Dr. Mehmet Efe Caman has been a visiting professor at MUNL since 2015, primarily in the Political Science department. Dr. Caman is a human rights activist and researcher published in numerous publications covering various topics, including authoritarianism, democratization, human rights, and Turkish politics, under comparative and international political lenses.
Most recently, he was offered a contract of employment for only four months; his past almost eight years was made up of 8-month positions with no track for tenure on the horizon and no guaranteed job security.
This isn’t the first time the status of Professor Caman’s job security was put into question; last year, he was informed that his contract with the Political Science Department would not be renewed. In that instance, students rallied behind him, and a petition was put out by the Undergraduate Society, garnering around 3000 signatures. After that, he was given a position in Law & Society, an interdisciplinary major under the roof of Political Science. We sat down with Dr. Caman to catch up and chat about his current issues, especially in the wake of the recent MUNFA strike.
The transition into Law & Society was one that came with ups and downs; according to Dr. Caman, “It was challenging because I needed to design two completely new courses that hadn’t existed before, and I was super excited and motivated to do that because it was kind of like you’re making history, you design a course, and even after you retire, you’re not on board anymore, other people can teach this course. It’s a nice feeling, and I invested a lot of time designing these courses.”
Beyond that, Professor Caman has had to redesign three additional courses that had titles but needed clearly defined goals and syllabi. Professor Caman also took on teaching most of the course offerings for this department in the Fall and Winter semesters, teaching 5 of the 7-course offerings.
Recently MUNL has come under fire for spending over $100k on a retreat to Fogo in September, when asked Dr. Caman expressed his thoughts on the retreat in the context of the MUNFA strike and his current predicament: “I know academic administrators are supposed to travel and participate in meetings and conferences… as I was able to read it on media it was quite shocking for me and disappointing at the same time, regarding lack of transparency and they [administration] are not stepping up and saying… there was a concrete goal.”
“When administration argues we are supposed to be very careful with our budget because we aren’t hiring other professors, we are not fulfilling empty spots when professors retire or go to other universities, but we can just travel around without any concrete reason… it is kind of irritating.”
Dr. Mehmet Efe Caman
Dr. Caman further expressed worries not only for himself but for other professors who are in similar positions as he is, explaining that the lack of permanence coming from numerous short-term contracts not only puts a mental strain from the constant unknown but also has effects on Professors’ careers through their ability to do research and publish, and by putting their jobs in a stalemate with no prospectives for moving forward and potential tenure.
In 2020, Dr. Caman took part in a video for a #talesfromtheroadMUN series on Twitter. He sat down with University Head Dr. Vianne Timmons to talk about his career and life as an academic from Turkey coming to Newfoundland. The video published was only a snippet of the conversation between the two, and overall Dr. Caman was led to believe there was progress.
“In that talk I had the feeling, I received that very positive perception from her side that she was aware of my existence, she was aware of the problematic [contract issues], and she was in my corner,”
Dr. Mehmet Efe Caman
Caman recounts how the university head had said, “I am supported and don’t worry about that. I will take care of it because Memorial University needs you here.” he felt as though it had been a “Big step because this is not somebody unimportant in the university administration or the decision-making process, it was the top of the university talking to me.”
Caman had chosen not to comment on it last year during the initial contract issues when students brought it to his attention; “I decided to be loyal, and I didn’t want to say anything negative about that, and I don’t know how Dr. Timmons thinks and what her frameworks are. But this year is the second time that this problem is occurring, which means last year, all the promises, all the recovery, how the Dean’s office reacted afterward, how students were protesting and colleagues were embracing me, I was sure things would change, and at the end of the day, there was an eight-month position. Still, I always hoped it would be next year [that] maybe I would get three years with continuity and perspective for a tenure track position.”
“If you really want somebody, If you think the professor is really good, students like him, he contributes positively to the to the academic environment; we can give them more job security, its called ‘Regular term appointment,’… they are more than 12 months and can be extended… they didn’t choose to go this way.”
Dr. Mehmet Efe Caman
Dr. Caman then explained the two criteria for Regular term Appointment, the first being Academic eligibility. Caman explains that he has more than fulfilled this requirement because of his numerous published academic works. The second is for the administrators to have the motivation or a reason, “I am a persecuted academic; I am an academic refugee.” He then explained and showed a document from the Scholar Rescue Fund, where he is one of the acknowledged Scholars. “Memorial University was my host university in 2017; It is their responsibility. I couldn’t go anywhere else, I was here when the persecution occurred, and I thought they would take care of my situation a little better than normal because of this award.”
Despite this, the demand for teaching in his specific area, as well as the student and departmental support last year, had gone to the point of both groups meeting with the Dean and making the administration aware of their support in Dr. Caman receiving a long-term contract last year, that did not happen. Both then and now, there are questions left unanswered. “I see the same patterns, the same ignorance, deliberate ignorance; they don’t want to look in my direction as if I don’t exist if I don’t do anything for this university… Is there a reason? Maybe because I come from the Middle East, or is there another reason?”
He expressed disappointment that despite his many accolades as an Academic that MUN had a seeming lack of loyalty and value in his work. “We are not run like Mcdonalds or Walmart… they probably have more loyalty to their employees, I am sorry to say that, but they have equal pay, equal opportunities, equal chances to get promoted in their framework…”
MUNs justification for many of the employment issues raised by MUNFA is that there is no money for hiring more long-term professors. To Dr. Caman, that doesn’t make sense; “What is the reason here? Saving money? Peanut money? Because the money that they are paying to me is the minimum money that they normally pay to faculty… it’s not the case that we don’t have this money because I can see people being hired in the administrative area, a lot of people travel to Fogo Island or the UK for other events… when you talk about people with salaries like mine on the bottom of all academic personnel, it shouldn’t be a problem for Memorial.” He explained that giving long-term employment to someone in his position could save MUN money, as he would not be getting paid the same as tenured Professors but would have job security.
Ensuring longer-term, stable contracts with more potential for career progression was one of the main goals of the MUNFA strike.