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[clyde]

Dear all,

Recent events at Fatih are deeply disturbing, indeed. Unfortunately, they are not uncharacteristic vis-a-vis the heavy-handed treatment doled out to foreign faculty at other private Turkish universities--past and present. The problem is more complex I think than mere (religious) ideology, unfortunately. In fact, I think it was a well-organized department of foreign faculty, working three days a week, doing research (or claiming to) the other two days that pushed too many Turkish buttons. I think the policies and practices of both my department and the English Language and Literature Department, however much we all produced in the classroom--typing our little fingers to the bone at home and at school--gave the wrong impression. Personally, I did not get a Ph.D. only to end up working in, or for, a bank. For the record: I do not support at all what the university has done. To be frank, I think it's short-sighted of the administration to have fired so many qualified and dedicated foreign faculty, star faculty in some cases whose only real crime was doing their jobs too well. How different is this from any corporation, and that is the problem of private universities--and not only Fatih--that a corporate model reigns supreme.

Certainly, I am not too big to admit to being wrong. Until now, I was inclined to give Fatih the benefit of the doubt, to wait and see, and not to rush to judgment. I'm disappointed by the stupidity of it all. In a word, I am appalled.

Clyde   

[jtsmr]

Dear all,

Recent events at Fatih are deeply disturbing, indeed. Unfortunately, they are not uncharacteristic vis-a-vis the heavy-handed treatment doled out to foreign faculty at other private Turkish universities--past and present. The problem is more complex I think than mere (religious) ideology, unfortunately. In fact, I think it was a well-organized department of foreign faculty, working three days a week, doing research (or claiming to) the other two days that pushed too many Turkish buttons. I think the policies and practices of both my department and the English Language and Literature Department, however much we all produced in the classroom--typing our little fingers to the bone at home and at school--gave the wrong impression. Personally, I did not get a Ph.D. only to end up working in, or for, a bank. For the record: I do not support at all what the university has done. To be frank, I think it's short-sighted of the administration to have fired so many qualified and dedicated foreign faculty, star faculty in some cases whose only real crime was doing their jobs too well. How different is this from any corporation, and that is the problem of private universities--and not only Fatih--that a corporate model reigns supreme.

Certainly, I am not too big to admit to being wrong. Until now, I was inclined to give Fatih the benefit of the doubt, to wait and see, and not to rush to judgment. I'm disappointed by the stupidity of it all. In a word, I am appalled.

Clyde   

Déjà vu?

Firstly, let me state that I sympathize with you Canadiandude and those fired with cause or provocation.  Let me also point out that this thread "Avoid Fatih University at All Costs" is now an important option for those people unceremoniously dismissed to recount any greivances they may have.

But the question is Is anyone surprised?  I was told this news of the massive firings at Fatih University.  I was neither surprised nor stunned.  Upon hearing this, I made a few phone calls to Turkey to two universities both of which have heard of the firings and, ironically, were not surprised themselves.

I recall that when the question of the status my Ph.D. was being conspiratorially tossed about by some of the foreign faculty, I was aware of what was going on and, more irony, was informed so by two Turkish professors, one of whom was the Chair.  I could have stayed at Fatih University, actually.  All the Dean wanted were signatures of my committee.  I was then offered a teaching instructor post which I refused.  I decided against staying as I was wasting my time doing nothing at Fatih, missing critical conferences, opportunities for valid research, networking here and abroad and establishing solid academic career pursuits.

It isn't so much that none of the above are impossible in Turkish higher ed.  It's more the lack of a substantive network base that can make the above nearly impossible to attain.  There's a reason why things happen, and thank God I left!

It's refreshing to read your post, Clyde.  I know that you and I and others would spend many, many, many a beer discussing the corruption and unscrupulous behavior at Fatih University.  Now that the chickens have come home to roost, I wonder what new and glowing narratives the foreign staff, the remaining foreign staff--walk on eggshells!--are willing to proffer about Fatih University?  I just wonder.

I would differ in noting that there are many private universities in Turkey that don't have Fatih University's unprincipled whimsies and that would probably be insulted being compared to it.

Fortuanately, I got to know many of the Turkish staff of different departments at Fatih many of whom were, and apparently still are, suspicious of our every move.  One Turkish professor asked me once in his office why my then Chair was hiring so many Canadians.  I didn't know that the Chair was doing so.  However, this Turkish professor obviously made note of this. 

The point is that we should have known from the start that some were "interpreting" our behaviour, "scrutinizing" our behaviour and "evaluating" it.  And, Clyde, as you know, this means off campus as well.  I understand that you're leaving, so this may not sound pertinent but it is because you can share it with other people:  The moment "we" get on the shuttle and from the time we get off the shuttle, "we" should keep our mouths shut, not only about who are/were f***ing, male or female but also about our attitudes towards our students, the Dean and the culture in general. I was also surprised to hear some of the faculty so loosely and casually talk openly around Turkish students, the same-sex marriage they intended to have or how having sex with students was not an issue for one prof, now leaving. Such comments should have been kept away not only from shuttle rides back and forth, but from the campus itself!  This is a safeguard measure as many Turks already suspect foreign staff to be agents of the FBI or Homeland Security, bless their hearts.

