That is how most universities refer to the post, the ‘Vice’ Chancellor. He or she is some one with vision and wisdom to provide academic, managerial and ethical leadership to the faculty and students of the university. Since the rapid ‘generalization’ of our society, the function of ‘vice’ Chancellors too has been “generalised’. It is now possible to have a good ‘vice’ chancellor who was once good at say commanding a platoon or a brigade.

Einstein’s ‘general’ theory of university tells us that a brigade and a university in fact have an identical molecular structure, and thus can be effectively run by the same “general” principles. HEC in its higher educational wisdom has now about a dozen such gentlemen as the ‘vice’ chancellors of various universities in Pakistan. As the first part of this designation can be misunderstood for some one indulgent in activities that are not entirely virtuous, it may be more appropriate and in keeping with the nature of assignment, to henceforth call them the ‘wise’ chancellors of universities. One will only have to be careful to avoid acronyms.

This article is intended to describe the two contemporary approaches, being increasingly adopted by our wise chancellors, as I would refer to them from now on. The scientific names for these very popular approaches are the ‘eternalising your boss’ approach and the ‘credentialising your boss’ approach. Let me give a few specific examples to explain the philosophy of these two approaches and how smoothly, profitably and successfully these advanced indigenously developed techniques are being put into practice in Pakistan.

First the ‘eternalising your boss approach’. About one year ago, the wise Chancellor of Allama Iqbal Open University decided to name one of its under construction research centres as “Atta ur Rehman Research Complex”, to eternalise the name of his boss, who incidentally also happens to be the Chairman of Higher Education Commission. The wise Chancellor was insistent on the appropriateness of this unethical massaging technique, and agreed to change the name only after Dr. Atta personally intervened with a request to take his name off. The wise chancellor reluctantly agreed to comply, but went back to renaming it again as Atta ur Rehman Research Complex in August this year. (Dawn, August 28, 2004). When pressed for a second time by citizens (as well as Dr. Atta), to not name the institute after a serving minister, the honourable wise chancellor came out with this very reluctant response, “We at the AIOU find no other way but to accept your desire to discontinue using your name for the Research Complex being constructed at the University.”

Not to be left behind, only four weeks later, operating on the same principle , the Kohat University wise chancellor came up with a similar eternalising scheme of a department to be named after Dr. Atta ur Rehman. Fortunately Dr. Atta was quick to respond this time, and politely turned down the offer. Nearer at home, overwhelmed by the Sind Governor’s contribution to the field of medicine, (does any body recall if he ever saw a patient), the wise chancellor of Dow Medical University has proposed to name the institute of Oral Health Science at the Sindh Medical College (SMC) after the name of Governor Ishratul Ibad Khan. (Dawn September 26, 2004). There does seem to be an urgent need for the government to quickly come out with a law on naming of public institutes that could restrain our wise chancellors from naming the left over institutes after individuals of questionable repute.

The second approach called the “credentialising your boss’ approach is an extremely powerful and rapid fruit-bearing technique. Invented by National University of Modern Languages, it is based on rapidly raising the credentials of your boss, from BA to Ph.D in the shortest possible time, so that the favour could be promptly returned on “you scratch my back, I scratch yours” basis. Successfully tested on a boss, an ex-chairman of UGC, the credentialising exercise took just one year, and the boss’ credentials sky rocketed to an impressive Ph.D status. One understands that our famous ex-minister of education, is already in the experimental pipeline, and would soon successfully emerge as a Ph.D, with robes, caps, degrees et al.

Why has there been such a sharp degradation in the behaviour and ethics of those we hold in such high esteem and at such high pedestals. As a starter, we need to choose suitably qualified and not “generalised” wise chancellors. Those with degrees from such wishy-washy places like American University of London must be promptly sent home. Having failed to scrutinize the fake degrees of many of our law makers (for the sake of political convenience), HEC must at least do the needful for its own fraternity of wise chancellors. No wonder, the award which my daughter received from Karachi university this morning reads, “ Karachi University – a Place of Impart Knowledge.”