Power to the People: University Democratisation in the Light of the Egyptian Revolution Hala Kamal May 2011 UCU – UK.

Power to the People:University Democratisation

in the Light of the Egyptian Revolution

Hala KamalMay 2011UCU – UK

Cairo University

Academics March from Cairo University to Tahrir

11 February 2011

“Alsha’b khalaas asqat al-nizaam”

Slogans of the Revolution

The People Want to Bring Down The Regime

Bread – Freedom – DignityJustice – Freedom – Dignity

Freedom – Dignity – Social JusticeChange – Freedom – Social Justice

Tahrir Square11 February 2011

Egyptian Universities’ General Meeting17 February 2011

• Ousting the Minister of Higher Education• End state security personnel presence on campuses• Removal of all University Presidents involved with the

fallen regime• Resolve all University Club Boards and Student

Unions appointed by the fallen regime• Establish elections on faculty management and

student union levels• Form independent monitoring committees on faculty

and university levels• Support junior faculty members’ fair demands, and

democratically elected student union demands • Raising national higher education and research

budgets

March9 StandCairo University Dome

4 April 2011

In Defense of the University• Keep military forces and security personnel not

belonging to university civil security off campus• Ousting all anti-revolution university top

administration• End unacceptable threats to faculty members• Appointment of all junior faculty rejected on

security grounds• Cancelling all punishments issued in the past

years against faculty and students for freedom of expression and thought

• Apology from university presidents for collaboration with State Security

Academics’ Demands

• Ousting the Minister of Higher Education• Raising national higher education and research

budgets• Removal of all University Presidents and Deans

appointed by the fallen regime, and establishing appointment through elections

• Supporting junior faculty and student demands

التدريس هيئة ألعضاء الموحد االئتالف في المشاركة والمجموعات الحركاتالمصرية :بالجامعات

أجل • • من جامعيون المنصورة بجامعة التدريسومعاونيهم هيئة أعضاء اتحادحركة • أبريل 16اإلصالح

العام• • المؤتمر عن المنبثقة اللجنة شمس عين جامعة استقالل حركةبنها بجامعة

الجامعات• ) استقالل أجل من العمل (9مجموعة مارس

Dean Replacement

Faculty (Arts)

Dean Elections• Subversion• Mibilisation• General Meetings• Alternatives• Survey• Democratic Committee• Timeline/Action plan

Students (Mass-media)

Ousting the Dean• Sit-in • Hunger strike• Statements• Faculty support• Exposing survey claim• Continued sit-in (80 days)• Negotiation

Revolution on CampusTowards Dean Election

Faculty of Arts, Cairo University

General background:•Dean’s term ends July 2011•Official campus anti-democratic plans• Faculty Council’s Role•General Faculty Meetings: alternatives• Building (on) Consensus: Dean Elections• Defining and following objective(s)

21 March General Meeting•A meeting was widely announced and held on March 21, attended by over 50 faculty members as well as a number of junior staff and students•Administration’s project unanimously rejected• Alternative ideas discussed• General agreement on the principle of Dean election; variations as to University President and Head of Department selection• Formation of committee working towards elections• Participants agree to attend the administration’s “wide meeting” and insist on Dean election

23 March Meeting•Vice-Dean called to a “workshop” to discuss The New University Law•Meeting attended by around 120 faculty members and junior staff •Committee had met earlier to coordinate and set a unified position, focusing on Dean elections •Majority insists on focusing discussion on Dean elections • General agreement that Deans should be appointed through election, there were variations as to:

-who can run for Dean? -who can vote?

Questionnaire

• Vice-Dean’s decision to set a questionnaire• Decision to handle the questionnaires on

departmental level• We asked that 3 members of our Committee join

the general faculty questionnaire committee • Some departments held group discussions of the

questionnaire• The results came reassuring, with the vast majority

insisting on Dean elections

28 April Letter

• The questionnaire committee was supposed to meet and issue its report on April 18.

• Meeting to issue a letter to the Dean asking him to set a date for election based on the questionnaire result

• We collected signatures of around 120 faculty members and a delegation handed it to the Dean on May 4

• The formation of Faculty of Arts Democratic Committee

• Next day the administration held a poorly advertised meeting to announce the results

5 May Meeting• The Vice-Dean presented the results of the questionnaire• Committee pressed for setting a timeline towards

elections:- Runners for Dean to announce their candidatures- A general meeting for all candidates to be held on

May 26 in the same time and place- Elections to be held on a Saturday in the second half of June- An official report on the meeting to be sent to Departments

asking them to nominate a member from each department to the Election Committee (in charge of the voting process)

• Two professors announced their intention to run for Dean

دعوةالعريضة الخطوط لمناقشة

االنتخابى للبرنامجمن المقدم

  . أبوبكر. رندة د أ

 اآلداب كلية عميدة لمنصب المترشحة

يونيو ) القادمة االنتخابات (2011فى 

اإلثنين الساعة – 16يوم A 11مايو صباحابالكلية المؤتمرات بقاعة

Challenges and Prospects

Challenges

• The appointment of Deans lies in the hands of the University President

• The Minister’s project• Anti-democratic forces

on campus• No precedence

Prospects

• University President to appoint elected Deans

• Minister declared the change of all University Presidents and Deans by the end of this term

• Setting a model of a democratic process of Dean selection

“Students are shaped by their experiences in schools to internalize or accept a subjectivity and a class position that leads to the reproduction of existing power relationships and social and economic structures.”

(Kathleen Weiler, Women Working for Change: Gender, Class and Power, p. 6)

Faculty and Students Together

• Faculty members and students shared struggle

• Democratisation Process• Acknowledgement of students demands• Statements of support• Supporting students’ sit ins• Addressing university and state powers• Hand in hand for a democratic university for

faculty and students

Dean Replacement

Faculty (Arts)

Dean Elections• Subversion• Mobilisation• General Meetings• Alternatives• Survey• Democratic Committee• Timeline/Action plan

Students (Mass-media)

Ousting the Dean• Sit-in • Hunger strike• Statements• Faculty support• Exposing survey claim• Media coverage• Negotiation

Students’ Struggle: Faculty of Communications and Mass Media

• An 80-day sit-in to bring down the Dean• Professors and Students hand in hand• Statements and action of support• Students (hunger strike), Faculty (strike)• Students recreating Tahrir on campus• State interventions:– violence (28 March)– negotiations (22 May)

• Celebration

Intasarna We have won

Celebrations23 May 2011

Concluding Remarks• Insistence on University Independence, Autonomy

and Academic Freedoms• Involvement in Dean and President democratic

selection ensures academic freedom• By practicing democracy we encourage the future

generations in turn to learn and practice democracy• We support student struggles• We explain our struggles to students without using

them to support our demands• Working for university democratisation empowers

academics and students and consequently the society at large

“It is upon the belief in each person’s ability to understand and critique his or her own experience and the social reality ‘out there’ that any project of pedagogical and ultimately social transformation rests.”

(Kathleen Weiler, Women Working for Change: Gender, Class and Power, p. 23)