For some students, the most memorable moment of their college experience is often the Friday night gatherings, parties, and all the drinking games. For others, the most memorable moment is when they achieved a first professional milestone, landed their first job, or had their names on the honor list. I cannot say that such life achievements did not affect me. But when it comes to my favorite undergraduate experience, well, my favorite undergraduate experience was getting expelled. Here is the story:
It actually happened during the fall semester of 2013, at the Lebanese American University, where, despite having graduated, I was still active as president of the student council. I had already completed my BS in Chemistry in the previous spring semester. However, as a student representative – president of the student council as a matter of fact – I still had a to commit to performing my duties until the new student elections scheduled in November.
Tuition fees for the Fall 2013 semester at LAU increased unjustifiably and without prior notice, subsequently resulting in a clash between the student body and the administration. The administration imposed an unjustified increase in the tuition in a sliding scale (6% to 15%) depending on the major of study. As president of the student council, I was spearheading a student-led campaign to abrogate the new policy. We launched “Stop Tuition Fee Increase” (STFI); a petition to cancel the extra fees and demand more administrative transparency. The least we could settle for was a convincing justification. On campus, the petition was signed by around 4500 student signatures in less than one week.
In his turn, the president of LAU had no other choice but to hold a Town Hall meeting in order to explain the new tuition fee policy. Students were more than ready to voice out their critiques. A group of advocates attended the meeting with a fully prepared case study and a compilation of statistics, articles, press reviews, budget reports, and several other resources that refuted the president’s claims. Just as the meeting did not proceed as expected, its ended on a less expected note; a group of activists extended an open invitation for a student strike on the following Monday (October 7).
We spent the whole weekend planning for the strike. Some were organizing mobilization campaigns online and offline, reaching out to various student groups and to media panels for live, nation-wide coverage, while others prepared banners, pamphlets, and slogans for the strike. I was active with other colleagues on the social media campaigns.
The number of participants in the strike exceeded our expectations, and so did its ending. On Monday at noon, many students came together to denounce the tuition fee increase and voice out their support for the STFI petition. More than an hour later, however, many were getting weary and withdrew from the main gathering. Consequently, we organized in groups of four and made it into the classrooms. We were peacefully asking the professors for permission to present briefly the gravity of the situation and the campaign’s goals and the inviting the students to join us outside. My group disrupted ten classes before the dean of students obstructed us and confiscated our IDs. We were suspended.
We responded through the media. At that moment our case was a golden catch for any reporter; a peaceful strike against tuition fee increase and expulsion of four students including the president of the student council. On the following day, our case was on front pages of several newspapers in Beirut. One majorly distributed paper’s headline read: “Suppression at LAU, four students expelled while demanding cut offs in tuition increase”. Subsequently, the suspension decision was directly revoked.
Though the campaign’s main goal was never achieved, it definitely reshaped the student-administration relations at LAU. From then on the administration became conscious that any miscalculated policy was at the risk of repercussions an active student body.
“Suppression at LAU, four students expelled while demanding cut offs in tuition increase.” Even, two years later, this phrase, still gives me goose bumps. When I got home that evening, my father welcomes me by the door. He hugged me and said “You always make me proud, son.”
