From: "Hale, C. Kate" <HALECL@uwec.edu> Date: Sun, 6 Apr 2008 13:09:06 -0500 Subject: Almost One Year Ago: Iraq's Universities Near Collapse Message-ID: <6DCE403B991434499E60901A1A1EC1625F8B65647B@CHERRYCOKE.uwec.edu>
From the issue dated May 18, 2007
The Chronicle of Higher Ed
Section: International
Volume 53, Issue 37, Page A35
Iraq's Universities Near Collapse
Hundreds of professors and students have been killed or kidnapped, hundreds
more have fled, and those who remain face daily threats of violence
advertisement
By ZVIKA KRIEGER
Saad Jawad does not like to take chances. The University of Baghdad politic
al-science professor goes to the campus only once or twice a week, varying
the days to throw off any would-be assassins. His courses are less than one
-third full, and he often has to wait hours until students show up.
When a class does finally convene, he assigns enough work to keep students
busy for as long as possible because he does not know when they may meet ne
xt.
"I used to attend the college five days a week, stay there, and mix with my
students," Mr. Jawad says, by telephone. "Not anymore." He does most of hi
s work and research at home over the Internet, and most of his private meet
ings with students are by phone.
"Other than my short trips to the campus, I'm at home almost 24 hours a day
, seven days a week," he says.
The enormous challenges Mr. Jawad faces every week are just one example of
how fragile Iraq's higher-education system has become. Thousands of academi
cs have fled the country, classes are frequently canceled, students often s
tay away for fear of attack, and research is at a standstill.
Four years ago, in the immediate aftermath of the takeover of Baghdad by U.
S. forces, the situation looked, if not promising, then at least possible t
o improve. A number of American university delegations toured Iraqi campuse
s, looking for ways to help revive a higher-education system depleted of re
sources and isolated from the rest of the world during the years Saddam Hus
sein was in power. And American advisers were lobbying international agenci
es to rebuild the country's universities.
But then sectarian violence began to mushroom, and academe became one of it
s earliest targets. Estimates of the number of professors killed since the
2003 invasion range from 250 to 1,000. At the University of Baghdad alone,
78 professors have been killed, according to the London-based Council for A
ssisting Refugee Academics.
"Terrorism is targeting scholars in an almost unprecedented way," says Alla
n E. Goodman, president and chief executive of the Institute of Internation
al Education, in New York. "It's hard to say there even is a higher-educati
on system in Iraq anymore, with so many students and professors being kille
d and kidnapped on a daily basis."
For Mr. Jawad, each day seems to bring new horrors. Last month the body of
one of his close friends, a professor at Al-Nahrain University College of M
edicine, was found a few kilometers from the university with five bullets i
n his head and neck. The friend had returned hours earlier from a yearlong
sabbatical in Australia and was expecting to see his newborn son for the fi
rst time.
A few weeks ago, one of the deans at Mr. Jawad's university disappeared and
has not been heard from since. Two months earlier, one of Mr. Jawad's coll
eagues in the political-science department was assassinated — one of almo
st a dozen colleagues whom he has lost to Iraq's mounting sectarian violenc
e.
In recent months, scores of professors throughout Iraq have encountered bul
lets sent through internal mail, death threats tacked to their office doors
, or anonymous voices on the phone suggesting they not show up for work any
more. The situation has become so grave that the Ministry of Higher Educati
on and Scientific Research recently announced that university researchers m
ay come to campuses just twice a week to reduce the risk of being attacked.
"It is difficult to say that my colleagues are longing to go back to Saddam
's rule," Mr. Jawad says. "But they are longing to go back to some sort of
stability and security,"
Near Paralysis
To John Agresto, senior adviser to the higher-education ministry in Iraq fr
om 2003 to 2004, it is clear why academics are targets. "University profess
ors are usually more secular than the general population, more open-minded,
interested in things other than religious proselytizing, devoted to academ
ic interest more than religious causes," he says. "Their secular nature is
what is getting them targeted."
The threats and assassinations have had their desired effect. The Iraqi Min
istry of Displacement and Migration estimates that at least 30 percent of a
ll professors, doctors, pharmacists, and engineers in Iraq have fled since
2003. To stem the exodus, the higher-education ministry recently adopted a
policy that requires medical and dental students to work in Iraq for severa
l years after graduation in order to receive their diplomas.
"All the students that graduate go to be employed outside Iraq, so now the
ministry doesn't give them their degree right away," said Ahmad Kamal, pres
ident of the Iraqi Association of University Lecturers and the head of the
physics department at Al-Nahrain University, in Baghdad. "All the students
prefer not to work in Iraq because of the danger." The situation has become
so grave that many graduates have chosen to leave without their diplomas.
Many classes at universities across Iraq are now being taught by underprepa
red master's and Ph.D. students.
"Most of the Iraqi professors do not even know how to use the Internet and
the computer," says one high-ranking administrator at a university in one o
f Iraq's most dangerous regions, who asks not to be identified for fear of
retribution for speaking to an American publication. Two of his colleagues
have been killed in recent weeks, he says. He has had to take over supervis
ion of their graduate students in addition to his already heavy workload.
