Some posts were deleted because they contained personal attacks and off-topic material. Please be civil and stick to the subject.
Thank you for bringing a sense of decroum to what is otherwise a very serious topic that many think others should know about. It is important to keep this file on Fatih University active as I strongly feel that in the near future people will need to come to it. The information thus far shared about Fatih University has been noted and is filed by many, many people. Unfortunately, this includes names. I still say if you can't take punches, don't throw them.
In terms of the infractions listed by devon, I would like to answer them since I have worked at Fatih University just only a few months ago:
The Chronicle has a tendency to publish announcements from this university as do other academic online sources. One of the principal reasons to avoid this institution is that they lie about what is offered and play games of changing the language around. For ex.:
1: There is NO tenure track at Fatih University even though it has been advertised often as such and still is. There is no tenure, in fact, at all in any of the universities in Turkey. Foreign teachers are given year-to-year contracts that can be non renewed at any time.
That is correct. There is no tenure track at Fatih University. I saw in 2 different places where it advertised that it did have tenure. It does not. Nor does it have permanent positions there for foreigners. The contracts are year to year for them. That is true. You really never know if you're coming back. Fatih University is attempting now to indicate in very vague language that if offers a 1 to 2 year appointment there. Most serious academics certainly want tenure and would only accept a 1 to 2 year appointment if they already have it.
2: It is my understanding that Fatih University has consistently abused the contracts of its foreign staff time and time again.
This is also true. The central problem with Fatih University is that it will change its response to any question from minute to minute, even if the answer is staring you right in the face. There have been 3 professors before me in the same department, a 4th one in another department, whose contracts were "re-interpreted" and which "re-interpreted" them out of getting money owed them. One professor, accused of being a member of the CIA, worked there and is still in Turkey and can be contacted as he is more than willingly to expose the lies of Fatih university.
3: Fatih University has a very strong religious enviornment and couches a secret community of followers of Gulen on campus which has given many of its foreign staff the creeps! No Turkish person in his right mind would teach there unless they support the secret community.
Again, true. What most contributors to these exchanges on Fatih Univ. don't understand is that Fatih University is not a secret toTurkish people. They already know about the controversial and negative reputation of the university. Of all the universities in Turkey, Fatih University is perceived as propagandist and a gentler, kinder fundamentalist outfit. There is a network of adherents to Gulen's movement there, as the university was founded via the movement's money. I knew Turkish professors there who talked of religious meetings and the like on and off campus; I know what I'm talking about. Also, you have to understand that people who are hired at Fatih (who are Turks generally) are leaving other facilities that are controlled or owned by the Gulen movement. There are approximately over 500 such organizations. And as already stated, I have been communicated with by a very prominent author that Fatih Unversity is the equivalent to an Oral Robert's or Jerry Falwell University, take your pick.
4: Fatih University is not popular at all in the country of Turkey because many feel it is an impediment to the country's secularism due to its fundamentalist and sect-oriented beliefs.
Of course, it's an impediment! It was founded by a hyper-religious organization! It is not popular; the image of this university is too tainted.
5: Fatih University is primarily a religious university desguising itself as an institution of higher learning. It is NOT an institution of higher learning.
6: It is a conservative outfit designed to promulgate a conservative, Islamic model by admitting students from conservative, Islamic families most of whom are wealthy.
You have to be careful about teaching at a university with a very strong religious identity, anywhere! The essential reason why is that certain kinds of parameters can and are placed around the research interests of professors who are either atheists or religiously non-practicing, all of which may reflect negatively on such a university's image of itself. And you want to keep something as potentially explosive like sexual orientation to yourself. Declaring an unpopular sexual preference at an over-religious university like Fatih Univ. could be suicide. Another reason why this University is a conservative and hyper-religious institution is not only because there's prayer on campus with an imam present every Friday. But as a Western professor, it would behoove one to watch one's footing. There's a film course of American cinema offered on campus, for example, that might explain the reality there. About 3 years ago, a professor shows his class the film
American Beauty; the students are appalled at what apparently is a masturbation scene in the film. Some storm out of this professor's class, slamming the door and uttering threats. I've not seen the film in so long that I forget where such a scene is. However, the students run to the Chair's and the then Rector's offices complaining of being shown and taught immorality. The professor is reprimanded and is told, as I was told as we all were, to "fast forward" through any such scenes. Well, it happened again. A teacher who's posted recently on this subject showed his students the film
The Believer, a film about a young self-hating Jewish man. There is a 60 second "kissing or skin" segment that surprised the students enough to run to the Chair's office with greivances. The Chair referred to the film, in one meeting, as pornography.
When I taught the course, I had literally to take off my blazer and cover the TV when a brief nude scene or love making or kissing appeared. Even if it were germane to what was being discussed. I did this with the films
Crash,
1984 (the 1984 version) and others. We all censored for our students such scenes, an action we thought was ridiculous. But because we wanted our jobs, we complied.
It was very difficult lecturing and observing your moral footing at the same time, hoping that the students would approve you and not run and make up some unlikely story about you before the Chair or the Rector. It was all so foolish.
7: Fatih University is constantly advertising positions because their foreign staff are constantly leaving them! They can brag about their impressive website, but beware!!....
Yes, the staff do rotate more than it should it the 6 year stint of this university. I'm not sure devon was referring to this professor. But a young man and his wife arrived at the university the same year as I did teaching in computer science. He left without a word in December without administering final exams or telling anyone about his departure. I felt sorry for him because he was often perplexed by the behavior of the students i.e., the extreme laziness, the shouting and demanding for breaks, the truancy, the lack of English (Fatih purports to be an English instruction university; it is. But the students and admins barely know the language). Another professor, Russian, came last year, saw the erratic and whimsical behavior of the university and got back on the plane for Moscow! Judge for yourself.
8: About 4 years ago, Fatih University has previously got into trouble by allowing female students to wear religious scarves to which the Ministry of Education there forbade them to allow new students, all based around the belief that Fatih University secretly wants to introduce "Sharia" slowly into the society. This is why this university is suspect, highly suspect, because of its conservative, appearing moderate, Islamic model.
This is true. In Turkey, everybody knows this. At this point in the discussion on Fatih University, you have to be smoking crack in order to apply there. One of the posters asked "why don't the foreigners who work at Fatih University speak about these problems, if they're that bad? etc." Duh! The answer is so obvious. They're afraid. And, as they say, you can't prove a negative. This is not directed towards anyone in particular, but many of them have already endangered their academic careers through such a complicity. I know this for a fact.
But as I continue to maintain, if you lack integrity or an ethical side, you lack conscience. Which is why it's so important to create a discussion around the university in question, regardless of who participates or what is said. And sure, you can't make somebody possess integrity, be ethical or have a sense of fair play. We can already cite those who pay wonderful lip service to claiming such like your Mel Gibsons, Ted Haggards or Mark Foleys, people who present a deliberate mask of PCness for whatever personal self-interests while harboring that something so sinister.
I appreciate the moderator stepping in here on this subject of Fatih university. Because a lot of important lessons have been learned and delicate points made.
