Once gain I have to apologize for the long delay between posts, life has been both hectic and monotonous at the same time. Some how that results in complacency towards writing things down, but I'll do my best to write two blogs tonight- one on my personal life and the other on whats been going on in the region lately from a firsthand perspective.
First on the personal side, things have been challenging lately here. Work fluctuates frequently between boring and infuriating. The bureaucracy here is unlike anything I've experienced before (and I spent 4 years in the Navy!) and I usually find myself wondering how anything can expect to operate under these conditions. The worst Dilbert strip looks like a well-oiled machine compared to the runaround you get just to get a simple thing done. Weeks pass waiting for a signature or a memo to be received and while waiting, opportunities or deadlines from the western world pass by with little concern. The university often seems to get as excited as possible, forming committees and investigative teams to determine a course of action for applying for a grant from a European or American institution, only to have the application deadline pass because no one could get organized enough to do anything. It's not just grants and complicated documents, e-mails to foreign professors go unanswered for weeks (essentially burning bridges) because I can't get a straight answer from someone else in the university or I can't get a meeting. I do my best to adapt to the situation at hand, but I also become concerned that the university is just bleeding itself out, slowly but surely, and refuses to admit or acknowledge this because it would mean a hard look would need to be taken at the way it does business and educates students.
I try to keep my thoughts about most of this to myself, after all its not my place to do or say anything.
Except it is.
I was not flown across the planet to sit and answer phone calls and emails alone. Yes I will do that happily, and that is in my job description, but that is not all my job requires of me. I am supposed to assist the office in any manner necessary. If I only had a ever worked as a secretary or specialized in communications then I could understand just keeping quiet. Instead, I was hired on a recommendation from a professor who once told me "You have the ability to succeed in anything you want to do" and therefore I think that lends to a little more than emails. My CV indicates that I have experience in organizational structures in general, and years working in higher education so, as bad as it may sound, I WANT TO BE USED. I can write well, I can read too, but my real potential is in critical thinking and problem-solving. I have a work ethic that took years to build and now I feel it waning due to lack of use. This job only looks good on my future resume if I develop (or at least maintain) the skills needed to help the university improve its international profile.
The other day someone told me that I "just don't understand the culture here." He was a Vice President at the University trying to tell me what skills students need to succeed in the Western World after they graduate from the university. I found it laughable for a few reasons that I'll keep to myself, but one that really bothers me. The university seems to think that it can play the game of western higher education but that it can play by its own rules. You can't ignore emails from western doctorates for weeks at a time, or try to submit something to the EU after a deadline or ignore consulates who want to visit your university and chalk it up to "well thats our culture" IF you want to the play, you have to play by the rules- and when it comes to higher education that means if you want to take money from the EU or work with American universities you don't just piss on them. I understand the culture here, I've given up queing and operating on a timeline and pretty much everything else I would call being organized or time management. But you are not going to get the western world to do that, because A. its their world and money (like it or not) and B. they have no patience to deal with anything that doesn't fall in line with their methods and finally C. because they don't have to. Unfortunately for the university and Palestine, the world can get by without you. So if you want to be a part of it, fall in line (at least with your affairs that deal in the west) and play the game. If you don't want to be a part of it, then thats fine too really. Develop your own model, free from western funding and academia and go for it and I will support that just as much as the joining the west- but you can't have it both ways and trying to do so just hurts the students and the university. Thats the most infuriating part for me, I just really want to students to get the best education possible and I know they are not, and this wishywashy position and bureaucracy is one of the fundamental problems that must be addressed. Not just for the university, but for the future of Palestine as well.
But I digress, tomorrow is a new day. If I'm lucky, I'll have some work to do. If I'm real lucky, I'll have less bureaucracy to deal with as I do my work. If I'm truly blessed though, someone will just listen to me or even my ideas.
This might have seemed like a rant, and to an extent it was. But this blog is a record of my observations in Palestine and it is not objective. If no ones acknowledges these flaws and discusses them, can we ever really move forward? Can we ever have a good dialogue? I want the best for Palestine, the university, and the students. These are some of the issues I see as constraining improvement on all fronts. I hope that the university can someday address these and become the beacon of higher ed in the region that it truly wants to be.
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