This is not an attack but an act of self defense – we the students feel neglected and no one seems to care. Our university is falling apart and every one is silent. WE ASK all students to please write and add to the blog, report and share, send to the media maybe our president will finally hear our voice and someone will care about us again!!!Our teachers were forced to sign a confidentiality contract for LIFE – which we don’t know if this is even legal!!! So we the students are the only ones left able to speak.

We love our university and when the new President was appointed we were hopeful and optimistic he met with some students to say that good things will come, scholarships will increase, more facilities, he asked them to write reports about everything so that he can build and fix.Then he disappeared – we never heard from him again, reports where never even requested, nothing was done, and no one is even listening to us or cares. Administration, registrar, new Chairpersons are extremely rude – they say “we don’t know” to us all the time. We get answers like “this is just the way it is”. New Chairpersons are being rude and inappropriate, they are calling us lairs!!

Also all we hear are rumors that parts of departments, tracks and some smaller majors will be closed – so WHAT happens to us the STUDENTS!! What do we do, we came here to study this major- this track – not to study what makes money for Balamand!!!

The Provost Bahr was appointed and everything rapidly changed – all to the worse. Campus is a ghost town, students are depressed, teachers and staff are terrified…

The new administration under the coordination of the Provost Dean George Baher, the acting president, has turned the structure of the university in such a way to maximize profit and reduce cost. Professors as well as students are victims of the new unjust structure and administrative decisions. The new structure mainly focuses on appointing the loyal rather than the competent in effective administrative positions, which happened overnight without prior notice. Deans and Chairpersons were replaced without giving them the chance to pass on their responsibilities and knowledge of the department, as well as the supervision of their student’s projects and works to the new administration, under the claim of improving the academics of the university.

We heard rumors, as the university claims, that the previous administration was corrupt, and that was the basis on which these multiple changes were implemented. However, nothing explains why Dr. Walid Moubayed was put in charge as acting Dean of Student Affairs, and Mr. George Dahdah is still in his position as comptroller.

In the process of reducing costs, using the excuse of a shortage in the budget, a huge number of students from different faculties were forced to postpone their graduation either due to unoffered courses, or being under a prohibitory period that limits the offering of the courses. In most cases, the students are not made aware that they are placed under probation due to administrative errors. Usually, students don’t have a full detailed access to their programs of study and many of the advisors are indifferent and unwilling to advise and direct their students on the right track. In the former case there is no valid reason for the lack of courses offering. What we can only notice is that a number of part time instructors have been fired, without prior warning, which we speculate to be the reason why such courses are not being offered, or not enough courses are being offered. This leads to, in consequence, to postponement of graduation. In the latter, the students are being treated as customers. Students are also now obliged to repeat courses instead of enrolling in new ones to improve their grades, which in most cases they do not have to.

One of the things that made the University of Balamand stand out was that the student had an opportunity to learn first-hand from the instructor. The max load of classroom was up to 17 students. Under Dr. George Bahr’s administration, the class capacity was raised to 25 or even more, and no second sections were opened, which are sections that divide the students evenly and give every student the opportunity to ask, patriciate and learn.

President Warrak is never on campus and when he is his doors are shut closed – he doesn’t see anyone – exactly the opposite of what he told us. The Provost Bahr is even less friendly – no one is allowed to see him – we only see the associate dean… we have no one to speak to and no one cares. We are being treated like we are in a military prison.

In a widespread surprise, the University of Balamand reached a ranking of the 3rd best in Lebanon and among the top 600 universities international within 30 years, yet it still lacks the basic infrastructure and academic requirements that any university within the top list has.

Our parents and our families are not wealthy – we begged registrar to allow us to Feb 5 to pay registration because in January our families do not have the money to pay. But NO we were refused just a 5 day extension… the humanity and care for us is gone!

Infrastructure and academics:

The classrooms are not well equipped, and some are not equipped at all, with basic tools for classroom learning.

No AC’s (air conditioning) in most buildings.

Students usually take 15 to 30 mins to find a parking space.

Ceilings leak water when it rains.

Echoes in class rooms.

Fungus is all over the walls in some buildings (as you see in images below)

No heating system in some faculties.

No research facilities and centers that support and evolve innovative ideas that students have and are capable of making an impact on the community.

No ventilation system.

Faculty of Engineering:

There are at least 15 cases of students who had to postpone their graduation due to an academic probation which they were not informed of. Due to administrative errors, they were forced to repeat courses. If they had been made aware of it, the student could have taken another course of action that could have saved their graduation. We know full well that the university profits from repetition of courses.

Some Masters students can’t find their bachelor’s final presentation grades on the system, which they presented last year. The university is placing them on hold while they are unable to register.

Students don’t have access to computer labs after 4 pm to work on their projects.

The faculty lacks grid boards which are necessary to draw complex graphs, while they are available to medical students in the faculty of Health and Sciences.

Engineering students demanded a supercomputer last year. Yet it the request was declined under the new administration, without a valid reason for the cancellation. There is a lack of transparency.

Students are asked to buy their own equipment to build or implement their graduation projects.