When I told my landlady that I was leaving Turkey, primarily due to contractual dispute, she looked me in the eye and said of the 40 years she's been renting to teachers, none of them ever knew if they were returning; and many of them left because their contracts were not renewed.  Therefore, it is not shortsighted of the administration NOT to renew anyone's contract, Turk or non-Turk.  I certainly am not supporting Fatih University's decision to let so many people go with little or no time for a plan B. I, too, find it appalling and immoral.  But working at Fatih University as a foreigner only allows for a multiple contracting position with no guarantee of continued and/or consecutive employment.  It's Russian Roulette. However, brown-nosing and ass-kissing are not prohibited if one wants to maintain steady work at Fatih.

And describing staff as "dedicated" or "talented," as you know, mean absolutely nothing to an institution where there's no tenure or affirmative action department.  Unfortunately, you are at the mercy of that institution doing the contractual hiring.  And certainly the current egregious behaviour at Fatih University couldn't give a f*** about one of its  "talented," "dedicated" star academics, especially if it's yabanci staff.

Incidentally, two foreign professors I know working at other private universities have decided not to return to Turkey once hearing this about Fatih and the bloody shootings at the US consulate.

Again, it is unfortunate that this has happened.  It isn't surprising, though.

Plus ça change c'est plus la même chose!

But With a wink of devil-may-care, she returns to a quiet,  herbal pomegranate tea unfazed, unsurprised ;)

[jtsmr]

The above should read those "fired without cause . . ."

[witness]

Having been at Farty University for some time in the recent past, I will add my few bucks worth to the wholly deserved criticisms of the place posted here. 

I did not like the university at all; its atmosphere was constantly one of paranoia, suspicion, tension and fear.  Having been at Farty, I feel as though I have had a taste of what it must have been like to live in Germany in the 1930s as a person unsympathetic to the regime.  My understanding and indeed experience of academia prior to Farty had always been that the university is an institution is a place of free intellectual inquiry and freedom of speech and expression.  Don’t expect to be agreed with one hundred per cent, all of the time, but feel comfortable that whatever your views and positions, everyone would respect your right to hold and express them.  Anyone going to Farty University will not find any such atmosphere there.  I am happy to have left when I did. Farty University was not a place I wanted to hang around in.

As to the Gulen movement, all I can say is secretive and paranoid, politically motivated religious sects are not my thing, be they Islamic, Christian or whatever.  Seeing the Gulenists fairly close up, but as very much an outsider, they put me in mind of the Freemasons (though I fear they are rather worse than that, for the Masons don’t want to make the rest of us indulge in funny handshakes and all the rest of it).  Political Islam does want to tell you how to live your life and will probably blow you up or behead you if you attempt to resist. 

More mundanely; being a member of the community was a very definite advantage at Farty University, and hiring and promotions and general advantage would always go to members rather then non-members, regardless of qualification, experience and suitability for the post in question. 

Beyond that, I am not fooled by the smiling and kindly face of progressive Islam that they, with the aid of careful airbrushing and skilful PR, display.  Even the briefest summary of Gulenist views show that whilst on the one hand, they believe that Islam must embrace technology and modernity and so forth, if it is to grow in the present, on the other they also believe that politics and political decision making processes should be influenced by religious principles and beliefs.  In a broader Islamic context, that sounds to me a lot like theocracy and sharia of some form or another, and thus not at all the type of regime that I would like to live under. 

The latest developments appear to have been the formation of a new Board of Trustees who can only be described as anti-academic, anti-intellectual and despotically hostile to any dissent from their view of what a university is and how it should be run.  Add to that a new Dean who appears to be of the same ilk.  Throughout the time I was there, there was a constant background noise of plans to have all faculty teach four or more courses per semester (without any salary increase to reflect the higher teaching load) and be required to be present in their offices from eight til five, Monday through Friday. These threats were always presented in an aggressive tone. 

This was accompanied by an endless buzz that hummed to the tune of all foreign faculty, merely by virtue of being foreign, were a bunch of shysters on holiday who spent all of their time when not at the university, hanging around bars in central Istanbul and generally not acting in professional ways.  These threats and views were constantly hanging in the air and obviously a key factor in shaping the atmosphere of paranoia and insecurity that characterizes the place. 

Regarding the foreign faculty, I can vouch categorically for the falsity of the above cited view.  My non-Turkish colleagues were good professionals and a good bunch of people who constantly did their best to provide what they believe to be the type and level of education that should characterize an institution of higher learning.  And they were doing that in an environment that is the very opposite of conducive to it.

Day to day working life was characterized by having one’s time endlessly wasted as a result of administrative and bureaucratic incompetence of often surreal proportions.  Double and triple booked classrooms, audio-visual equipment that never worked, the inability to buy an air ticket inside two months and then get the wrong one.  The list is endless.  And let's not even mention the library, which is evidently the result of some sort of practical joke.

Farty is not a university in any meaningful sense of that term, and if there is a more unprofessional, inefficient and incompetent institution of higher education on earth, I would be very surprised.  What they do appear to be good at, however, is treating non-Gulenist staff, foreign and Turkish, like dirt.

This thread began by declaring ‘Avoid Fatih University at all costs.’  I am afraid that my experiences and knowledge of the place leave me with nothing else to say other than that I second that motion.  If you are a person committed to the values of democracy, freedom of speech and expression, and of tolerance and freedom of intellectual enquiry; if you are a professional who expects the people and the environment around you to hold and operate in terms of an ideal of professionalism either the same as yours or equivalent to it; Fatih University is indeed best avoided.

