As the semester was coming to an end, our school lay out a list of air-conditioning fee for each dorm. The list showed that air conditioning fee of most dorms amount to 1000RMB-1200RMB. And still, a considerable amount of dorms were showed with the fees exceeding 2000RMB. Oddly enough, the dorms with less use of the air conditioner should pay much more than those with more. Even more oddly was that on the list were some dorms, inhabited by none, bearing fees of over 600 RMB out of all reasons. This latest incident triggered storms of complaints and suspicion among students, most of who believe they were being fooled into paying more money than they should and that the insidious purpose behind of the school was to rake in money. This was no less different than blackmail, as we interpreted. Worse still was that information came that graduates were not going to bestowed with the diploma on condition that they failed to pay for the part of the fee.
The school buzzed and students were worked up. Posts cropped up in BBS firing criticism and calling for paying for the fees. Some proposed to go on a strike, while others, collapsed in face of pressure that came from fear of not getting the diploma, willy-nilly, winced and chose to abide. For such students, the most pressing concern was the diploma.
Doubts and condemnation never stopped.
We insisted the school owned us a very good reason to charge us with so huge an amount of money. At least, the school was supposed to give us a list of air conditioning flow to bolster their very point. Lay it all on the table, and if it was just true, then we would conform. Otherwise, how could we accept it willingly when we were not a fool? Under the impression that air conditioning fees will turn out startling, a great many students, if not all, especially those financially poorer, agreed to make it a point of using the air conditioner as less as possible, unless the weather got unbearable. Sadly, this, however, didn’t make the situation any better. The fee startlingly arose, much to the shock of everybody. Staffs in the property management department claimed that this had nothing to do with the school. If this claim was true, why would the school printed out this form of sky-high fees to us and never responded barrages of criticism? If the school was for us, why would it never communicate with the responsible party at the very beginning? That totally didn’t make sense.
The school, the action of which is a reflection of ill practice of power abuse by the authority at an advantage, was solely trying to cash in on the vulnerable at a disadvantage. And apparently, students were never impressed. With all series of disappointing events and more problems expected to loom large, GDUFS, the image of which was already dim among its students, got a lot worse. More and more student purported more discontent against their mother school were stirred up. Some even went as far as to say they would work on people around them not to come to this school for study. I believed those student meant it. In Human Resource Management books, we learned that your potential applicants got to know about your company first through your existing employees before they did from you, which helped shape their first impression of your company. The same was true in the case of a school. Therefore, it could be expected the school would suffer a loss of high quality students. The war was on.
So far, there was no action in place to turn the situation around, not to mention to save the day.
The students’ hard line attitude against this incident, and their passion to protect their right and expose the truth, however, never dwindled.
