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Covering the Town meeting held by AUB Administration to discuss the tuition increase at AUB

Today, I attended the tuition increase town meeting that was held by members of the AUB Administration (President Dorman, VP Kenny, Provost Dallal, Dean Kisirwani, etc) and I was reporting the event live on twitter via @mhijazi.

This was my first experience with twitter reporting, and I am glad to say it was very enjoyable.

Tomorrow, I will be covering parts of the protest via twitter also, and between my classes. (No, I am not skipping classes, here's why)

Below are the tweets related to today's meeting from newest to oldest, so I would recommend that you read from bottom to top.



  1. again mentioning the wasta in admissions and denying them
  2. basically this new policy is like robin hood: taking from the rich and giving to the poor.
  3. "aub medical centre is currently making profit and covering its debts" - vp kenny
  4. "we dont want the students to pay the debt of the aub medical centre" - the shouting speaker
  5. "this new financial aid policy will be transperant" - dallal
  6. "we need to have more transperancy at AUB" - dallal
  7. provost dallal is refering to my wasta article, but claims that he cannot do anything without evidence.
  8. "it is simply impossible to balance our budget without the increase" - dallal
  9. "cost of aub faculty and their salaries is increasing." - dallal
  10. "current students will not get additional financial aid because they are not affected by the 15 credit policy" - vp kenny
  11. the shouting speaker is talking again and being very rude
  12. dallal is explaining that the scholarship donors are minimal / only 5%
  13. usfc vp elias ghanem is asking why will AUB be paying financial aid from student tuitions.
  14. "we modified the policy according to the student's feedback"
  15. "the student loans will not replace the financial aid" - dallal
  16. "financial aid budget will leap from $13mil to 28mil in 4 years" - dallal
  17. provost dallal is responding to the speaker's statement
  18. the speaker, who didnt mention his name, is now off the stage
  19. the speaker is comparing aub to the lifestyle is auc and aud...
  20. "our campaign is a non violent one - revoke the 15 credit policy"
  21. the speaker should stop screaming at the provost and the VP
  22. cheerful crowd clapping for the speaker, reminds me of a political leader speech
  23. many points of what he is saying were already refuted by VP Kenny
  24. he is stating the drawbacks of the 15 credit policy while almost screaming
  25. "students who want to attend classes tomorrow are free to do so"
  26. "our aim to cancel the 15 credit system" he said.
  27. a chosen representative from the protest took the stage.
  28. time for audience questions
  29. "80% of the students will qualify for financial aid with this program"
  30. 65% of the additional revenue is going directly to financial aid.
  31. "the average net increase is 5.8% and not 25%"
     via mobile web
  32. "new students will pay upto 15 credits rather than 12"
  33. "in the next few years, the tuition increase will not exceed 4%"
  34. "after this increase, AUB will be cheaper than all institutions except LAU"
  35. "right now aub tuition is lower than other institutions in the middle east, LAU, AUC, AID, AUS..."
  36. "we will not allow students to borrow more than 25% of their tution, they shouldnt have a huge dept when they graduate." - kenny
  37. "the central bank loan program will replace the AUB loan program" - Kenny
  38. Kenny is talkng about the history and process for reviewing policies.
  39. VP Kenny will be explaining the changes and the decisions made to the tuitions and financial aid
  40. "we owe it to our selves to maintain a respectful dialougue" - dorman
  41. president dorman is introducing the dialouge and is speaking about the money donations made to aub
  42. dean kisirwani asks of the audience to maintain the character and the reputation of AUB the
  43. i will be tweeting updates throughout this hour for those of you who want to know more about the issue!
  44. mhijazi is at the general meeting hosted by the AUB President to discuss the tuition increase issue with the students.

Comments

  1. thank you so much for reporting and I still do not think that this will benefit us in anyway nor will it benefit our kids in the future.

    ReplyDelete
  2. for your information , moudz , the speaker that annoyed you so much by "screaming" all the time has been working on this protest for almost two weeks now just so that students like us could get an affordable education at AUB. and maybe it will interest you to know that this guy is a graduate student ( he graduates this june btw) that is working on his thesis (but this week is not because he's apparently working on what you've found so annoying). He gains nothing if the 15-credit policy is revoked but still he's working on it for students like us. So even if you do not care about this whole protest show some respect for those who do.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I don't care if he is the president of the world, he is not good at public speaking. He was screaming his words, and it was very annoying. It was not smart of the protest organizers to use him as there organizers because he was rude to the officials, wasn't talking very well and addressing the vice president as if he was a child.

    It doesn't matter if he is has a Phd, he is not a good public speaker, and I was showing him more repsect that he showed to the VP and the provost.

    ReplyDelete

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