The Most Dramatic Council Meeting I Have Ever Attended

The Most Dramatic Council Meeting I Have Ever Attended

One of the most venerable rituals religiously observed in Universities is the meeting of Professor in a council to scrutinize the records of students recommended for graduation. Everybody’s eyes are glued to the evaluations sheets previously distributed to see to it that all requirements are complied with. Each of the faculty members is expected to check the entries especially in subjects he/she is handling. Through this rigorous procedure a lot of questionable entries in the past were rectified and recommendations were proposed to improve the system. Doing so gives us the feeling that we the professors are really doing our job and that we are making a positive contribution towards the promotion of academic excellence.

There were times though that our discussions would become heated and not a few feathers were ruffled but it always remained within the acceptable level of academic engagement.

But the latest council we had was one of its kind. It started quite normally though. When the required quorum was met, the dean immediately started the meeting. Everything went normal. But there were premonitions of an impending trouble. The dean did something what he did not do in our previous council meetings. He personally locked the door at back of the conference hall. This was done so l disordered later in the meeting so that those who came in late will be forced to pass through the door near the table of the presiding officer. Everybody would notice when you come in late. Aside from that everything went in a routinary manner.

The practice is for the chairperson of each department to present the candidate for graduation in his/her department. Now came the time for the chairperson of the Islamic Department to present his candidates.  I was about to commend the chairman of a job well done. The evaluation sheets he prepared were the most presentable in terms of readability and cleanliness. However, when more observations were being raised there came a noticeable rise in the degree of emotional intensity being displayed. The dean himself for more than a couple of times sternly reminded the chairperson of the department to look closer into the practices of the department. It seemed that excesses in unit load were tolerated in blatant violation of University policies. Many more negative comments were being raised and I could feel the atmosphere thickening.