For the past twenty years, a sentence has circulated in academic circles: “Universities are collapsing.” It is repeated almost like a collective lament. In corridors, at symposiums, in faculty meetings, the same complaint echoes: “Education is finished.” Yet behind this sentence lies a heavier question: Did the university truly collapse on its own, or did we bring it down?

The most painful part of the tragedy is this: Those who pronounced the execution may be the very ones shedding tears at the funeral. We exhausted the university, we trivialized it, we instrumentalized it. Then we stood by its coffin and mourned loudly. Yet mourning is often the easiest way to silence conscience.

How is a university “killed”? Not with weapons, but with mentality. When scientific curiosity is replaced by career calculations… When the pursuit of truth gives way to scorecards and metrics… When the number of publications is placed above the depth of thought… When teaching becomes a burden, the student a procedure, and research a mere formality… The university is slowly suffocated.

The academic is the heart of the university. If the heart grows weary, the body may live on, but the spirit dies. If the professor enters the classroom without enthusiasm, does not internalize what they read, does not give life to what they write; if they merely transmit information without opening horizons for the student… In that moment, the university grows a little quieter. And over time, this silence is named collapse.

Another breaking point is courage. The university ought to be a place where truth is spoken freely. But if the academic remains silent to preserve comfort, considers criticism too risky, keeps their thought within safe boundaries; the university does not produce ideas—it produces repetition. And an institution that merely repeats is not alive; it is archival.

Certainly, there are structural problems, political interventions, economic constraints. Yet placing all blame on external conditions is an evasion. What is difficult is to look into the mirror. To ask: Where did we fall short? Do we bear responsibility in the fading light of the student’s eyes? In the normalization of academic mediocrity? In transforming the university from a hearth of truth into a field of status?

“We executed the university first, then we wept at its funeral.” This metaphor captures the contradiction precisely. The gallows was built with small compromises. A knot was tied when merit was overlooked. Another when quantity was preferred over quality… When compliant silence was rewarded over critical thought, the rope tightened further. Eventually, the university was strangled. And we consoled ourselves by attributing its death to external forces.

Yet it is the academic who can revive it. For a university is not a building; it is the human mind. If the professor begins to read again, to question again, to take risks again; if they offer students not only lessons but a sense of intellectual mission; the university will begin to breathe. Revival comes from within.

Confession is not weakness; it is a beginning. To say, “Yes, we share responsibility,” is to accept accountability. Without accountability, transformation cannot begin. If we wish to rebuild the university, we must first see where we wounded it.

Perhaps it is time to stop weeping at the funeral and start dismantling the gallows. For the university is not entirely dead; it is gravely wounded. What will keep it alive is the conscience of the academic who renews their oath of fidelity to truth.

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The White Truth of the Blackboard

I long for a return to blackboard teaching. In those days, scholars pursued knowledge not for titles, but for curiosity. Knowledge for its own sake… Truth for the sake of truth… They worked not to climb academic ranks, but to descend into the depths of thought. Teaching was not a duty; it was a state of intellectual ecstasy.

The blackboard was not merely a tool; it was a stage. Upon that stage, the professor was both thinker and artist. Every word was chosen with care, every sentence constructed, every number placed with precision. The sound of chalk touching the board was the sound of thought being born. As formulas, concepts, historical events were written in white strokes upon darkness, knowledge took shape before our eyes.

Each number, each example, each concept was built step by step. The student witnessed the construction of thought. The professor erased, rewrote, exposed the mistake, demonstrated how truth was found. The process did not present knowledge ready-made; it gave birth to it. The blackboard was the workshop of the mind.

Today, smart boards and smart pens have arrived… Yet somehow, something essential feels diminished. Slides are ready, texts are prepared, graphics are polished… Information appears on the screen, but it is not kneaded in the mind. The professor does not narrate—they display. The student does not think—they watch. The lesson ceases to be a process of construction and becomes a presentation.

Technology is not the enemy. The question is this: As the tools grew larger, did the human being grow smaller? On the blackboard, as the professor built thought step by step, they invited the student into that journey. Now information flows rapidly, but depth diminishes. Yet truth is grasped not through speed, but through patience.

Every word written on the blackboard bore the trace of effort. Chalk dust settled on the professor’s jacket; knowledge almost made contact with the body. Now a finger touches a key and pages change. But the page within the mind does not turn at the same speed.

Once, titles were secondary; knowledge was primary. Now publication counts, citation indexes, performance metrics dominate conversations. If the excitement of learning has yielded to performance charts, the problem is not the board but the mentality. Still, the blackboard symbolized that mentality: patience, effort, simplicity.

Perhaps the issue is not truly returning to the blackboard, but recalling its spirit. To pursue knowledge out of curiosity… To craft sentences with the delicacy of an artist… To teach while looking into the student’s eyes… To present knowledge not as a ready-made package, but as a living process…

Smart boards emerged, smart pens emerged; yet knowledge has always belonged not only to the mind, but also to the heart. The white lines of the blackboard reminded us that learning is a simple yet profound journey. What we truly long for, perhaps, is the dignity and integrity of that journey.