CAIRO - Universities across the nation have turned into a boiling cauldron. Angry students and rebellious professors are protesting on campus, threatening to disband only when pro-Mubarak professors and teachers are gone. The so-called university battle is one of a series of upheavals in the wake of the revolution. The battle started in Cairo University, apart from the religious Al-Azhar University the oldest in the country. Students at Cairo University, Egypt's biggest public university, wanted to oust the university's president, his close aides as well as spokesman (the Dean of the Faculty of Mass Communication). When the students refused to temper their anger, university officials tried to buy time by postponing the studies. The students even refused to calm down when the new Minister of Higher Education Amr Ezzat Salama joined them on the campus. They told him that they would not leave before ‘the legacy of the old regime was eradicated' and new faces were brought in. They presented Salama with a list of professors and administrators who had to go. Their determination persuaded Salama to withdraw immediately. The Mubarak regime has been accused of ruling the country with an iron fist, abusing power and frustrating freedom of expression. There are growing public calls for prosecuting Mubarak family members and their cronies over allegedly large-scale systematic corruption. The standoff at Cairo University was immediately announced on Twitter and Facebook, reaching colleagues in other universities. Nonetheless, a university in Upper Egypt managed to duck and survive the blowing winds: in Assiut University the beleaguered deans, professors and teachers submitted their resignations. The Supreme Council of Universities, responsible for higher education in Egypt, was held responsible for the growing crisis. The SCU came under fire for its alleged refusal to act swiftly and defuse the tension. Anti-Mubarak voices claimed that the SCU should have recognised the revolutionary fervour and asked university presidents and deans to resign. Defending the SCU's stance, its trustees reminded the angry voices of a decision taken earlier about disbanding the Student Union and holding new elections within 60 days. Dr Salwa el-Gharib, the chairwoman of the council, explained that the situation got worse when the students called for the removal of all university presidents to close the chapter of the Mubarak era once and for all. Most of her colleagues appear to be willing to give in to the students' mounting pressure. But the Dean of Cairo University's Faculty of Mass Communication is resolutely fighting with tooth and nail. Vowing to resist calls for his resignation and fight to his last breath, Sami Abdel-Aziz, the embattled dean of the Mass Communication Faculty, called in the military police to dismiss protesting students when they allegedly stormed his office. Abdel-Aziz is said to have acted as a spin doctor for the moribund National Democratic Party. He also seems to have betrayed his students when he propagated visions and ideas widely different from the contents of his textbooks. In response to his challenging stance, his students, supported by a good number of faculty professors, threatened to intensify their pressure until he would give in and leave for good.