To overcome staff shortages, many universities in Baghdad have begun poolin
g their resources, says Mousa Jawad Al-Musawi, president of the University
of Baghdad.
"But of course the loss of so many professors definitely will affect the pe
rformance of the university," he says.
According to Mr. Jawad, the political-science professor, more than 100 cour
ses at the university have been canceled this semester for lack of instruct
ors. At Al-Nahrain University, says Mr. Kamal, some departments have lost a
ll their faculty members.
In addition to assassinations, insurgents have bombed university campuses,
killing dozens of students and faculty members. And in their quest to secur
e sectarian enclaves, militias have made universities throughout the countr
y unsafe for anyone of the "wrong" ethnic group.
The higher-education ministry recently decided to allow students and profes
sors to transfer to other universities in the face of such threats. More th
an 1,000 academics and 10,000 students chose that option this year. But an
even larger number of students, especially women, have stopped going to col
lege altogether, with some universities operating at 10 percent to 20 perce
nt of their usual capacity.
The result is a near paralysis of Iraqi universities. Almost all academic r
esearch in Iraq has halted because fieldwork and data collection are nearly
impossible. Even the most mundane activities have become a challenge.
"I spoke to one professor in Mosul, who has a Ph.D. from a British universi
ty, who has no electricity so has to write his academic papers by hand," sa
ys Elizabeth Stone, an archaeologist at the State University of New York at
Stony Brook who has been involved in research and researcher training in I
raq. "Who is going to publish that?"
Sectarian politics have also prevented much-needed funds from reaching univ
ersities. "The budget for the ministry of higher education and four other m
inistries combined is equal to the budget of the office of the prime minist
er to spend at its own discretion, which means bribes," said Isam Khafaji,
an economist and former member of the Iraqi Reconstruction and Development
Council, in Baghdad. "Terrorism is a major cause for the deterioration of t
he higher-education system, but corruption is so widespread that no money i
s coming to the universities."
Sectarian battles have further effects in the classroom. According to a new
Unesco report, academic posts that previously were distributed to Baath Pa
rty loyalists are now being distributed according to sectarian interests.
The same shift in bias can also be found in the way research money is distr
ibuted. "The irony is that under the Baath regime, research grants were giv
en only to members of the Baath Party," Mr. Jawad says. "Now grants are giv
en to members of the sectarian and religious government parties, so nothing
has really changed."
Before the invasion, Mr. Jawad says, he used to "encourage students to anal
yze, to criticize — of course without touching Saddam or his two sons. Bu
t we used to assure them that whatever they say is between the students. No
w you can speak freely about the Baath Party or the Baath experience, but t
here are things, like the sectarian way of thinking or sectarian leaders an
d religious leaders — you cannot touch them or their thinking or even cri
ticize them."
The armed militias that control Iraq have also begun using their power to c
ontrol curricula.
"One Iraqi professor told me how one day, a group of thugs — young men wi
th guns — showed up in her office, demanding that she add certain things
to her curriculum," says Magnus Bernhardsson, an assistant professor of his
tory at Williams College and a member of the American Academic Research Ins
titute in Iraq, who has been involved in various projects with Iraqi academ
ics since 2003. "She was teaching a very traditional humanities syllabus, w
ith Heidegger and Kant, and they demanded she include writing of some radic
al Shia cleric. Needless to say, she complied."
Unfulfilled Promises From America
Many Iraqi professors are frustrated with the unfulfilled promises made by
the U.S. government and American universities.
"In my own college, we received more than 20 to 30 delegations from America
n universities and coalition forces, all giving promises, assuring us they
will help us," Mr. Jawad says. "But we never heard from them again."
American academics who had hoped to help restore Iraq's higher-education sy
stem also despair. They have watched their programs collapse along with the
Iraqi security situation.
Ms. Stone, of Stony Brook, was the recipient of a higher-education-developm
ent grant from the U.S. government to develop training projects for archaeo
logists in Iraq.
"We submitted our final work plan a few days before the contractors were st
rung up in Fallujah," Ms. Stone says, referring to insurgents' murder and m
utilation in March 2004 of four Americans working as security guards. Her p
roject was soon downgraded from three years to one, and then "essentially t
he plug was pulled by the U.S. government" because of security concerns, sh
e says. "We tried to get Iraqi archaeologists to have field opportunities,
but it became too dangerous to do any real fieldwork in Iraq."
The practical difficulties of communicating with Iraqi academics are compou
nded by the danger faced by any Iraqi suspected of collaborating with the A
merican forces.
After having much success with videoconferencing between his students at Wi
lliams and classes at the American University in Cairo and Tel Aviv Univers
ity, Mr. Bernhardsson approached a colleague at the University of Baghdad t
o replicate the project with her students.
"We both agreed that it would be great to get young Iraqis and young Americ
ans to talk, to bring down these political boundaries," he says. But when M
r. Bernhardsson offered to provide her with the necessary technical equipme
nt for the videoconferencing, he was briskly rebuffed.