The tables are too small for students to work on.

The new engineering building has AC’s, but no remotes to control them. It has been petitioned yet the administration is indifferent.

There is a lack of internships offered to students by the university.

Faculty of Medicine:

Med 1 students are not sure if they can pursue their further years in education since the construction of the new Hospital has been paused for the past couple of month and there is uncertainty if The Saint George Complex is still training Balamand students.

Roughly, it costs around $120,000 for a medical student to graduate, yet the university does not have an accreditation

The new medical modules exams are designed unfairly in a way to make the student repeat the module.

Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences:

The new administration merged two unrelated faculties, the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences with the Faculty of Sciences under a new faculty called the Arts and Sciences.

16 competent chairpersons have been changed, with a new division model, just like AUB, where they replaced them with 6 chairpersons to reduce costs. Departments that have no correlation with each other, like the departments of physical education and psychology, have been merged.

The new chairpersons are unable to handle more than one department, especially when the departments are out of their field of experience, or they are usually overwhelmed.

7 masters students can’t graduate this semester, 2 of them have to wait a year because there are no courses offered, yet no valid reason.

Students are unable to enroll because of course requirements that did not exist before, while others are taking equivalent courses which are unnecessary and unrelated to their majors for the sake of enrolling and starting the semester.

A cut of funding to courses that require events.

There is a concern about the increase of the number of students within the faculty and whether or not this will limit their opportunities of making the honor list, especially considering that the sciences can generally achieve higher GPAs than the arts. This is considered a way to cut the costs, yet many achieving students depend on the honor list for financial aid.

Mass media students have no equipment to shoot with.

A content creation unit, that used to give opportunity to students to apply their knowledge and cover events around campus, has been dismantled under the cost reduction.

No more tutorials are offered for those who need a course to graduate.

The physical education department does not have the safe and required equipment and environment to conduct their activities.

There is a general concern on whether the 25% discount offered for undergraduate students and the 50% discount offered for graduate students of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences might be removed, while a lot of students depend on that discount for financial aid.

Faculty of Business Administration:

15 students with the same probation case have to postpone their graduation. Some have to wait a year for courses to be offered.

The same thing repeats for some master students.

Financial aid:

There are massive cuts in financial aids to students.

Some students stopped receiving them at all.

The distribution of the aid is biased, students are asked about their religious sect when they apply, whether they are Orthodox or Maronites.

There is also a great amount of personal bias and ‘wasta’ in how gets and how much they get

Balamand has no student council, while recently for the first time the new President Dr Elias Warrak started meeting with the club presidents for news and suggestions, but the students did not elect them as their representatives, nor those club presidents are completely aware of the demands of the students.

When it comes to the clubs we have a huge cut of the on-campus events budget, and a limit on sponsorship, yet no reasons are provided.

The library closes at 11 pm, while in other universities in Lebanon it is for 24hrs. students finds it difficult to study in groups of campus.

Students are informed of their scholarships informally, without a written document.

The new administration, under Dr. George Baher, stopped communications between students and instructors in their offices in their spare time. Hence, the students lost the opportunity to learn from them, grow from their experiences and the chance to build connections with them.

We are treated as customer with a sole job of attending and paying just to get a degree.



Rough Estimates:

A student pays $15,000 per year

It takes 3 years for a student to finish their degree ~ B.S or a B.A which is around $45,000

There are around 5000 students in Balamand

That’s around $225,000,000

Assuming that costs amount to 50%

That’s $112,500,000 of profits in 3 years.

(without taking into account that medical students pay more)

Yet we still hear that the university doesn’t have the funding to hire instructors or engage in innovate programs, or to get us equipment that are required for a practical application that will prepare the students to the job market. Nor does the university have an infrastructure to support an environment for education. Yet there is money to expand the cafeteria and build a new faculty buidling.

By far there is a huge amount of people who are reconsidering their education at Balamand because of the actions and policies of the new administration.

Dr. George Baher was the Dean of Sciences then moved Dean Arts, years ago, he was restricted to teaching after the huge amount of complaints the university had against him. Today he is the acting president of the University of Balamand. He is responsible for all the backwardness and degradation of the level of education. We are not quite sure why he is acting president, is it because of friendship rather than competence considering that Dr. Warrak comes from a medical background?

If you DON’T have the money to build the labs we need, get the equipment we need, have modern classrooms, 24 hour library, a Student Building (we need a place to sit, meet, enjoy our campus – like all the other major universities have – a student center), then close the majors, DO NOT tell us we have this and you can study this – THIS IS A LIE. THIS is FRAUD. We want to learn we want the equipment we need, we want more teachers not less, we want more facilities, we want student life, we want the experience of going to university. WE are not here to pay money and sit in line like robots.

To be assured of the validity of the information above, pay a visit to the university and ask any student and listen to what they have to say.

WE ASK all students to please write and add to the blog, report and share, send to the media maybe our president will finally hear our voice and someone will care about us again!!!

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images: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1s1MOsVnAB2z7iMw9MBV31uKeTRmcOUKJ