“I went to office hours to talk about Arabic, and I got lectures about how I should quit my job and move back to Egypt....I was told to join Muslim Student Association, go to Friday prayers, basically ‘be a better Muslim’

Professor Haider Bhuiyan seemed to care more about Muslim behavior than teaching Arabic, thus his resignation from the University of Georgia.  Whether he was a competent teacher or not is a question unanswered at this time, but his approach to a female student about her "Muslimness" speaks volumes about his beliefs and practices, all antithetical to the values and ethics of the country where he resides.  


He is one to be watched carefully/.




From RedAndBlack March 5 by Briana Gerdeman 

Former professor sparks debate (w/ Documents)

An Arabic lecturer who resigned from the University made students uncomfortable with unwanted advice about religion and had difficulty teaching the language, according to students and an adviser.

Haider Bhuiyan was a lecturer of Arabic and Islam at the University from 2007 until he resigned after fall 

In December 2010, the Equal Opportunity Office investigated Bhuiyan on allegations that he made inappropriate comments about religion and sexual orientation to students, according to documents obtained by the Red & Black and published in a Feb. 2 article. The EOO found no evidence of discrimination, wrote E. Janyce Dawkins, associate director of equal opportunity, in a letter to Bhuiyan.

In a second investigation, the EOO looked into charges by Bhuiyan that two other religion professors, Alan Godlas and Kenneth Honerkamp, had discriminated against him when he was not rehired as a lecturer in Arabic. According to a letter from Dawkins to Bhuiyan, the EOO found no evidence of discrimination against Bhuiyan, but found that he had discriminated against students earlier.

A student, who wished to remain anonymous, took the University’s first four Arabic classes with Bhuiyan in the 2009-10 and 2010-11 academic years.

She said he made her and other students uncomfortable with “a lot of unwanted advice” about religion.

“Aside from his ability to teach Arabic, which was completely subpar, I was told by him on several occasions that being an Arabic girl in Georgia by myself was not a good idea,” she said.

She said Bhuiyan told her that as a Muslim woman, she shouldn’t live alone without male family members and shouldn’t be working so hard at her job.

“I went to office hours to talk about Arabic, and I got lectures about how I should quit my job and move back to Egypt,” she said. “I was told to join Muslim Student Association, go to Friday prayers, basically ‘be a better Muslim.’ All that made it really hard to interact with him as a teacher.”

The student grew up in Egypt and was raised Muslim, but she said she made it clear to Bhuiyan that she hadn’t practiced Islam since the age of 4.

Wanda Wilcox, an adviser for the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, said another student complained to her about Bhuiyan’s inappropriate remarks about religion.

She said a male student in Bhuiyan’s summer Islam class told her Bhuiyan had said “very aggressive and very dismissive” things to a female student in the class who practiced a different denomination of Islam than Bhuiyan.

“As just a guy who was in there, he felt very badly for the girl that she was being attacked,” Wilcox said. When she learned the EOO was investigating Bhuiyan, she gave the male student’s name to the EOO.

The anonymous student also said Bhuiyan’s comments, rather than distinguishing between Muslims and non-Muslims, distinguished between “good” and “bad” Muslims.

“Our class was basically full of people who were just stunned by the things he said to us,” she said.

In addition to the allegations of discrimination, some students also said Bhuiyan was not a qualified teacher.

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