When Imam Muhammad ibn Saud University announced its decision to open the door to women specializing in media, we were very optimistic, especially as this came from Muhammad Al-Hayzan, dean of the College of Media and Dawa. He is known for his open mind and receptivity to scientific development and we expected that women students would be able to conduct scientific research concerning the media and related issues.
Opening such a division to teach media to women would, we felt, also improve the image of the university, which is often accused of being undeveloped and unprofessional.
The university in fact admitted 41 students to do an MA in media studies. They attend class for 15 hours per week, which works out to three hours a day. The manager of the center, however, refuses to allow the students to study on Wednesdays, claiming that the center is closed on that day. The lectures thus had to be added to Tuesday’s schedule meaning that the students were on campus until 8.30 in the evening in order to finish their work. This was not a good solution since the women administrators working in the center finish work at 7 in the evening. This is a simple problem that could have been solved by a single meeting of those concerned.
What happened was that the poor coordination between the center’s administration and the teachers who were lecturing the students led to the supervisors kicking the students out of classrooms. How could such a thing have happened? The live transmission screens were turned off, the lights and air-conditioning were also turned off and the girls were thrown out of the classrooms.
The students then wrote a letter to the college dean requesting that their schedules be changed to allow them to attend three days a week. There has so far been no response.
What I want to know is how the dean could make a decision that the students be given their lectures according to schedule and then have that decision to be totally ignored? Why do the students have to suffer for a lack of coordination and insufficient administrative discipline in some of the university’s departments?