Don’t go there, no matter how desperate you are for a job, don’t go there, because surely you don’t hate yourself that much that you want to spend a year or two of your life attempting to teach educationally sub-normal religious bigots and being treated like dirt by people who operate at an ethical and moral level more appropriate to the average pigsty; and saying that is an insult to pigs.  And no matter how crap you are as an academic, or indeed as a human being, you are still too good for Farty University.

[jtsmr]

Having been at Farty University for some time in the recent past, I will add my few bucks worth to the wholly deserved criticisms of the place posted here. 

I did not like the university at all; its atmosphere was constantly one of paranoia, suspicion, tension and fear.  Having been at Farty, I feel as though I have had a taste of what it must have been like to live in Germany in the 1930s as a person unsympathetic to the regime.  My understanding and indeed experience of academia prior to Farty had always been that the university is an institution is a place of free intellectual inquiry and freedom of speech and expression.  Don’t expect to be agreed with one hundred per cent, all of the time, but feel comfortable that whatever your views and positions, everyone would respect your right to hold and express them.  Anyone going to Farty University will not find any such atmosphere there.  I am happy to have left when I did. Farty University was not a place I wanted to hang around in.

As to the Gulen movement, all I can say is secretive and paranoid, politically motivated religious sects are not my thing, be they Islamic, Christian or whatever.  Seeing the Gulenists fairly close up, but as very much an outsider, they put me in mind of the Freemasons (though I fear they are rather worse than that, for the Masons don’t want to make the rest of us indulge in funny handshakes and all the rest of it).  Political Islam does want to tell you how to live your life and will probably blow you up or behead you if you attempt to resist. 

Farty is not a university in any meaningful sense of that term, and if there is a more unprofessional, inefficient and incompetent institution of higher education on earth, I would be very surprised.  What they do appear to be good at, however, is treating non-Gulenist staff, foreign and Turkish, like dirt.

This thread began by declaring ‘Avoid Fatih University at all costs.’  I am afraid that my experiences and knowledge of the place leave me with nothing else to say other than that I second that motion.  If you are a person committed to the values of democracy, freedom of speech and expression, and of tolerance and freedom of intellectual enquiry; if you are a professional who expects the people and the environment around you to hold and operate in terms of an ideal of professionalism either the same as yours or equivalent to it; Fatih University is indeed best avoided.

Don’t go there, no matter how desperate you are for a job, don’t go there, because surely you don’t hate yourself that much that you want to spend a year or two of your life attempting to teach educationally sub-normal religious bigots and being treated like dirt by people who operate at an ethical and moral level more appropriate to the average pigsty; and saying that is an insult to pigs.  And no matter how crap you are as an academic, or indeed as a human being, you are still too good for Farty University.

LOL!!! Witness, this is probably the best post on Avoiding Fatih University yet. 

Nonetheless, in a two hour conversation last night with a Turkish friend still working at Fatih University, whose name and department I'll withold, I was told some very interesting commentary about the firings which I'll post here:

* The Gulenist community on campus, before firing over 60 persons, comprehensively studied the files and backgrounds of each of them;

* There was nothing random about the firings.

* These firings have been in process for the past two years.

* Those persons in no way affiliated with Gulen and his movement were constantly being spied upon and tipped-off to the Gulenist administration.

* Those faculty fired were petitioned secretly to be fired by students and some Turkish Gulenist professors.  This is the case especially of foreign faculty.

* Private telephone conversations of non-Gulenist Turks and foreigners in the past have been bugged and recorded. 

* Gulenist students who attend Gulenist faith-based meetings are encouraged to befriend and keenly observe their foreign professors and to make notes mental and otherwise of dissenting lectures, aggressive behaviour, sexual orientations, and dress, especially of foreign women.

* The administration, the bulk of which is Gulen based, doesn't give or care a damn about its foreign faculty or those unaffiliated with the Gulenist movement.


These are the notes that I took and more from my conversation.  It is, again, unfortunate that this massive firing took place.  If anything, it should alert foreign staff to be alert, settle your differences and get the hell out of there!!  To be fired and to look for another job in the same country is a lot of work, especially at this time of year.  If I can be of any help on this end, do PM me.

There may also be lawsuits in the making here.  I'm not sure there's anything anyone can do, but consulting your respective consulates is a start.  Posting your observations and grievances here can remind the rest of the world of the bulls*** at Fatih University.

[witness]

jtsmr

Thank you for your commendation of my post.  All I can say is that what I wrote was a sketch of what Farty University seemed to be to me during the time I was there.  I agree with what you say about using this messageboard further to warn others who might consider going there in the future what they would be getting themselves into; and I also think that a campaign against the place, that would ensure that the entire international academic community knows exactly what kind of an institution Farty is, would be a valuable service to all concerned.

As to your report of what you have learned about the recent purge, I cannot vouch for its truth, but I can well believe it.  It sounds exactly like the modus operandi of an institution run by a secretive, paranoid and deeply duplicitous politico-religious cult.

