AUC Alumni for Strike
Dear President Anderson,
We have been extremely proud of our fellow AUC students as well as the University's workers,
staff, and faculty who staged a series of protests starting Sunday September
11, 2011. As members of the AUC Community and advocates of student rights, we
fully support the protesters' demands and regret not being able to join them in
person up until now, with the intention to do so as soon as possible.
However, after
receiving several of your mass e-mails addressed to "All AUC"
throughout the past week, we felt the urge to make a different type of
contribution. We are writing you a public statement in response to what we
believe was profound failure to comprehend and define the motivations behind
the students' honorable attempts in voicing their legitimate demands, which is
summarized in the following points:
- "Conflicting
Interests": AUC Administration has never been in the habit of sharing
the whereabouts of its investments, the sources of its funding, or the
detailed breakdown of its budget. As students, we always had to apply
pressure to gain access to that information, despite the fact that any
not-for-profit university must announce all its financial statements on
periodical basis to all its stakeholders; be they students, parents,
faculty, or staff. Moreover, the Administration never published
information about the salaries of its senior management. For instance, we
are unaware how much you, the Provost, and the Vice Presidents are paid.
In 2002, speculations were that the President receives 30, 000 US Dollars
on monthly basis in addition to luxurious housing, transportation, and
other benefits. What actually exhibits a conflict of interest is the lack
of transparency that the Administration - up until this very moment - had
as a consistent behavior through not publishing its financial statements,
including the salaries of its top management, while the university is
supposedly a not-for-profit organization.
- The University
is running on a budget deficit": It is rather shocking to make such
statement as a President of such a reputable institution. Who is
responsible for this deficit? And why is it so acceptable - apparently
from the way you expressed it - that AUC is suffering from a deficit? We
all know that the University has embarked upon the new campus project
while lacking the resources to complete it. Furthermore, it was announced
that the new campus building costs were to be around 300 million dollars,
while the final costs were more than 400 million. How is it possible that
a financier who made wrong budget forecasts worth 100 million dollars -
presumably Vice President for Finance Snaith and his office - were never
held accountable for such unbelievable incompetence? And is this the
source of the current deficit? If not, then what is the source? We are
sure that the deficit does not come from parents' failure to pay tuition
because it has been always evident that parents almost never miss their
deadlines.
- Furthermore,
you mentioned that you strive to "wisely spend" AUC's money. We
cannot help but notice a huge paradox when we see, for example, such a
huge mansion in the middle of campus that is built only for the
university's President, while having a dormitory that only has 400 rooms;
a number that does not accommodate half of the students in need of
permanent residence!
We have a lot of
respect for you as a renowned scholar, having personally read several books of
yours in the area of international relations. We know you can be a great asset
for this University if you have the will to be so, and we know that you have
the capacity to take this institute to the next level. Also, we recognize with
excitement the recent re-structuring of the Business School and the
establishment of the new School for Public Policy. However, it also gravely
worries us to see many world class professors leave and become replaced by
part-time and inexperienced professors that do not provide the same value to
the students (this has been the students' feedback for almost five years).
On another front,
we are disappointed to see the social life of AUC - once depicted as the best
student life in all of Egypt's and probably the Middle East's schools - being
so weakened by the continuous exhibition of lack of planning and proper usage
of development methods from the Office of Student Development, which - although
being protested against for years - has never been restructured, leading to
students exiting from student activities and poor development of student
leadership on - and eventually off - campus in their careers.
As AUC Alumni,
we demand the following:
- Immediate
announcement of your salary structure, the whole Senior Administration's
salary structure, and the detailed breakdown of the University budget for,
at least, the past two years.
- Announcing all
sources of funding from Egyptian, Arab, and foreign donors as well as all
investments in Egyptian and/or foreign stock markets and all other
investments.
- Immediate
restructuring of the Office of Student Development and replacement of its
current head.
- Having a
permanent student representative in the University's budget committee.
- Dedicating the
luxurious mansion - that is originally dedicated to you as President - to
the students' dormitory.
- Increasing the
total number of seats reserved for students in the University Senate from
three to eleven voting seats.
- Including a
non-voting seat for students on the Board of Trustees to act as a junior
trustee; this seat will be reserved for a student representative chosen by
the students according to student government laws.
Those demands
are supported by a group of AUC Alumni that has contributed a lot to the
University. We demand an immediate response to this message as concerned
members of the University's community as an initial sign of good intentions.
Failing to address these demands would force us to call for wide ceasing of
donations made by the Alumni community and beyond until the principles of
transparency, equality, and freedom of speech that this University had taught
us for long are instilled within the conduct of its Administration.
Thank you and we look forward to your response.
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