CAIRO - With the major changes sweeping Egypt two months after the anti-Mubarak revolt, university students keep a high profile in effecting what they see as necessary reforms on the campus. Over the past three weeks, the Faculty of Mass Communication, Cairo University, has been rocked by protests against the dean of the institution and the whole management team, whom they regard as counter-revolutionaries and lackeys of the former regime. Though the same turmoil hit several other faculties, in the Faculty of Mass Communication it is different with death threats allegedly made against lecturers, students going on an open-ended hunger strike and a rising dispute among academics of the very same faculty. “The whole problem lies in the crisis mismanagement by Professor Sami Abdel Aziz (the dean of the Faculty of Mass Communication) and his team,” said Awatef Abdel Rahman, a professor of journalism. Dozens of students and teaching staff members have picketed outside the building of the Faculty of Mass Communication, holding up banners against Abdel Aziz, an ex-member of the formerly ruling National Democratic Party, who is accused of criticising the January 25 revolution. Abdel Aziz, who just got the post last year, has so far balked at calls from the students to quit, totally ignoring the support that many lecturers lent to the student's demands. The crisis seems to deepen with each side sticking to his opinion. On the one hand, many lecturers ��" particularly from the journalism department ��" have joined the students calling for Abdel Aziz to step down. On the other, Abdel Aziz and the administration of the Cairo University, Egypt's biggest public university are reluctant to accept the students' demands. Abdel Aziz has a cause to fight for, as he put it, because he believes that students cannot be given the privilege to impose or change laws. “It's impossible to replace a dictatorship by another,” Abdel Aziz told The Gazette in a phone interview. “I want anyone of my dear students or my colleagues to tell me what my ‘accusation' is," he added. “No one should judge me for my political views and it's entirely alien to democracy to discriminate against people on the basis of their views. There must be more respect to laws.” “Abdel Aziz is a public figure and he is judged for what he says inside and outside his lectures. There can be no separation in such a case, particularly with the noble message of teaching students how to think,” explained Abdel Rahman, the veteran professor of journalism. “He should give the opportunity to maintain the minimum level of respecting him as an academic,” Dina Allam, a third year student in the Faculty of mass Communication, told this newspaper. “He is an outstanding professor when it comes to marketing, but I'm not sure if I can trust his opinions anymore, bearing in mind his questionable political views.” The Cairo University's board Wednesday said they had turned down Abdel Aziz's resignation and dismissed students' call for his ouster as “alien to university traditions” worldwide. For a majority of the students and graduates of the Faculty of Mass Communication, the most important lesson that they learn through their four years on the campus is to formulate their own perspectives and then work to be as objective as possible while contributing to the public's minds. With this in mind, you can see how problematic things can get when you suspect the intentions or the honesty of your lecturer. “I feel very sad that innocent students were caught in the middle way of an academic conflict,” Abdel Aziz said, implying that the whole issue in his institution is stirred by a number of lecturers who are against him allegedly for personal reasons. Putting Abdel Aziz's argument forward to some of the lecturers who are on the side of the protesting students, their responses are unequivocal. “There is a new legitimacy now after the revolution; a legitimacy that supports freedom and it has become impossible for a management board that belongs to the ex-regime to stay in power,” Sherif Darwish, a professor of Journalism in the same institution, said bluntly. “When students see the dean of their faculty praising the farce of the recent parliamentary elections and describe it as the most democratic elections, how are they expected to believe in any of what he says,” Darwish wandered.