When writing my initial post, I had taken no more than a cursory look over previous posts.  Now I have read them, and the case against Farty is strong indeed; and in the light of the recent firings, it is likely to be a lot more difficult for the few voices for the defence to make much of a case.  Some of Farty’s defenders seem to have worked there.  If so, all I can say is they must have spent their entire time there walking about with their eyes and ears closed.

One recent poster (Clyde) mentions that there are all too often similar unprofessional and unethical goings on at other Turkish private universities.  True enough, but in those, what does go on won’t have been skewed through the gangsterism, paranoia and rage for moral purity of the adherents of the Gulen cult.

A quick Google search will find a great many hagiographic websites telling the world about what a great guy Fethullah Gulen is and how he has been sent to us by Allah to spread a message of peace and humanity.  Well, one can only assume, on the basis of attitudes and activities of Gulenists at Farty, that peace is not intended for anyone who does not buy the Gulenist propaganda and holds views that are not in line with those pumped out by the Gulen PR machine, and that humanity does not include gays, lesbians, secularists, liberals, women who don’t cover themselves, and so on.

For an alternative view from the one espoused by the Gulen worshipping websites, check out jihadwatch.org

Within Turkey and Turkish academia particularly, Farty is regarded as a dangerous rogue institution, which is tacitly denied access to the secular academic community, and one that a great many would be more than happy to see disappear.

Those who follow what is going on in Turkey will know that the governing AKP is currently on trial in the Constitutional Court, accused of attempting to undermine the secular constitution of Turkey. If they are found guilty and disbanded, and thus thrown out of government, it is to be hoped that the secular establishment will comedown equally hard on all institutions involved in the covert promotion of political Islam.

Some five or so years ago Farty was prevented from admitting new students, in punishment for infringement of the laws banning the headscarf from university campuses.  It may be (one hopes so) that Farty is about to be subject to another clampdown as part of the Turkish State’s clean up operation against the poison of political Islam seeping its insidious way through the country’s body politic.

If so, that would indeed be justice of a kind for the ‘Fatih 60’ and appropriate punishment for Farty’s offences against democracy, freedom of speech and expression, and higher education.

[jtsmr]

As to your report of what you have learned about the recent purge, I cannot vouch for its truth, but I can well believe it.  It sounds exactly like the modus operandi of an institution run by a secretive, paranoid and deeply duplicitous politico-religious cult.

Hi, Witness!  Yes, the above is true.  I was told it all a few nights ago.  Though I no longer am at Fatih University, I still know and am in contact with a few persons, Turk and non-Turk, who work there as I still am in contact with Turkish friends and colleagues non-affiliated with Fatih University.  You should see my phone bill!!

Like you, none of the above reasons for unrenewed-at-the-last-minute contracts surprise me.  And none of Fatih's sureptitious behaviour alarms me.  This thread has been up for at least two years now, and it seems that some of the posters who had sung Fatih's glory haave changed their singing.  I respect this, though I initially found their arguments specious and disingenuous.  I am, therefore, amazed that some are amazed at the mass firings at Fatih University.

Some of the issues with the foreign staff, and they've been warned about this a thousand times, is that when you choose not to cultivate an understanding of the local culture, the people or the language, you damn yourself.  Without having worked on these, networking with the Turkish milieu is impossible.  I found that, in fact, in Turkey in order to switch universities for another teaching position, you have to know people.  But if you're Turkophobic, this is also impossible.

I have no idea how the foreign faculty who were fired will resolve this issue of not having academic work.  I know, and I say again I KNOW that they realize that their Yabancilara Hamahsus iKamet Terskezi, their foreign work permits, expires within 4 to 8 weeks!!!!  Many of the foreign fired have until September.  And if they think that can randomly submit their CVs to any university in Turkey, well, they can.  But they will have to convince those universities to hire and sponsor them.  It's not an easy thing to do.  This is the challenge that the foreign fired staff faces.

I agree, too, Witness, that this thread can play an invaluable role for those persons, Turk and non-Turk, who were  inexplicably fired.  One thing you're right about, which was mention on this thread before, is that other universities know quite well what Fatih University represents.  I just hope those academics coming to Fatih University between the 15 and 18 of July for the International Humanities Conference are aware of the abuse, injustice, academic terrorism promulgated by this university.

Great post, though, Witness

[mikana]

As one of the "survivors" of the recent purge at Fatih I count myself at once both blessed and cursed. Blessed because I appear to have a little more time to put money in the bank and to find a new position in a more leisurely way than those of my colleagues who got the push. Cursed because when one cathects the recent dismissals, many voluntary departures for more salubrious climes in the past two years and the university's apparent policy of not hiring replacements, I am bound to have to teach more and thereby do less research in an environment contaminated by fear and uncertainty.

But I am unworried. Perhaps my relative equanimity in the face of things comes from having gotten the push before in my rather long career. Maybe it arises from my original understanding when I came to Fatih that a one year contract is just that, one year, and so each year I have prepared myself for the possibility of termination and relocation, saving money and publishing. And it is important to remember here that the university acted as legally as any Turkish employer ever acts, and that the Ivy League schools in the US regularly hire assistant professors into "tenure track" positions then give them the shove when contract renewal or tenure comes up. Possibly, I have lived and worked too long and too variously across cultures to ever think I know what is "really" going on and have thus made the temporary a core term of my existence.

