Islamabad-The COMSATS University administration and its faculty locked horns on Monday after the management suspended a senior female professor and issued show cause notice to one dozen teachers accusing them for violating official protocol and discipline, The Nation learned.
Dozens of teachers at COMSATS University held a protest against the administration for suspending a senior female professor Dr. Mehnaz Qadir Haseeb from her duties and demanded an end to ad-hocism in the campus.
Professor Dr. Mehnaz Qadir Haseeb was suspended from the University for organizing the meeting of Academic Staff Council (ASC). The ASC was formed previous year and Professor Dr. Mehnaz Qadir Haseeb was its president.
The teachers held a walk against the university administration and chanted slogans against the interim set-up of the university alleging its involvement in victimization of teachers.
“No more ad-hocism, no more victimization,” the teachers chanted. The protest led to the suspension of academic activities causing trouble for the students who reached to attend classes.
The protesting teachers demanded immediate restoration of the professor suspended from the duties and urged the administration to take back show cause notices issued to other teachers.
The COMSATS administration declaring the ASC as illegal body of teachers had threatened them of strict disciplinary action against them. The circular issued in this regard stated that ‘strict disciplinary action under CUI rules will be taken against any university faculty, official or staff found engaged in misconduct or any ASC related activities on campus.
Later on, a three-member committee comprising Prof. Dr Tayyab Akram, Prof. Dr. Junaid Mughal and registrar Faheem Qureshi initiated the disciplinary proceedings against the teachers and suspend Dr. Mehnaz Qadir Haseeb from duties for 15 days.
The notification issued in this regard said “Pursuance to the decision of the Competent Authority, COMSATS University Islamabad (CUI), Dr. Mehnaz Hasseb Professor Deaprtment of Physics CUI Islamabad campus has been suspended from service as per CUI with immediate effect for a period of 15 days for not observing the official protocol and decorum and instead continually manipulating the CUI matters against the CUI and higher management in illegal faculty gatherings and publishing it in the print and social media”.
The Academic Staff Council (ASC) of CUI in its statement issued said that the teacher’s body held its meeting to discuss the letter circulated by the University administration regarding activities of ASC. Constitutional and legal aspects of the letters were discussed in detail.
The COMSATS University Act, as approved by the National Assembly and Senate, clearly states that the faculty will have elected representation in all the statutory bodies (i.e. Senate, syndicate etc), and hence allows such activities/gatherings within the University. Moreover, the CUI Act does not declare any such association (like ASA) as illegal, and who ever thinks so, is either being misguided or is promoting personal agenda over the CUI University Act.
However, the university rector Prof Dr Raheel Qamar said that that the disturbance of academic and research activities will not be tolerated under any circumstances. He further reiterated that all issues must be resolved through discussions which the CUI administration has always supported and that the university discipline must always be maintained. The Rector further stated that he is always open for discussion and finding solutions to problems. He said that the university is committed to completing the statutory work on schedule so that legally elected representatives of the faculty become part of the University Senate. Several avenues, he said, had been opened up to listen to the complaints of university faculty members, but it seems that the ASC is on the sole agenda of maligning the university administration.