Professeur avec chaire, higher ed, and reforms

I'm intent on recording things in this blog that pertain to the current Moroccan educational system, and since it relies heavily on the old French educational system, things pertaining to past-present-future elements of French higher ed. are also of interest, par extension. While at ENSSIB in March, the professors explained to me the notion of "professeur avec chaire" and I admit to having found it fascinating.

The FORMER French UNIVERSITY system (not the ECOLE system, like we have at ESI) involved a hierarchy that was quite complex. Professors did a PhD, then they did a second PhD (doctorat d'état). This second diploma permitted them to join the upper echelons of the teaching faculty at the university. For each area of specializtion in a university department, there was one professor "avec chaire" (meaning, the boss or the "mandarin") and the others under him/her were all "sans chaire". The only way to move up was to wait for a retirement or a change of post of the one professor "avec chaire."

This system is no longer in effect, and Sarkozy is in the middle of making even more dramatic reforms to higher ed in France. Those in universities are striking daily, and the situation doesn't look good. Mr. Sarkozy wants to Americanize education, increasing competition between professors, changing missions and objectives for universities, and doing away with (in the opinion of some) the arts and humanities.

The reforms in Morocco are not as sweeping, but they are also very real. I attend my first meeting about them this week at ESI, and am interested to learn more about the topics that are on the plate in Moroccan Ecoles during this period of higher ed reform.
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The meaning of exchange

Fulbrights are meant to facilitate exchange between Americans and folks from other cultures. I get to bring bits of Morocco to the United States (or, pictured here, to SCILS at the LIS tea from atop my camel in Tangiers!), and I, just by virtue of being myself, am bringing "American-ness" to Morocco and to the library school here.

Sometimes these elements of exchange work seamlessly. Everyone loves a camel. Moroccans call them something like "Sand Schooners" (yes, I just coined that expression on the spot) and consider them to be almost magical (again, my words) since they can survive under the harsh conditions of the desert. Myself, I don't think I laughed as hard that whole weekend as the 5 minutes I was on the camel, and lots of folks in the States have commented to me in emails, on this blog, and especially on Facebook about the photo. This is a good exchange -- we all like camels. It's nice to have something in common.

I'm currently working through some of the more difficult aspects of exchange as well: the nuts and bolts of lecturing to Moroccan students. My students have a reflex to memorize the notes they take during hours of lectures and to recite them back rotely at the exam. There's no textbook. I can assign outside readings, but it's difficult/impossible to test throughout the year. It's also impossible to know in advance how many times our class will meet, since we don't make up classes missed for religious holidays, and holidays are established the night before the event.

This is one part of the exchange that's less easy for me to navigate. I talked about new internet technologies (Web 2.0) using slides that had worked just fine in France. I gave a similar lecture in March 2007 (a year and a half ago) at the French national library school (ENSSIB). In France, the lecture took 1 hour. Here, we've already spent 4 hours on it, we're still not finished, and apparently there wasn't enough text on my slides to suit some students. I can't blame them for being conditioned to a certain kind of system, but I must say that this is making me think an awful lot about the role of the teacher in higher education.

This is only the first week where I've done a significant amount of lecturing, so it'll come. We'll adapt to each other, certainly. That or I'll bring a camel to school.