Whatever.

What I DO know, however, is that to the best of my knowledge, of the 50-60 who got the push, only 4 are foreign faculty who by virtue of their educations and passports have many more choices at this time than do the many Turks who got the push. These people -- faculty, administrative staff and graduate assistants -- are the ones who will really suffer trying to find new positions at universities that would rather have a military coup to preserve the statist ideals of secularism in the name of democracy than hire a professor tainted by working for some putative religious cabal, graduate students halfway through their MAs who find themselves without their scholarships and their stipends, and administrative staff who must now search for a new position in an economy marked by astonishing unemployment rates. Give a thought to these of the purged and then thank your lucky stars that you can go home or head off to Taiwan like Clyde is doing, though at his choice and not the university's.

I really don't know if the university practices the Stasi-like surveillance of its faculty attributed to it in one of the earlier posts to this forum. If the university wanted to single out nonstandard foreign faculty members for dismissal though, it only has to check the CVs of many of us, which are on the university website, and betray all sorts of interests theoretically at odds with what some suggest are the religious values of the institution. So far as I know, this they have not done. Certainly, once again to the best of my probably rather insufficient knowledge, the foreign faculty dismissed are straight white guys who do straight white guy research (when they do research at all) and teaching. Even so, like anyone who has any professional brain at all, I try (though not always at all successfully, I'm afraid :-))) to keep my personal stuff out of the workplace and that includes email, chats, telephone and so forth --- but this I do anywhere I work. Having been educated in Marxist theory and raised in an intermittent socialist nirvana, I never think the boss has my interests at heart.

I question the religious conspiracy theory for the dismissals. First, there has been an ongoing debate about the shape and public goals of the university. Such debates are common in universities all over the world and often result in abrupt and tough changes to the way things are, though in North America these changes tend to be programmatic rather than human resource. Second, as I've said before, the university betrays all the signs of an institution in financial difficulty. It is now operating in the red, which is not what private universities in Turkey are designed to do. And there are many other signs of cash flow problems, not the least being this dismissal of 50-60 staff, which number in an organization of such small size strongly suggests budgetary imperatives. I'm sure there were ideological and perhaps other reasons for the choices made about who to dismiss, but given the number of the layoffs I think we should be thinking hard about the university's fiscal viability and less about some plot.

And, as Clyde says, it is all a bit disappointing, not least the ludicrous posturing and ranting and rumormongering on this forum. More importantly, there was a time not too long ago when it looked as though the university might start acting in closer accord with its PR and mission statement. Pace. Personally I am especially disappointed to see the chair of ELL let go: while I did not always agree with him, he devoted himself utterly to the university's advancement for three years and deserved much better than this.

[jtsmr]

Hi, Mikana!

I like the way you refer to yourself a "survivor" of Fatih; we all felt that way.  I respond to some of your points below:

And it is important to remember here that the university acted as legally as any Turkish employer ever acts, and that the Ivy League schools in the US regularly hire assistant professors into "tenure track" positions then give them the shove when contract renewal or tenure comes up.

You weren't there when I and others arrived, visiting first in 2003, accepting the position 2004.  We applied for vacant positions at the university that we never even taught much less saw.  And let me correct you: Fatih University does NOT act like any Ivy League or tenure track position at any SLAC in the US.  Yes, I know you have experience, but so do I and many others.  If a person applied for a tenure track post in any US university only to discover that no such post exist, you better believe the school will either be sued or accreditation looked into.  Read any number of such articles here on the Chronicle, and you'll see.  What I would agree with you on, however, is that politics is a given at any employment, a staple at any university.  Fatih is no exception.  The rub here is that you are a foreigner at Fatih University.  What can you do if academically abused? Where can you go? Who can you go to that will listen and be proactive?

These people -- faculty, administrative staff and graduate assistants -- are the ones who will really suffer trying to find new positions at universities that would rather have a military coup to preserve the statist ideals of secularism in the name of democracy than hire a professor tainted by working for some putative religious cabal, graduate students halfway through their MAs who find themselves without their scholarships and their stipends, and administrative staff who must now search for a new position in an economy marked by astonishing unemployment rates. Give a thought to these of the purged and then thank your lucky stars that you can go home or head off to Taiwan like Clyde is doing, though at his choice and not the university's.

Many of those Turkish admins and staff let go, mikana, will be just fine.  As many of them have nice get-a-away homes in Antalya or Bodrum.  They'll do a lot better in navigating employment in their own country, high unemployment rates or no high unemployment rates, than either you or any other foreigner.  I'm only saying this as an observation.   How many, in fact, of the foreign staff at Fatih University, fired or unfired, can honestly say that they've developed a network of persons, Turk and non-Turk in Istanbul or surrounding cities?  I doubt many.

I disagree also about the ranting, raving or whatever on this forum.  My God! Have you seen other fora?  You'd be shocked at how ranting and raving can be raised to an art form!!  Ranting and raving by the way is common in academe, if not among the foreign staff at Fatih University over beers and queers, if I may.

