Note: The views and opinions on this page and on this website are strictly mine. They do not represent anyone else or any institution I am affiliated with or I work at. Moreover, the remarks below do not concern any specific company, institute, school, college, university, institution, organization, country or any other specific entity or side.
Since sometime I and other Arab academics have been thinking to establish an "Arab Academic Magazine" and to try to convince some institutions and public figures in order to establish an elite Arab university or "Harvard of the Arab World" if we may use such a name.
The purpose of the magazine is to publish view points about school and college education in the Arab World and the rest of the world. It is to publish objective criticism of education worldwide according to the way the author sees it. It is to submit views and opinions on what is wrong and how to make things better. It is about ideas of development and ideas of discovering problems and fixing them. It is about creativity and novelty. It is about embedding technology in a positive way. It is about long vision. It is about diversity and objectivity. It is about the right man/woman for the right job. It is about equal opportunity. It is about supplying societies with the right expertise. It is about doing the best to predict the problems before they occur so that we can save the time that will be needed later to deal with such unnecessary problems and instead use such a time to develop and improve as there is always room for improvement.
Academia is about professionalism, objectiveness, academic ethics, experience, accuracy, precision, qualifications, sincerity, hard work, intelligence, diversity, long vision, concerns, objectivity, fairness, honesty, transparency, goodwill, creativity, novelty, competition and competence. It is about honesty, common sense, hard work and long vision. It is about the right man/woman for the right job. It is about objective criticism. It is about equal opportunity. It is about liberal institutions and freedom of expression. It is about making well-informed decisions in which all possibilities are taken into account and all special cases that may arise are taken into consideration. It is about not loosing the focus and knowing exactly the right path on how to reach the mission and accomplish the vision without the need of a compass. It is about benefiting from the experiences of the others and building on it instead of trying to erase their legacies. It is about honest competition. It is about supplying societies with the right expertise. It is about trying to predict the problems before they occur. It is about ideas of development and ideas of discovering problems and fixing them. It is about a promising future. It is about not repeating mistakes and learning from mistakes. It is about making the "true academia" the main and only consideration. It is about every man/woman knowing his/her right size: no self maximization and no other minimization. It is about qualifications leading to the job/position not relationships and not the fear of this or that. It is about you think you're more qualified than the others, prove it and show people around your. To prove it, don't use your own standards, but use the approved standards. Academia is about saying "I don't know" when I don't know the answer to the question, but I'll try to get you the answer next time or I may refer you to someone else who is more knowledgeable in this subject matter. It is about correcting the mistake when the mistake is discovered. It is about regular evaluation of matters and reaching conclusions. It is about knowing my true size and not undermining the true sizes of others. It is about benefiting the society and having a significant impact on it. It is about making a positive difference, a big positive difference. Academia is about collegiality but maybe not about harmony. It is about not being like the wheat spike that has its head up when it is empty. It is about honoring and abiding by the laws, bylaws and regulations but maybe not obeying orders that may counter that. It is about having the right self esteem. It is about having a human consciousness. It is about having courage and saying no to fear (when it is all about the right thing to do) and blackmail. It is about the person knowing exactly where he/she fits and what position he/she is qualified for instead of thinking he/she is qualified for all positions. It is about certificates of good behavior according to the common standards, but not according to different standards. In academia, if you have good ideas or discover problems and you know the solutions do not keep all of that for yourself, but mention them even if no one listens or no one appreciates and even if others may take credit for them not you. It is about not everyone is qualified for any subject. It is about the person studying only what he/he is capable of and having interest in. If you study something you are not interested in, then that may not bond well. What is worse, if you study a major you don't have the capability for, then that is tragic. What makes it even more tragic is earning a degree in that and making people suffer because of you being unqualified. Academia is about "right is right" and "wrong is wrong". There is a clear cut line between what is right and what is wrong. Academia is not about makings twists and turns in order to justify wrong doings and make them look as if they are right. It is about using the common standard definitions of terms instead of using the person's self definitions. In academia, there is no hatred and no enmity. It is not about "I like you" or "I hate you". Most importantly, academia is about working for the institution, for the country and for the nation. It is not about working for the person's self interests.
The magazine will be a tool to try to change the mainstream.
The magazine can also be used for other purposes. It can be used for articles, institution news, cartoons, student opinions, student activities, etc.
It can be used to encourage the advancement of universities to enter the advanced technology era via artificial intelligence, robots, etc. It is like talking about fifth generation multirole warplanes instead of talking about Skyhawk, Hawker Hunter or MiG 15.
Academia can be used to attract exceptional students, discover exceptional students and provide them with what they need to explore their abilities, widen their knowledge, explore and empower their imagination and put their creativity into action. It is about an exceptional student having a dream and fulfilling that dream. It is about realizing the dream. It is about discovering the unknown and exploring the ocean of science.
It is about saying "goodbye" to lagging behind the First World. It is about leading the way instead of walking behind the West. It is about confidence. It is about reviving the history. It is about letting the world knowing who we are.
It is about leading the way to make the others stop and think. It is about what, where, how, since how long and why. It is about the "next step". It is about "we'll make things better". It is about a promising future. It is about the right size: no self maximization and no other minimization.