Universities in Iraq Use Elections to Right Course

By Patrick Healy
Globe Staff
http://www.boston.com/
May 19, 2003

BAGHDAD - In just four hours Saturday, Sami Mudhaffar rose from the obscurity of a biochemistry lab outfitted for the 1960s to the presidency of Baghdad University, the nation's flagship campus of 44,000 students.

Call it academic freedom Iraqi-style.

In a test run for democracy, more than 500 professors elected interim leaders and deans of Iraq's elite university over the weekend, in many cases selecting onetime pariahs like Mudhaffar, sidelined by the school's Ba'ath Party leaders who left it impoverished and demoralized. (A previous president, Muhammad Rawi, was believed to be Saddam Hussein's personal physician.)

''We have no Internet, we have no science journals, we have no contacts with Harvard or MIT. But at least we will now have an honorable man in charge,'' said Mohammad Abdul-Khader Ibrahim, a professor of biotechnology.

The elections, held as Iraq's universities reopened Saturday, were mostly peaceful, yet there were growing pains for Iraqis flexing this new privilege of one person, one vote.

Adjunct teachers were barred from the balloting, leading to spontaneous protests, and students argued that they should have a voice.

Some professors were outraged that former Ba'athists were still on the faculty, and at Baghdad University, a few had the audacity to run for the presidency. (One dropped out before the vote.)

Classes begin in earnest today for an estimated 200,000 students nationwide, and US officials say they want these academic enclaves to set an example of a calm, stable Iraq, after several weeks in which a few professors and even one campus president were injured in ''revenge shootings'' over their Ba'athist ties.

''There is a kind of tension on campuses,'' said Drew Erdmann, the US adviser for Iraq higher education, a historian who attended Williams College and Harvard University and taught at Harvard's Olin Institute for Strategic Studies. ''But the regime has changed, and the universities aren't for political cronies anymore.''

Iraq's 15 universities and 30 technical schools share many traits with Western institutions of higher education. Students in both systems take about four years of required courses and electives to earn a degree, and those who wish to become teachers apprentice in local schools. There are soccer teams, poetry magazines, and student governments that lobby for cheaper parking on campus.

But there are anomalies that reflect Hussein's absolute rule.

A staple of the core curriculum, for instance, was a Ba'athist indoctrination course in which students learned about the party apparatus, the history of the regime, and Hussein's speeches and background. Most faculties have now scuttled that course, or will probably do so under the US ''de-Ba'athification'' policy in Iraq, said Army Lieutenant Colonel Stephen Curda, Erdmann's colleague and a former education professor at the University of West Florida.

Party membership was required for most professors, and the higher the party rank, the better the lab and office space. Most science facilities were prehistoric by American standards, with equipment that didn't even anticipate the World Wide Web.

''The military side of science seemed to be crowding out the academic side of science,'' said Erdmann, who added that he could not ascertain whether university labs were used to generate Iraqi weaponry.

Academic freedom, a bedrock principle of American campuses that stipulates the right of faculty to teach and research as they wish, was truly a foreign concept in this country, even at Baghdad University, whose status as the capital's premier school was long tarnished by its Ba'athist administration

in the eyes of the faculty and the students.

Under the supervision of US monitors, and with the US Third Infantry at the school gates, the elections Saturday and yesterday were seen on campus as nothing short of the start of a new era.

On Saturday morning, Mudhaffar was wandering around a campus courtyard, still mulling whether to run for the presidency. He had once overseen a team of 95 researchers. He was well-liked by his colleagues. He had a vision for championing science that had nothing to do with nerve gas. Nearby was a banner that read, ''The students of Baghdad University are cleaning their school of Ba'athists and dirt.'' He thought that sentiment was just right, he said.

''Most of the Ba'athists have gone underground, practically speaking,'' Mudhaffar said in an interview with the Globe two hours before the vote. ''Many of them were members by force, not on their own. We will see what they do.''

In Hussein's parlance, the balloting turned into the Mother of All Faculty Meetings. American professors can be an outspoken, balky group when they get together to consider policy; electing a president is a right that few if any US faculties have [though many believe they should], and many Iraqis were energized by their newfound power.

As the faculty meeting began in a large campus auditorium, some adjunct teachers protested outside because they were not allowed to vote, given their part-time status. Inside the hall, some professors heckled Erdmann's translator, who mischaracterized the adviser's reference to American forces by using the impolitic word ''occupiers.''

The faculty nominated 11 candidates for the presidency, and each had two minutes to give their biographies and make a pitch. Most just recited their resumes; a few acknowledged Ba'athist ties, prompting one audience member to say aloud, ''The rest of you up there are Ba'athists, too!''

Mudhaffar, who said he had not belonged to a political party since 1970, won a strong ovation from the audience; several professors said afterward that they liked his scientific background.

Mudhaffar took the presidency with 114 votes, 16 more than the runner-up.

''I'm delighted with the day,'' Mudhaffar said afterward.

Erdmann, the US adviser, pronounced himself pleased with the process and said - once American officials vetted the winner for Ba'athist ties and other red flags - that Mudhaffar would take office through at least the summer.

Among the students yesterday, there was satisfaction with the new leader, but also impatience to get back to the basics: making up for lost classtime.

''I don't want to lose a whole term of work because of the war,'' said Bashar Fadi, a 20-year-old civil engineering student. ''It looks like things will be better now.''

Patrick Healy can be reached by e-mail at phealy@globe.com.

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