communication with the students and faculty.

Following several meetings between administrators and students attended by Vice President for Student Life Deena Boraie in mid-February, BoT Chair of the Student Affairs Committee Rana El Kaliouby praised student engagement and said she will “institute periodic interactions with students to ensure that there is open communication and dialogue”.

In an email to students sent via Boraie, El Kaliouby said: “The Board is deeply interested in the issues raised by students relating to academic excellence, streamlining operations and the quality of the overall student experience.”

“The fact is that the Board of Trustees do much more than just budget. And to the extent their focus on budget it isn’t ‘how do we save money or increase fees?’ It is on the contrary. ‘How do we make sure we’re dedicating the resources to the quality of education?’ and by education they mean not only coursework, but they mean the whole student experience,” Ricciardone told The Caravan. 

On February 14, student leaders gave a Powerpoint presentation outlining student concerns about the direction AUC is heading with recommendations on how to resolve contentious issues.

“The primary focus will no longer be on the problems, but on how to solve them,” Chief of Representation Officer at the Student Union (SU), Omar Atef said.

Boraie replied to the presentation in a February 19 email highlighting the actions taken by her Office of Student Life on critical issues raised by students such as transparency, commencement, academics, tuition fees, security and campus surveillance.

The email also stated that there is coordination with the Office of the President to set a meeting with student leaders soon.

“There’s a saying ‘Never waste a good crisis.’ This isn’t really a crisis. This is a tempest in a teapot sort of thing,” Ricciardone told The Caravan. He added that meetings with student leaders “are in progress. I would say progress is the right word”.

In the meantime, the SU will launch an awareness campaign to inform students of the issues currently being discussed with the administration to ensure the maintenance of student momentum, Atef said.

The positive response to student concerns from the administration led to SU President Saeed Zakaria’s veto of a student senate bill to hold a secret ballot referendum on the no confidence of the president.