"She said, 'I think I've had enough of American charity, thank you,' and th
at was the end of it," Mr. Bernhardsson says. "Even having her class associ
ated with some American technology could have a negative affect on their sa
fety."
With going out to buy groceries a matter of life and death, it has also bec
ome difficult to find academics concerned with their careers.
"We planned a training session for the use of satellite imaging in tracking
archaeological sites," Ms. Stone says, "but one of the participants' cousi
ns and family all got blown up a few days before, and he couldn't just leav
e family behind."
Even efforts at remote communication have been hampered by intermittent acc
ess to electricity and phone service in Iraq. "I feel badly not doing more
than I'm doing," Ms. Stone says, "but at a certain point it becomes impossi
ble."
Topsy Smalley, an instruction librarian at Cabrillo College, in California,
got involved with professors in Iraq through a book drive she helped organ
ize for Iraqi universities in 2003. The first flurry of e-mail messages she
received from Iraqi professors were thanks for her books. "The Arabs send
us terrorists to kill us and destroy our country while the Americans send u
s books to help us learn," read one.
But the messages soon turned desperate.
"Terrorists are the master of the city," wrote one high-ranking university
administrator last December, to whom Ms. Smalley had sent books. "I hate to
ask, but I really need your help."
One week later, he wrote: "Yesterday, six persons were killed in my area. T
hree of them are my close friends. They hadn't done anything. They were kil
led because they are teachers."
The following week came another message: "Yesterday was the first time in m
y life I have seen how terrorists kill people. I saw them killing three men
in the middle of the street, then they cut their heads and separated the h
eads from their bodies. It was really horrible."
And in January: "Today one of my friends told me that one of the terrorists
was arrested and there was a list of university professors in his pocket.
My name was on that list. He confessed his task was to kidnap or kill us."
Ms. Smalley has been desperately trying to help the administrator get a job
elsewhere, and has contacted universities in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Bahr
ain, but to no avail."Reaching out counters, but does not erase, the despai
r and constant worry," Ms. Smalley says in an e-mail message.
As her experience illustrates, the dire circumstances in Iraq have left the
majority of Western academics with but one way to help professors: get the
m out of Iraq.
Groups like the Council for Assisting Refugee Academics and the Institute o
f International Education have devoted much of their energy to resettling I
raqi academics who are at risk. The institute says it used to receive about
two requests for help every month from Iraqi academics at the start of the
war. It now gets 40 a week.
"We've been doing this since the 1920s," says Mr. Goodman, the institute's
president. "Our first rescues were from the Bolshevik Revolution. You would
have thought that in the 21st century we wouldn't be still having to do th
is. But this crisis could turn out to exceed all of those — including Sou
th Africa and Nazi Germany — combined."
Despite the good will of universities in Europe and the United States, rese
ttling the professors can be tricky. Although obtaining funds is a challeng
e, the largest problem has proved to be securing visas.
"The U.K. government is hung up on its policy on Iraq," says John Akker, ex
ecutive secretary of the Council for Assisting Refugee Academics. "Because
it believes things will be settled in Iraq and that there are some safe are
as, they are not giving any kind of refugee status to those who have genuin
e fears for their life."
Even if Iraqi academics can get to other countries, it is often difficult t
o place them at universities there. The degradation of Iraqi academe caused
by economic sanctions imposed on the country following the first Persian G
ulf war has prevented most scholars from keeping up with their fields.
On the most basic level, many do not have adequate language skills to inter
act on an American campus. While a few Iraqi professors have found senior p
ositions at American and European universities, and some have been actively
courted, many of them have been given research fellowships or laboratory p
lacements that do not require them teach.
Even those Iraqis who are qualified to teach often face intense discriminat
ion in the job market. "Someone at a center for English-language studies in
Saudi Arabia wrote that the policy there was to not employ Iraqis," Ms. Sm
alley says.
For those fortunate enough to find accommodations, most situations were mea
nt to be temporary, in the hope that the situation in Iraq would improve. B
ut many of their beneficiaries have yet to return home.
"I'm having the Iraqi grad students we admitted doing more complicated proj
ects, some of them TA-ing for Arabic class — anything so they can draw ou
t their stay," says Ms. Stone, who personally raised the funds to subsidize
the four students.
"They want to go home and train people and use their skills, but there is n
o point in training somebody and letting them go home and get killed," she
says. "I don't dare let them go home."
At the age of 60, Mr. Jawad, the political-science professor, feels that it
would be too difficult for him to begin a new life elsewhere, so he has ch
osen to stay in Iraq. "Am I going to beg for some people to give me asylum
or a place to stay?" he asks.
But many of his colleagues have done just that — a trend that will do las
ting damage to the future of higher education in Iraq.
"The numbers that we have lost cannot be replaced easily," Mr. Jawad says.
"These people have 10 to 20 years of experience. How can you replace them w
ith newly graduated students from universities in Baghdad with no experienc
e, with no training abroad, with no foreign languages? It will take at leas
t 20 to 30 years to furnish universities with professors of this caliber ag
ain."