If universities had PR packages like brands of consumer goods, NYU Abu Dhabi would constitute the shining pearl of PR packages. With Bill Clinton speaking at its first commencement and [multiple Rhodes scholar graduates]((https://nyuad.nyu.edu/en/news/latest-news/honors-and-awards/2019/november-/nyuad-students-selected-as-2020-uae-rhodes-scholars.html) almost every year, NYUAD’s first 10 years have been nothing short of glorious. To any prospective student, NYUAD perhaps appears to be the place to be, which explains its consecutive high yield rates. However, for current students and recent alumni, the atmosphere here has not exactly been as picturesque.

Students have for the longest time tried to claim their rights and bring attention to the systemic issues they are facing. However, with a student body composed mostly of students on full financial aid, the administrative and academic staff have recognized the lopsided power dynamics and their negligence towards students’ concerns has been a drainpipe for students’ energies. This is evidenced on both individual and communal levels. Multiple articles from The Gazelle, desperate posts on the Room of Requirement and helpless appeals from disillusioned students to university officials all shine light on the same shade of discontent. For an institution that has built its reputation on equalizing access to education, it has somehow also made a spectacle of its poor grounds for negotiation and empathy.

In countless community-wide emails over the past two years, the Vice Chancellor has thanked community members for their “resilience” and “compassion” in these especially trying times. However, being all too accustomed to the sight of my peers mustering resilience mostly to face the administration, I have found it difficult to relate to these emails. Too often, they have had to invest in collectivizing, hoping that their collective voice would garner the compassion that their individual voices could not. Their struggles have always been far removed from the romanticized picture of the university depicted in official platforms.

While this piece is raw with sentiments, I should also make a point of not straying too far from the standards of empathy that I’m preaching myself. To help ourselves get into the shoes of those we are pointing fingers at, let us borrow the concept of deindividuation from social psychology literature. In general, deindividuation occurs when individuals are not seen or paid attention to as individuals. The members do not feel that they stand out as individuals, and when their personal identities are masked by a group identity, the anonymity facilitates a reduction of inner restraints. In our case, this phenomenon might account for the common lack of empathy toward students or particular university departments’ reluctance to help them when in need. Furthermore, a sense of diffused responsibility might also exist among administrators and other people in power. According to research, group productivity does not exceed the sum of individual productivity when individuals are not accountable for their efforts. As such, something as simple as replying to emails from students might become a challenge for a group if the email is sent to an alias where multiple people are on the receiving end.

However, even after such considerations, it is still hard to come to terms with the callous attitude individual NYUAD community members have displayed when dealing with students. “Through all of the frustrations and loss of COVID,” reads an email sent out by Student Affairs on Nov. 29, 2021, “there has been a shared sense of struggle and a shared understanding we need to support each other.” In stark contrast to what the university aims to promote, feedback from students about multiple university departments highlight gaping needs that remain unfulfilled. Inadequate career support from the Career Development Center, [questionable healthcare practices at the Health Center] (https://www.thegazelle.org/issue/223/features/health-center-student-experiences), and unsatisfactory commitments to IDBE challenges are some of the recent issues that have been flagged in The Gazelle previously.

This pattern of discounting students’ concerns is sadly not limited to issues caused by administrative infrastructure. Even after stripping away the intricacies of group dynamics, incidents of students’ unhappy encounters with individual members of the community are not hard to find. Not too long ago, 17 students responded to an anonymous survey reporting their harrowing experience with a library staff member. The staff member had weaponized harsh language, including curses and students reportedly felt physically intimidated by them. Such behavior is unwarranted and cannot be explained by any existing protocols for dealing with student misconduct. In my own personal experience, I had a professor announce in class that any student who tested positive for Covid-19 would be held responsible for their absences, not unlike any regular absence. The same professor had refused to honor my friend’s testing accommodations granted by the Moses Center through bureaucratic loopholes.

These are only a few instances among countless others: RoR is almost always brimming with horror stories about a staff member or a professor. The same email from Student Affairs mentioned earlier reads, “...you are not alone. You are surrounded by a community that supports you, with many points of contact at the ready.” However, accounts of students who have been treated offhandedly when seeking assistance from professors or administrative staff attach connotations of inconvenience to the act of reaching out.

It would be unfair to say that support is nonexistent. When I felt the need to escalate matters, I received care and generosity from the leadership team, particularly the Dean of Students Office. Where there is genuine compassion, there is also recognition. In my experience, students here never shy away from underscoring their good experiences, and you don’t have to look too far for evidence — the cubes in the Marketplace with accolades for community members, students singing praises for a professor on RoR who had made a profound impact on them, or even Campus Life Leadership awards all point toward the same appreciation for kindness. There are indeed structural apparatus for support in place, in multiple forms and shapes, but this particular article is not the place to look for such evidence.

The reality as it stands is that incidents of mistreatment are too regular, and student experiences that are shared are often quickly discounted as isolated. As a student, being left to fend for myself feels exhausting and isolating. Students deserve better and kinder responses when they advocate for their needs, without which it is only a matter of time before they begin to question the core values of this institution. A good place to start would be for community members in positions of power to hold each other accountable and work more collectively towards fostering a culture of supporting students. For administration, this article offers some pointers. For now, even though NYUAD is so inclined towards “holistic wellness” for its students, it certainly has one too many blind spots. At NYUAD, kindness exists, not sparingly but not abundantly either.