I also knew, and rather liked at the time, the Chair of the ELL Department, if it's who I think it is. However, because of his inexperience, he became a litte too ambitious and self-invested with his own superficial power. He was also not a very good listener. Remember that Narcissus did not fall in love with himself, but with the image of himself. I clearly recall Clyde referring to the former ELL Chair as "machiavellian" at the time of his Chairship.  Maybe the hiring powers saw this as well??  I can't but be gleeful that he's fired and is desparate. Karma is indeed a b*tch!! You see, it was this Chair who decided that he was going to challenge my doctorate, unconferred at the time, to the Dean who had no problem with its unconferred status.  So if it's this guy, all I can say is in the immortal words of Susan Lucci:  "Ha, Ha Jan!"  And speaking of Clyde, he has the right idea in mind: leave now!! Though Tawain???   

Also it should be noted that at the time the person in question was appointed Chair of ELL, Mikana, there were more than a few Turkish profs angry at this.  Some had tried to become Chairs of their own department, and many could not understand why this non-Turk, yabanci was chosen Chair and why his office was larger than their own. Yes, this was the talk at the time.  Maybe this ELL Chair was being set up as an example and didn't know. I know a few of us at the time said we'd never accept Chairship.  Again it's not about conspiracy of any kind.  People talk, Turkish faculty at Fatih, too.

Lastly, there's no religious conspiracy, Mikana.  I was told what I was told.  There are Gulenist meetings that take place involving some Turkish staff.  This may or may not be germane to their working there or anyone else.

[mikana]

I don't wish to belabor the topic, but you are in error when you suggest I wrote that I am a Fatih survivor. I survived the recent round of dismissals but in my view there has yet to be anything happen to me at the university so disastrous that I would term myself a survivor of Fatih, as you put it. Just the opposite: they pay me on time; my office is perfectly functional; my Turkish colleagues are uniformly respectful and collegial, as are most of my foreign colleagues; I have had enough time to write and publish and the university seems quite pleased with me when I do; the classrooms are not great a lot of the time, but I've taught in worse at much more prestigous universities; the students require a skill set it took me a while to acquire, but they are almost all really nice kids and no lazier than kids everywhere these days. So what's to survive, except the recent round of dismissals?

Your glee at the dismissal of the ELL chair betrays the personal investment you have in making Fatih University seem like the next best thing to perdition. Professional, objective intellectuals and teachers take no joy at all in the misfortunes of their colleagues. Decent human beings take no joy at all in the misfortunes of other human beings. But, as I understand it, the person concerned is not at all desperate but is as usual utterly professional and pragmatic, and well connected enough in Turkey to have little problem finding another position.

[jtsmr]

I don't wish to belabor the topic, but you are in error when you suggest I wrote that I am a Fatih survivor.

The topic needs beloboring; 70 or more persons were fired in your midst. And you said

As one of the "survivors" of the recent purge at Fatih I count myself at once both blessed and cursed.

Then why refer to yourself as a "survivor" at all?  Be it in reference to a "purge" or whathaveyou?

[T]hey pay me on time; my office is perfectly functional; my Turkish colleagues are uniformly respectful and collegial, as are most of my foreign colleagues; I have had enough time to write and publish and the university seems quite pleased with me when I do.

You're being naive. You're responding to someone who knows the University very, very well as I'm still in touch with faculty/staff there, Turk and non-Turk.  Your assertions are, therefore, far from persuasive.  Very, very far.  The issue here isn't that Turkish faculty speak, smile or don't smile at you as you leave the kitchenette area with tea and biscuit in hand.  Of course, they do!  Why expect anything less, sweetheart?  As for your research, oh, sure you're working up a research storm, aren't you?  ROTFLAMO!!!!  You mean to say that you're working, if at all, on projects already begun and/or contracted.  Fatih University doesn't give a rat's ass if you do any research at all.  Stop fooling yourself!

You may also want to avoid tooting any horns you may think you have to toot at Fatih University. And you most CERTIANLY want to avoid tooting any horns for Fatih University. People may think you're brainwashed. I'm still of the notion that foreign hires are at Fatih University because a) they can't get a gig anywhere else or b) they came on a fluke.  I was of the latter.  Which are you?  No one at Fatih cares, Mikana, that you were at, so you claim, some prestigious school or other.  They couldn't care less.

Your glee at the dismissal of the ELL chair betrays the personal investment you have in making Fatih University seem like the next best thing to perdition.

Onions and cucumbers!  When you consciously work for, as you put so wryly, "perdition;" you then stink of it!  I couldn't be any happier that the former ELL Chair was dismissed.  He was a first class, naive fool.  What the hell was he thinking?  Again, what the f*** was he thinking? Did he really, really think that some of the Turkish supervisors would stop to pat him on the back and say "job well done"? Did he really, really think that he had the respect of everyone in his department (he did not) or outside of it?  I know the current chair well. I'm sure he couldn't give a s***. It must be devastating and a severe blow knowing, alas, no one gave a s*** about what you thought was the hard work and effort you contributed. 

The former Turkish chair of the ELL Department, recently in the US, and I talked and laughed about the fired chair. And some most egregious things were said about the just fired Canadian chair.   We both hired the fired Canadian chair.  Had I known that he had no experience living in other countries, I'd have pressed for him not being hired. He also had no teaching experience whatsoever   More to the point, what some of you hirees don't understand, the Canadian chair didn't, is that when you work against others to bolster yourself, everyone else hears about it, Turk and non-Turk alike.  The fired Canadian chair had no idea--how could he?--that he unwittingly created enemies on either side.

