Universities: The Gateways to Freedom or Submissiveness

Above photo is taken at a public university in Turkey. It may not seem remarkable at first glance. Just another plain cement building, reminiscent of the uninspiring public sector.

However, what makes it interesting is the two words written above those doors: “Student Entrance” (Öğrenci Girişi)

Few feet away, just around the corner is another door. “Faculty Member Entrance” (Öğretim Üyesi Girişi) it says.

I am sorry, but having separate entrances for the academic staff and the students -at a public university, of all places- reminds me of the Jim Crow laws in the US. This is segregation to me, no matter how you swing it.

What could be the rationale for having separate doors for faculty members and the students? Are the university students a wild pack that we need to avoid when getting in and out of the buildings? Would the mighty professors get stepped on if they walked with the common folk? It just doesn’t make sense…

The problem of hierarchy and super rigid pecking orders under the roof of what is supposed to be a universal institution of higher education bothers me a lot.

When I was teaching at a public university in Ankara, my university had five (yep, FIVE) separate lunch halls depending on your status in the pecking order.

At the bottom were the students. They had their separate place and God forbid, if they dared to show up at the other lunch halls. Their cards wouldn’t work and they would get scoffed at.

Then came the super rigid ladder for the staff. The lowest step was the manual laborers. They had their separate quarters tucked way in the back. Only once I peeked my head in, for I had lost my way. Instantly everyone stared at me and I understood my grave (!) mistake. I bowed down and backed out to my assigned quarters…

Next, came the second tier of staff. These were low ranking, white-collar workers, such as secretaries. They wouldn’t mix with the manual laborers, but wouldn’t mix with the higher ranked staff either.

With my meager status as a TA, I was a member of the third tier. This was a middle-of-the-road crowd, with bunch of low ranking academics, like TAs and instructors, and high-ranking admin staff, such as faculty secretaries. Assistant Professors who wanted to show some solidarity also came and ate with us.

Lastly, the top tier: Assistant Professors and up. The mighty professors didn’t line up with trays like us the commoners. They were perched up at a restaurant with the best views of campus, had tables with white linen and waiting staff…  

In a recent column, Gunduz Vassaf states that human beings feel extremely submissive to authority, when they don’t feel confident and powerful as individuals. He gives the examples of universities in Turkey, as institutions that cultivate this culture of hierarchy and submission.

Unfortunately, since the last military coup in 1980 the academic circles in Turkey failed terribly in terms of adhering to the universal principles of higher education. Instead teaching universal values like equality and freedom, majority of the universities are grinding the young generations into docility and submission. Their institutional culture is inimical to cultivating self-respecting individuals with critical thinking skills. Segregated entrances and lunch halls are all part of this structure that instills submission to authority.

The word university is derived from the Latin word, universe. It is composed by putting together uni (one) and versus (turned), with the combined meaning referring to one becoming whole, as in the whole cosmos.

If we cannot even bring students and faculty together and have them walk through the same gates and have lunch at the same tables, what kind of a whole are we talking about? What kind of a university are we talking about?

When I transferred to a different university in Ankara, one of the first things I appreciated was the de-segregated food court! Faculty members and students all lined up with their trays, chose their meals and sat wherever they could find. All as equal human beings! What a relief, I thought...

Wishing you all free and egalitarian university experiences,

The hierarch-averse Academic Mommy

Visiting the Brazilian Ambassador:

Photo: Ministry of External Relations (The Itamaraty Palace) in Brasilia, Brazil

  Today, I had a nice long visit with the Brazilian Ambassador. As usual, we covered many topics ranging from PetroBras to black labs... But my entry is not about the content of our conversation. Rather, I’d like to talk about political cultures.

  Throughout my academic career, I had the opportunity to encounter and work for some high profile individuals. At my Alma Mater, Bogazici University, for instance, I was the assistant for the then vice-rector, who got degrees from Yale and Stanford.

  When working at the University of Hartford in Connecticut, I had the chance to meet with the ex-president of Mexico, Ernesto Zedillo. We had a nice chat about my dissertation with Dr. Zedillo, who incidentally has PhD in Economics from Yale.

  My last rector in Turkey, who was recently promoted to be the head of the highest scientific research institute of the country, received his PhD from Georgia Tech. He was both the sharpest and most accessible administrator that I ever worked with.

Here is where I am trying to get at:

  When I look at the high profile people that I interact with, the ones that I communicate with utmost ease all have some education experience in the US. Therefore, it wasn't a great surprise for me when the Ambassador said he too had studied in the US. 

  I think the higher education system in the US, particularly the Liberal Arts tradition, is the best form of soft power that the US could ever achieve. It breeds a unique blend of cosmopolitan individuals, who acquire the pragmatic, laid-back, no-nonsense attitude that is emblematic of the American political culture.

Let me put this in a comparative perspective, so that the contrast would pop out more:

  In my home country, which is not much different from the other members of the developing word, protocol and hierarchy are strongly entrenched qualities in political culture. The higher up in the ranks you go, the more stiff you get. Consequently, it is really hard to have a genuinely open, productive communication with these people…

  Unfortunately, the Europeans are not immune to this stiffness virus either. Their strong adherence to bureaucracy (see the colossus they’ve created called the EU), the meandering way they talk, which involves so many subtle connotations that you need a decoder to capture them all, make it really hard to get to the nuts and bolts of an issue. 

  There has been a growing literature on the American decline since the 1980s. Yet, most of these were coming from the left-leaning IR scholars, hence were not taken too seriously by the mainstream. Recently however, even the centrist, mainstream scholars are talking about the “US decline”. (Here is a great piece by Stephen Walt of Harvard)

  Hard power (military and economy) is a whole other issue. But if it wants to maintain its soft power, the US cannot afford to lose its global edge in higher education.

My humble suggestion: 

 Get the  public university budgets off the butcher block, and stop the intimidating visa procedures for international scholars and students. What all these end up doing is undermining the precious US soft power in the long run... 

  Happy Thanksgiving!

The Liberal Arts loving Academic Mommy