For starters, I am seriously enjoying the observable tendency of DeFacto to publish analytical articles and link them to opinions, and to responses to opinions. It seems that finally there is a written forum to discuss issues. We are witnessing a transformation in student media activism, and it is not surprising that DeFacto is behind it – DeFacto was the first online student media, and our thanks can go only to them for creating a preserved and accessible institutional memory of AUBG since 2003
 
Since I am opinionated, and like expressing my viewpoints, my logical reaction is to join in the ongoing discussion of the draft schedule for the spring semester. Perhaps the only thing I disagree on with Stanislav Marinov’s feature is that “the only thing we can do [about the problems] at the moment [is to object.]” I will try to address this concern after I go through Filip Taseski’s passionate opinion piece.
 
In his opinion piece, Filip has good points, but also some that are inconsiderate. That’s dangerous: if you want to make a strong point, don’t put it in the vicinity of hastily-made ones. If you do so, you are likely to fail to persuade your audience. Every single weak point throws a greater shadow of doubt upon the reader, and the reader is more and more likely to doubt and try to refute even strong points.
 
The article starts off great. The author identifies several problems – not a useful strategy for getting new faculty, miscommunication, as well as some immediate shortcomings (the listed points). All those are seriously relevant and can serve as benchmarks for creating a plan of how to improve the schedule of offered courses. But as the article is read half-way through, some weak points appear.
 
“Juniors and sophomores in Business should simply transfer to another university”
 
Humor is much appreciated, but this sentence hints that actually some of the students might consider transferring to another university. Scroll down for arguments on why this is an unacceptable hint.
 
“I will not even go into other majors, because there the situation is worse.”
 
Is it? While I agree that Topics courses in the Economics major this semester were fewer than I would like to see, the argument that the situation is worse in this major would be extremely hard to prove. Everything is consistent; all required courses are offered; choice is varied; some great professors are still teaching in the department. How about Politics? This semester the courses in POS were so many that I had hard time not registering for any of them – I wanted to take at least three, but my major schedule did not allow for that. Filip’s point is unjustified, the rhetoric – weak.
 
“The AUBG student is a client to this university and pays around $4000 dollars every semester to get certain educational services” and “Well, let me explain you something – in real business customers complain when they do not get the service they paid for, and trust me, they get what they want!”
 
While I am baffled at the Student Government’s continuity and persistence in trying to be let to “explain something” or “make one thing clear” to the student body, I still see a major gap in this argument. Higher education is not “real business.” It is absolutely absurd to lower teachers to the standards of customer service clerks. And neither is any AUBGer just a client. Clients in Filip’s example moan, and are allowed to display derogatory behavior. The analogy is weak. It is a major reason to distrust the author, and his opinion piece.
 
“How come those, who would like to take Accounting I, OTB, HR classes, or accounting electives cannot take the course, and yet get their accounts blocked, because they had debt of $20 for the transcript they asked the Registrars to issue (who hated them because of that, and took one week to actually issue it, helping those students to miss the deadline for a grad school, of course)?”
 
This is called trying to kill a horse with needles. The examples are extreme cases that could have been prevented if the students knew how fees work and relate to course registration. This is a set policy, and there are ways to avoid having your registration blocked. I would say if you allow for the latter, well, you deserve it for being dumb. The example does not work to any advantage to the author. It again lowers him in the eyes of the reader, belittles his position and makes us doubt his good points.
 
“The problem only drives out customers and drives out the faculty.”
 
This is such a far-fetched proposition that I probably do not need to argument myself. Faculty could be driven away by many reasons, but students’ inconvenience and inability to follow a made-in-their-first-year major schedule is not one of them. This needs serious support. And let’s face it – AUBGers hardly display a systematic pattern of leaving the university because of problems in the draft schedule. As serious as the issues outlined in the beginning of the article are, stretching the problem to such an extent hardly works in favor of the author, who supposedly is trying to persuade us into something.
 
Now back to what can be done to deal with the problem, other than object. I believe students were coordinated enough in their complaints; the Student Government seemed to have provided for an adequate channel for receiving them. Props for that.
 
A thing the SG could do is provide support for the faculty; back them up in front of other institutional actors. Any department would like to see the number of its faculty increase, and its courses increase as well. The problem that caused the lack of BUS courses needs to be identified – is it the lack of applicants, is there opposition from the administration to hiring certain proposed applicants, where is it.  Then SG could try to take steps to tackle the identified problem.
 
For example, if the problem is the delaying of applicant search, the SG could put up a committee that will supervise the faculty search in the future. This committee could follow who is going on a leave of absence, and perhaps aid the Department chairs in reminding them that lack-of-courses is a potential problem. The committee would signal to the SG well in advance the potential problem, and then the SG could try to tackle whoever or whatever is preventing the faculy-search (whoever or whatever bears the guilt for the problem’s existance).
 
And such brief thoughts passed through my mind when I read DeFacto. That speaks enough for itself.