I'm saying this so that you, Mikana, and others will know to MIND your business as you're there, for the moment, at Fatih University.  This may also mean reducing "hang out" time with co-foreign staff.

Decent human beings take no joy at all in the misfortunes of other human beings. But, as I understand it, the person concerned is not at all desperate but is as usual utterly professional and pragmatic, and well connected enough in Turkey to have little problem finding another position.

The recently fired chair brought his firing on himself.  You sound like a fool, as well, when you say professional, objective intellectuals and teachers take no joy at all in the misfortunes of their colleagues.  You know very well the politics in Academe includes active disregard and loathing.  Perhaps that's why you're in Turkey???  I don't mean to lay into you like this, but your assertions are ridiculous if not, again, naive.

Suffice it to say, with the person in question, that you weren't around during his scheming days.  I was.  He had no regard for anyone but himself.  So a toast to his firing!!  He deserved every bit and every ounce of it.  Believe it or not, there are some others working right under your pretty little nose who feel the same.  And, of course, the former ELL chair is sweating bullets; unless he's made some in the last year or so, he has no network of Turkish colleagues at any university in Turkey.  His residence permit is running out.

Mikana, be ever diligent; vultures still circle.

[witness]

This messageboard has degenerated into a sadly missed opportunity.  It should have, and could have been a forum for telling the academic world at large, and perhaps especially those young, just finished the doctorate academics desperately seeking that elusive first job, why they would be better off avoiding Farty University.  Instead it has become an arena of personal axe grinding, petty point scoring and attack and defence of Farty of the 'this happened and that didn’t happen anecdotal, and thus worthless as evidence' variety. 

The tone needs to be raised significantly if the critique is going to have the desired effect.  That said, what those who have left, and those who remain at Farty and seek to defend or at least rationalize the latest goings on, and more particularly the snide and hypocritical way in which they go about it, will probably dissuade anyone thinking of Farty in the future from opting to take a post there on the grounds that they don’t fancy working with a gang of Janus-faced and duplicitous vipers; which is how you are making yourselves look here, when what you should be doing is your little bit to help bring down this front for political Islam masquerading as a university.

Mikado’s points about how the majority of those fired were Turks is irrelevant.  This board is for and about academics working abroad. 

Mikado’s point that Farty has not acted illegally is true, but what are we going to conclude about an institution that gives people notice at the end of June, by which time the hiring season is pretty much over for the following academic year? 

What are we going to conclude about an institution that brings people to a country very different from their own and does nothing to help them to settle in, and then dumps them when it finds it expedient to do so?  Where is the concept of the employers ‘duty of care’ for its employers in all of this?

What are we to conclude about an institution that deliberately creates an atmosphere of fear and paranoia and calls it a management strategy? 

What are we going to conclude about an institution in which students can claim to have been harassed by fellow students who are members of the Gulen community, and then use that; by having their parents threaten to take the story to the press (and the thing that Farty fears most is bad PR), and the university’s response is effectively to sell the student a degree in exchange for the parents’ silence?  If this institution had nothing to hide about its relationship with political Islam, why would it go to such lengths as to disregard academic values so utterly and comprehensively as this; and then still have the gall to go on believing itself to be an institution of higher learning; worse still, to go on presenting itself to the world as an institution of higher learning?

What are we going to conclude about an institution in which faculty have to think twice, three times, four times, more times, about the suitability of teaching materials, lest some little narrow-minded Gulenist stooge of a ‘student’ goes grizzling to the Dean or whoever to report on how this or that teacher taught a text that mentions … horror of horrors … sex, or who said something that the stooge found convenient to twist into an anti-Islam or anti-Turkey sentiment, or any of the one million and one other things that the Gulenist mindset would like to edit out of the world; and what it can’t edit, it will try to destroy instead. 

If universities are about the closing of minds, the pursuit of narrowly Islamicist agendas, the suppression of freedom or speech and expression, and the terrorizing of academics with the constant threat of redundancy for having offended people who are offended by everything that can’t be squeezed into their own bigoted, illiberal, occidentalist, sexist, homophobic world view, then Farty is a university.

So, come on fellow posters, cut out the personal attacks and point the heavy artillery at the right target … Farty Front For Political Islam University.

Over to you …

[jtsmr]

Mikado’s point that Farty has not acted illegally is true, but what are we going to conclude about an institution that gives people notice at the end of June, by which time the hiring season is pretty much over for the following academic year? 

What are we going to conclude about an institution that brings people to a country very different from their own and does nothing to help them to settle in, and then dumps them when it finds it expedient to do so?  Where is the concept of the employers ‘duty of care’ for its employers in all of this?

What are we to conclude about an institution that deliberately creates an atmosphere of fear and paranoia and calls it a management strategy? 

What are we going to conclude about an institution in which students can claim to have been harassed by fellow students who are members of the Gulen community, and then use that; by having their parents threaten to take the story to the press (and the thing that Farty fears most is bad PR), and the university’s response is effectively to sell the student a degree in exchange for the parents’ silence?  If this institution had nothing to hide about its relationship with political Islam, why would it go to such lengths as to disregard academic values so utterly and comprehensively as this; and then still have the gall to go on believing itself to be an institution of higher learning; worse still, to go on presenting itself to the world as an institution of higher learning?

