Excellence and Identity: A Stress Test

Editor’s note: All opinions expressed in this article belong to their respective author(s). Check our section “Voices” dedicated to opinion pieces on AUI Chronicle. This piece has been co-authored with Karim Bahoum.

The morning walks at AUI do not feel the same anymore. There is this tension that makes breathing the university’s air quite difficult. We sit in awe just trying to comprehend the complexity and implications of the recent events, and it is very hard to come up with a decisive conclusion. It can be paralyzing, but the only thing that we can do as a community is to reflect on the meaning of a community.

Community is not just a word

A community is not only about having a Facebook group. Creating a sound and healthy community for everyone requires acknowledging four elements: Diversity, Sustainability, Unity, and responsibility. We do not have to be the same to create a healthy place for everyone. Everyone has the right to be themselves and not be forced to adhere to the point of view of the other. This diversity is what really creates a rich community that is able to discuss, debate, and self-improve. Further, for a community to thrive, a mechanism of continuity has to be put in place. It is our ability to understand what previous members have built and our willingness to improve it. That is, to do our part in ensuring that the rudiments of our culture as AUIers cannot be shaken, for if they are, we lose our identity. Then, Unity means that we as a community can stand for each other when times get hard. It is our ability to put our differences aside and think that we are eventually representing the same body. However, with that comes great responsibility because our actions are reflective not only of our individual beliefs but also of a community’s ideology.

Individual actions v. Collective impact

The events of last week remind us of one of the most crucial aspects of community living, which is that the actions of individuals can affect a whole community. From students, staff, faculty, and alumni, the repercussions of what we achieve, or aim to achieve, have a long-lasting impact on a considerable number of people. While we are sure that this is something that everyone has heard at least once, in a boring presentation or class, this aspect of community living can be extremely dangerous or beneficial to our well-being and future as individuals.

To that extent, living in a community entails the ability to bear the responsibility of not only acting in the interest of the institution and what it represents, but also to think extensively about the consequences of our actions on ourselves, our loved ones, and our community. This notion of “collective responsibility” is therefore vital for the success of impact in our environment.

While it might be understandable that we tend to raise awareness about this notion within the ranks of students (especially freshmen), our collective responsibility has to be embedded in the heart of any executive vision that the University is applying. The decisions of individuals at AUI affect students on a daily basis through policies and rules, but they also translate into the impact that can go beyond the university’s main gate. Consequently, the elaboration of decisions of this scale must be planned carefully, and executed in an adequate way, for us to finally have a positive impact on our region.

Reviewing our priorities, as a community

Concretely speaking, we believe that we have to re-examine our priorities first as students, but also as an institution. From a student perspective, it is time for our student body to ask questions about which kind of impact do we want to have on our country. Are we here just to get grades, play around, and graduate? Or do we want to seize every opportunity that this university gives us to improve our profiles, understand the needs of our environments, and positively disrupt any status-quo that we might face either at AUI or in the outside world? Are we capable to translate the numerous initiatives, activities, and opportunities that are developed and created at AUI into real-life solutions that show what AUI students are capable of or not? These are few questions that we believe we have to keep in mind during our experience in this university.

From an institutional perspective, the latest shift in the university’s strategic vision showcases a number of challenges that have to be carefully examined. Unlike students, who spend from 4 to 5 years studying at AUI and moving on with their lives, AUI’s management designs and operates a strategy that shapes the university’s relationship vis-à-vis its students, its staff, its alumni, and its domain of impact (which is Morocco for now, maybe the MENA region in a few years). One of these challenges is the tradeoff between numbers and quality, especially when it comes to admissions.

While it makes absolute sense, financially speaking, to attract a high number of students every year, one must ask if this comes at the expense of betraying one of the main mottos of AUI: Excellence and Identity. You cannot guarantee excellence (professional or academic) nor adopting an AUI identity if profiles that are attracted are incompatible with the core values of our institution. What can AUI offer, invest, and do, to improve the level of the students it attracts? Can AUI execute a total value-oriented restructuring of its academic matters as it is doing for student affairs? Can AUI grow in numbers without losing its value and prestige? These are all questions that we might want to ask ourselves when it comes to this issue of numbers.

And yes, this question will always still be raised. It will still be debated by students. It will still affect many things at AUI. And that’s because of another challenge that we must face: Communication. Our ability to provide a transparent, easy to access, and detailed presentation of where the university is heading and why is still inexistent. Not that the university’s administration is not trying to do so, but because it lacks the right structures and methods to communicate with its community, and because decision-making is not optimally structured/planned.

Everyone has a responsibility, and the consequences that can be generated from the student perspective or the administration’s perspective are equally impactful, as the recent events have shown us.

Improving our PR, but not only

In addition to internal communication, our university has a lot to gain if it adopts a more elaborate approach to public relations. Not that we are experts in Communication Studies, but public relations at Al Akhawayn University should not be confused with marketing (through social media ad spending and forums). The university has suffered heavily from the consequences of misinformation and clichés that hurt the reputation and the prestige of the institution, and the value of its output on campus.

This means that our focus should be geared towards crafting a narrative that reflects the different values of our university and its students. Make no mistake, we should not invest our efforts in improving our PR without improving and capitalizing on the pillars of what makes our university unique and important on the national level. Our point here is also not to fall into excessive self-praise (that is often illustrated through out-of-touch labels, fancy words, and data), rather, recognize where we have to improve and transparently show the potential of what we can do.

The elements that we have discussed in this article if combined, would allow us to live in a better environment, push the boundaries of our potential at AUI, and project our values and positive impact in the face of a very competitive higher education scene in Morocco. Self-generated feedback, from students to the University, is the only way we can bring about positive change and collectively achieve our goals as a community.