The Door Must Stay Open: What women in Nigerian universities have learned to fear, by Stephanie Shaakaa

The silence of the ivory tower has a particular sound. I have learned to recognize it in the hesitant knock on my office door.

A student stands there holding a project file, starting with a question about a grade or a deadline. Then she sits down, looks at me, and the academic question gives way to something else: a lecturer who made her uncomfortable; a supervisor asking to see her after hours, or a hint that her academic future depends on becoming more accommodating. Sometimes she says all of this. Sometimes she only says, “Ma, I have a problem.”

By then, you know the problem is larger than her words.

This is one of the least discussed consequences of corruption in our universities. We treat sexual harassment, coercion, and academic exploitation as the isolated failures of a few morally bankrupt individuals. We identify the guilty lecturer, the harmed student, and the administrator who mishandled the complaint, and then we move on. But systems are defined just as much by what happens around the misconduct: who is believed, whose reputation is protected, and how much courage it takes to tell the truth.

That is where the deeper damage begins. Corruption changes the behavior of people who have never participated in it, particularly women.

There is a deliberate distance female lecturers often maintain. From the outside, it looks like arrogance or formality. A student might wonder why a pleasant departmental colleague becomes so careful behind closed doors. The answer is not a lack of care; it is the exact opposite.

I keep my office door open. It is a small thing, but vital for professional survival. The corridor light remains visible. Passersby can see who is inside. A private conversation remains, to some extent, public. The open door is not hostility, it is a boundary.

So is refusing to meet students alone late at night, keeping communication strictly professional, and avoiding casual familiarity that can be distorted. These precautions can make a woman appear distant. Sometimes, distance is simply the price of safety.

This is hard to explain to those who never have to weigh how their ordinary behavior might be weaponized. A male lecturer can be informal and be seen as approachable; a female lecturer doing the same risks having her warmth misinterpreted. A strict man is disciplined; a strict man’s female counterpart is difficult. A distant man is authoritative; a distant man’s female counterpart is proud. Women enter these interactions with an exhausting, constant awareness of how easily their conduct can be twisted.

They learn to calculate things that should never require calculation: How late is too late? How familiar is too familiar? Should I close the door?

At some point, professionalism stops being just a standard of conduct and becomes defensive architecture. Corruption teaches innocent people to behave as though danger is always nearby.

Then comes the cruelest irony. The women most careful about boundaries become the safe havens that vulnerable students seek out.

A student facing an inappropriate encounter may pass several offices before knocking on a woman’s door. She may not know her well, but she hopes for a conversation that will not immediately turn into a negotiation. She needs someone to listen without first asking what she did to cause the problem.

And so the woman who spent years building careful professional boundaries becomes the emergency room for the institution’s wounded.

This uncounted burden exists entirely outside the ordinary demands of teaching, research, and administration. There is no promotion point for helping a student regain confidence after an authority figure has abused their power. Yet women perform this work anyway, acting as unofficial counselors, procedure interpreters, and the last bridge between a frightened student and a broken institution.

This is why academic corruption changes the entire atmosphere. Students grow suspicious, lecturers become guarded, and women navigate ordinary interactions with extreme caution. Trust fractures.

People develop private systems of protection. Women keep doors open; students study which lecturers to avoid. None of this appears in a university prospectus, but everyone learns it fast. That proves why the “few bad apples” argument fails. The institution must examine the conditions allowing such behavior to survive, the systems discouraging complaints, and a culture that prioritizes public relations over human safety.

Telling women to be more careful is useless; they are already exhausting themselves with caution.

Telling students to speak up means nothing while the costs of speaking out remain devastating. Universities need credible reportage channels, transparent supervisory relationships, and accountability that never shields institutional failure.

Academic authority is a trust meant for guiding another human being. A lecturer does not own a student’s future. A supervisor does not own a degree. The moment authority becomes a bargaining chip, education is corrupted.

That is why I keep my door open. Not out of coldness, but to keep boundaries clear so neither of us has to guess what the relationship means. I want the corridor visible. I want the student sitting across from me to know that help does not come with a hidden price.

Yet it is deeply basic that any of this is necessary. A university should not force decent people behind defensive walls. A woman should not have to calculate the warmth of her own voice to remain above suspicion.

The shame belongs entirely to an academic culture that makes good people afraid to be ordinary. Because the deepest damage of corruption is not just a lost grade or a compromised degree it is that a place built to teach trust becomes a place where everyone learns to defend themselves against it.