University presidents

The last few weeks have been busy on the university front. It started when a new fracas broke out at Yarmouk University, followed by a visit by the king to the University of Jordan, where he met with the presidents of the public universities in the country. The king told the presidents to prepare a five year plan for the upgrading of their institutions. He also emphasized the need to prevent student violence.

After having treated previous student violence through trivializing the issue, the presidents found that this violence is actually a serious matter. It seems, however, that this new found sincerity is too late.

The buzz is now that a wholesale change in the presidents of the universities is in the cards. Many would agree that change is needed at this stage. However, it should be noted that the current mess has its roots in a similar endeavor three years ago. At the time of prime minister Faisal Fayez, the minister of higher education decided to fire seven university presidents at once. Previously, changes in university administrations had been done on a case-by-case basis. Experience has shown that most of the presidents fired three years ago were much more capable than the ones who replaced them. Three years ago, no question would have ever been raised about the credibility of Jordanian university degrees. Now, such questions are in fact on the table.

Choosing a university president is not an easy task. In the west, the process takes months of deliberations, advertising for candidates, studying CV’s, listening to presentations, conducting interviews, discussing plans until the final decision is made. Note that this is for only one president.

In Jordan, the process is opaque. Certain names with links to certain politicians have an inside track. No CV’s will be examined, no visions presented, and probably no examination that will ascertain that the candidate knows English (which is a requirement to get accepted into a masters’ program, but not a requirement to be a university president).

So now, we are listening to rumors, which change hourly. Soon we will have the new names, and how they managed to get themselves chosen. If we are lucky, the process will produce a group of illustrious academicians with proven track records who can lead the universities towards distinction. Unfortunately, repeating the same experiment of three years ago will most probably yield the same results. I am not optimistic.