a professor speaks ..

I've sent an email to the Guc Academics today (the ones whose emails I can get) and Since this is the first reply, I'll start with it. More to come.

Its from a professor from the Faculty of Management Technology who's currently at the Guc, afterwards comes the email I've sent.

I leave you to judge.

RE: To the Teachers we Admire and Appreciate

'
Dear Mohammed

Many thanks for your warm and kind words about us academics - and well done to your letters / e-mails you've written!
Although I do not share every detail of your e-mails, I think that you are in some crucial parts absolutely right; university needs to be a place of open and public discourse and, most importantly, university needs to be a place where academics and students feel at home.
Because of the very "unique" GUC-system I, too, think that most academics do not feel at home. To work as an academic is not a job, but a lifestyle decision. And at GUC there are too many regulations which go against the very idea of being and working as an academic. As a consequence, the turnover-rate is not only worringly high, but both teaching and research suffer.

So, let's hope that also at GUC things will change to the better.

Best
'

And then my Email:



I wanted to explain my motives for the email you've all got today, to to speak from the heart.

Walk around in the Guc, talk to Students, and you'll figure one thing out: We all love our Teachers, really, we can see that they toil and struggle and try to help us, we can see that their mission is Education. No one appreciates his Teachers more than I do, ask any of the people I've studied under, the ones I made sure to say thanks time and time after I did graduate. 

And I don't have any personal interest in this University becoming better anymore except out of the Love of those teachers and Care for my young collages who are struggling, I did well for myself, I graduated, earned my Masters, got the High Honours list. But this doesn't mean that when I see wrong being done, when I see an Institution with all the people in it being dragged to the ground, that I should shut up. yeb2a 7araam 3aleyya.

From my talks to many past faculty and staff, and from my experience as a student, I can see that they're all suffering. Teachers feel discontented because they can't help their students as they need to do, students can't learn and feel frustrated, they're treated with complete oppression to the point everyone is even afraid to public speak their mind - since when did someone feel afraid to criticize a university system publicly, right and wrong? This is all for the sake of Education, that mission is more essential than anything to the development of those young generations - of the shape of their future. 

By everyone I meant the students and some TAs that I know of that think this is true, many others don't speak up I realize because they think its more constructive to criticize in private, but in this university it isn't. Everyone knows where the two problems of this university lie: the Upper Management's, The one in the very third floor, total disregard for the welfare of its faculty and students, its disrespectful and arrogant treatment to them, and its insistence on stifling their learning and academic freedom. The other wrong thing is profit or a wrong financial philosophy, you could say ,   

In this philosophy, faculty are overworked - how do you give personal attention with so many courses and so many crowded lecture halls? I know you do, and you give your best, but you're only human. And your students are harmed, and the sad thing is .. We all know the University can afford and did promise us better: '200 students divided into 8 modules .. small class sizes facilitate personal attention and interaction' the brochure said, but that wasn't right .. 

In this philosophy also, Salaries are held down, Faculty get their every hour logged and even if they do their job brilliantly, a missed day could get them discounted - we feel that this is disrespectful to our Teachers and this hurts us, its not trivial that a student, an young person at the very first few years of their adult lives, feel the lack of dignity in the way they and the people they look up to are treated. Its not small that students are ignored, disrespected, shunned, never listened to, and insulted. 

So, for the sake of the mission of Education that I know you're all committed to, for the betterment of our University and community - a University is an Educational Institute, not just a business, as a business it has to run honestly, and as an Educational Institute it has to put the wellfare of its Students and Faculty first.

For that mission, I urge you to talk, speak up, say your minds, advice, contradict, I don't mind if your opinions differ to mine - ours, I don't mind disagreement, but you have to participate, this is a dialogue for the future of our University, you're the most important people in it - without you it wouldn't be. You can't just sit this out. 

You can advice us or endorse us, you can reply to me personally in confidence and anonymously if you want, or you can just say it out loud. If people are honest and sincere in their desire to fix something, they're not afraid of talking openly about it with nothing to hide. The university management hides things because of their insincerity, because they mislead the students into paying more fees and the faculty into working more hours  and this Institution does not end being what it deserves, what everyone involved pays for! in both money and effort - the teachers efforts .. 

So please, engage, you'vve a responsibility, those are your students, you can't abandon them now , this is a personal plea .. 

With all sincerity ,

Yours,

Mohammed