Are Students Losing Hope in the SU?

By: Basant Samhout

@basantsamhout

The Student Union (SU) elections are only a few weeks away, bringing to an end the administration of President Saeed Zakaria and Vice President Menna Emara.

The Caravan conducted a survey of 114 students for their perspectives on the SU’s successes and failures.

Only 27 percent of the students surveyed said they were satisfied or very satisfied with the SU’s overall performance.

35 percent said they were somewhat satisfied and 38 per cent said they were unsatisfied or very unsatisfied with the SU’s overall performance.

Nearly 54 percent of students said they were unsatisfied or very unsatisfied  with how helpful the SU was in academic matters over the past year. Only 14 percent said they were satisfied or very satisfied.

But when it came to the SU organizing entertainment events and trips, 52 percent of students said they were satisfied or very satisfied, and 24 percent said they were somewhat satisfied.

According to 41 percent of the responses, the SU’s greatest strength was in how it organized entertainment events.

But 30 percent said they felt inadequate student representation was a major weakness in the SU’s performance.

Some 28 percent said inadequate academic assistance was the SU’s second greatest weakness, with another 25 percent saying the SU lacked transparency.

Political Science Senior Osama El Hawary isn’t surprised by these results.

“[The Representation Committee] are trying hard, but the university administration is different, it is a different political climate, and they could be more transparent.”

El Hawary says that many students “lost hope” and are no longer as interested in the SU.

“I hope [the SU] changes their system of communication with the student body (not Facebook posts and so) and to involve the student body more in actions taken regarding serious issues with the administration,” Aisha Habib, a Business Administration and Political Science sophomore said.

The newly launched SU app could facilitate more streamlined communication between the union and the students, and create greater engagement.

“Our main aim is sustainability. We are trying to build a base of long term assets and services that would outlast our year,” said Zakaria.

Working towards sustainability, Zakaria told The Caravan that their efforts go beyond Student Services or the SU app.

“We should sustain each other and accumulate resources. Assets, and finances in general, are really important. We are trying to create an endowment for the SU.”

Zakaria also said, “I am trying to build ground for sustainability, but this is not something that can be judged before next year at least. We have to check whether our efforts are sustained. Therefore, I want to focus on ensuring there is an appropriate and thorough handover to new SU.”

Zakaria emphasized the importance of accumulated learning, stating that he hopes the new SU learn from previous mistakes, in order to lead, reach the people and be more interactive.

This year, the SU market got two storage rooms, and there are more refrigerators in the market which the SU obtained through multiple sponsorship negotiations. Zakaria even pointed out that all university outlets are operating normally and the resources are lasting much longer than they used to.

“We achieved some goals. We are yet to achieve others,” said Student Services Chair Youssef Fouda.

Fouda attributes this productivity to the familiarity of the SU cabinet with one another.

But Aisha Al Tubuly, a Political Science junior, thinks the SU needs to be more engaging of all types and layers of students. She says that she feels as though the SU has been restricted to a specific circle of people .

“Saeed and Menna are the fifth SU leaders I witness, and I think they had the best administration in terms of achievements and consistency,” said Ahmed Alshazly, an AUC alumnus that worked in the SU for four years.

However, Alshazly points out that he is yet to see a SU that managed to balance between services, events and student representation.

“When it comes to student representation, the performance is not as good as other committees. They are doing their job, but performance is relatively consistent with previous years,” he added.

“They are working. They negotiate, but the SU lost its ability to mobilize students.”