What are we going to conclude about an institution in which faculty have to think twice, three times, four times, more times, about the suitability of teaching materials, lest some little narrow-minded Gulenist stooge of a ‘student’ goes grizzling to the Dean or whoever to report on how this or that teacher taught a text that mentions … horror of horrors … sex, or who said something that the stooge found convenient to twist into an anti-Islam or anti-Turkey sentiment, or any of the one million and one other things that the Gulenist mindset would like to edit out of the world; and what it can’t edit, it will try to destroy instead. 

If universities are about the closing of minds, the pursuit of narrowly Islamicist agendas, the suppression of freedom or speech and expression, and the terrorizing of academics with the constant threat of redundancy for having offended people who are offended by everything that can’t be squeezed into their own bigoted, illiberal, occidentalist, sexist, homophobic world view, then Farty is a university.

So, come on fellow posters, cut out the personal attacks and point the heavy artillery at the right target … Farty Front For Political Islam University.

Over to you …

Well, of course, the purpose here is to alert people of "Farty's" unscrupulous behaviour, you're right.  The personal attacking, as I see it, has to do with those persons who were hypocrtical enough to ignore the duplicitous behaviour in order to get paid and who were royally stung as a result of turning the other way.

All of your above points are right on, Witness.  What were your main grievances with this university?

[witness]

Hi again jmstr

I guess it’s fair enough to ask me that!

I have to admit that my main grievance about Farty University is the fact that an institution which, to my mind, is such an affront to higher education and what that is supposed to be about (even in a place like Turkey … yes, you read that right … even in a place like Turkey … more on this point below), actually exists.  However, it does exist, and it is going to go on existing, but those of us who have been at the place and thereby have been given some insight in how it operates on a day to day basis and have seen and learned something of the wider context from which it springs, are in a uniquely qualified position to offer, shall I say, an alternative view to the one that the university itself and the Gulen Movement behind it projects internationally.  And I have to hand it to them; if there is one thing that Farty and the Gulen Movement are good at, it’s PR.  I dislike the duplicity of that, and I am alarmed at the easy ride they are given by Liberal organs in Western countries (such as the UK newspaper The Guardian in a recent feature) that allow them to make the case for themselves as the friendly face of progressive Islam, without question.  It seems that liberals in Western Europe and North America are so desperate to find an alternative Islam to the Hizbollah, Al Qaida et al variety that they will seize upon an organization like the Gulen Movement and hold it up to detractors.  And that is exactly what the Gulenist PR machine is exploiting.  All I say to those who might take them at face value is; take a closer look.  Of course there is such a thing as progressive and modernizing Islam, that don’t seek (one hopes) to mix religion with politics), but on the evidence of everything I have seen, it is not the Gulen movement.

I have worked in two other Turkish private universities besides Farty and anyone else who has worked in any of them will know about their foibles: contractual obligations not met, salaries paid at lower levels than stated and agreed, promises broken, grade changing for students with powerful daddies; sometimes behind one’s back and sometimes as a result of pressure exerted on faculty members by chairs and sometimes even people higher up the chain, some rather strange and eccentric notions of professional practices and ethics, students (let’s say 75% per class) who really never should have been admitted to any university at all on grounds of academic incapacity, endless plagiarism whenever a take home assignment is set, highly believable and in some cases provable stories of gifted students and even academics writing papers for money for lazy and incompetent students, students who have deals with chairs etc., whereby they ‘spy’ on faculty in exchange for favours of the grade upping kind and any number of other types of sharp practice and general shysterism.  And the fellow foreigners who imagine themselves to be having ‘culturally enriching’ experiences are hard to take too.  How condescending is that for an attitude and a take on Turkey, or anywhere else for that matter?!  If you want enrichment, stay home for the evening and read Proust or change your diet and eat some fattier dishes.

I did fine at Farty in terms of what I wanted from the place and I did not have any out of the ordinary problems and I wasn’t picked on or persecuted.

However, what did make Farty far worse than what is very much the norm for these Turkish private universities was that with Farty you have to add lot more crap on top of that norm to get an idea of what it’s like: the administrative and bureaucratic inefficiency and incompetence were worse than elsewhere, the fear of offending local sensibilities was amplified to a much higher degree, the students were even more hostile and resistant to anything that did not fit their view of the world, the Turkish administration fostered even more of an ‘us and them’ atmosphere with regard to the foreign faculty, and the general anti-intellectual, closed mind, what doesn’t fit our narrow world view won’t be tolerated ethos of the place was worse than anything else or anywhere else than I have known.

Thus, the usual plus the Gulenist dimension made for an environment that frequently had me reaching for the sick bag.  In the end, it’s just the absence of anything that I recognized as part of the ideals of higher education and the university as an institution that I absorbed as a graduate student that has given me such a negative view of the place; and more negative than the view I have taken away from the other institutions I have worked in.

So … Avoid Farty University … absolutely; I would rather sell trinkets on the beach at Bodrum that work at that place again.

Finally, and for the record, the private universities here, which are among the more well known that have the worst reputations are in Istanbul; Farty (obviously), Dogus, Beykent and Yeditepe, and in Ankara; Atilim.

[jtsmr]

You certainly don't have to be specific, Witness.  But were you one of the ones let go in the recent "cleansing?"