The Promotions of University Presidents

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

Some of my academic colleagues complain about the delay or obstruction of their promotions, saying that the procedures at some universities are extremely complicated and adversely affect the timing to which a promotion is due. They say the promotion is delayed a great deal, and may never even be approved, if the university president or the chairman of the board of trustees (whichever of the two holds the greater power) is displeased with the person seeking promotion, or if the two of them ever had some quarrel.

None of this is strange to me, because my own promotion papers, as I was informed at the time, were lost twice along the way — once while on their way to Iraq, and once while on their way to the UAE. My promotion to the rank of full professor came due while I was in the Negev detention camp, and when I got out, I asked the university president to waive the legal deadline for submitting a promotion application, on account of my imprisonment. He answered me, “Don’t drag me into this.” And when I went to the chairman of the board of trustees to read him the text of the law stating that university administration must give the applicant an answer within six months of submitting the application — and three years had by then passed since I submitted mine — the chairman struck his palm against his head and said, “Ah, we forgot to change the bylaws.” Is there any baseness greater than this? And this, while someone else received his promotion within three months of applying.

…do they not appoint a university president who already holds the rank of full professor? The reason, of course, is obvious: they look for people according to a ruler already cut to their measurements, and they are not bound by academic standards.

The file on the promotions of current and former university presidents must be opened, and files must be opened on everyone who, over the years, sought promotion through the proper channels and did not obtain it. It is of course important for the faculty unions at universities to play their role, but we must be cautious, because the administrative boards of some unions are effectively shaped by the university president or the chairman of the board of trustees, and many members of these administrative boards spend their time flattering the university president or the chairman of the board of trustees. In this, university faculty themselves bear responsibility, because they elect people they already know in advance to be puppets who will not defend the rights of employees.

Among the shameful acts of some university presidents is their use of student councils and certain student groups to vote for them, when the Ma’an News Agency ran a poll on the best academics in the West Bank and Gaza. Some sent students out with loudspeakers calling on people to vote for them, and some put up banners as electoral propaganda and pressed students to mobilize votes for them. If some university presidents display this kind of recklessness over small matters, then they surely display the same recklessness over large ones.

The files must be opened, and justice must be done. Our country is full of injustice, corruption, and swinishness, and nothing sets things right except the arms of its own sons. Do university faculty have it in them to stand boldly and courageously in defense of their rights, and to stand against injustice and lawlessness? The answer is no.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “ترقيات رؤساء الجامعات” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.