Reaction to University's Forum Discussion on Ways to Tackle $9.7 Million Deficit

By: Lara Al Huneidi, Farah Moustafa and MennatAllah Mousa

CAIRO, Egypt- The American University of Cairo  is predicting a $9.7 million budget deficit, which Executive Vice President for Administration and Finance Brian MacDougall says is due to the unforeseen change in tuition income from international students.

MacDougall explained that the university did not imagine how destructive the situations would be in the summer and this led to a huge decline in their total revenue. The political unrest and the consequent travel ban were behind the huge drop in international student enrollment.

“The students that didn’t come this fall are almost all international students,” says President Lisa Anderson. Although the forecasted year-end budget was of a surplus of $0.03 million, now the university shows a net deficit of $9.7 million due to the decline in international students, as well as many other factors.

Anderson clarified that a task force has been working on options for the university to mitigate revenue loss. Among the many options, a few of them were imposing a hiring freeze for vacant positions, postponing salaries, reducing the financial aid budget, stopping the annual purchasing of agendas and several other options. While some of the options will be temporary, others will be long-term options.

“The purpose of this forum is to solicit your suggestions, your reactions and your thoughts about what we ought to do as a community to address this deficit,” says Anderson.

Several individuals at the forum were concerned about some of the suggestions put forward. This blog is based on some of the reactions as well as opinions of students and faculty members to the university’s forum discussion on the $9.7 million budget deficit.

How Will AUC Survive the $9.7 Million Budget Deficit?

By: Sarah Yousri, Nermeen Abdel Fattah, Menna Al Malky and Radwa Magdy.

CAIRO, Egypt – A forum discussing the $9.7 million budget deficit took place at The American University in Cairo (AUC) on Sunday November 24^th and was held by the University’s President Lisa Anderson and Executive Vice President for Administration and Finance Brian MacDougall.

The purpose of the forum was to generate suggestions and proposals from the AUC community in an effort to overcome the steep financial gap the university is facing. MacDougall stated that AUC is considering different strategies in order to overcome the gap.

According to MacDougall, the main reason for the deficit is a significant drop in enrollment due to a fall in the number of international students by more than 300, adding that revenue is also affected by the 50 percent cut in donations.

"On a positive note, the signing of the Greek Campus lease is starting to bring revenue to the university," he says.

MacDougall discussed two direct strategies the administration is considering implementing, namely, raising the current cost of residence fees for students as well as the implementation of a new parking payment system. As for the faculty and staff, changes in hiring, salaries, benefits and overtime policies were among the proposals made.  

Anderson says admitting more students is out of the question since the university will not be able to provide them with the quality of education they are paying for in response to an attendee who raised  concern over how AUC will be able to maintain quality after reducing their budget. 

Additionally, the decline in the number of international students is not due to a decrease in the quality of education offered at AUC, it is due to the travel ban imposed by the US government, Anderson said.

In a personal interview, MacDougall says: “We want to solve it in a way that’s fair and reasonable to everybody.”

MacDougall has not come to any solution and will consult the AUC community before implementing any strategy.

An additional university-wide forum was also held in Arabic.

Struggles of the Human Rights Community in Egypt

By: MennatAllah Mousa, Kanzy Mahmoud and Malak Naguib

  CAIRO, Egypt – Human Rights Watch (HRW) Egypt Director Heba Morayef held a lecture at The American University in Cairo on Wednesday discussing the shift the human rights community in Egypt experienced in the last three years.

The Middle East Studies Center hosted the event entitled: “From Hero to Public Enemy? Human Rights Workers in Egypt,” where Morayef stressed on the backlash the human rights community received from the media in the last three months for documenting human rights violations under the current regime.

The Egyptian society does not understand that the change human rights organizations are seeking is that “security forces are not above the law,” Morayef said.

According to Morayef, the turning point for the human rights community was January 25th Revolution, after which “talking about human rights became part of central political discussion” and the military government started inviting human rights organizations for consultation on legislative reforms.

 However, there were many incidents such as June 2011 when “the military attacked 6th April, calling them foreign agents,” and others where the military committed human rights violations, said Morayef.

 During former President Mohamed Morsi’s era parliament also invited human rights organizations to discuss law reforms. While the latter pushed for a law on transitional justice to be passed, parliament was dominated by one single group, the Muslim Brotherhood, and, thus, refused to pass it, said Morayef. She added that many human rights violations were committed under Morsi and reporting on them made human rights organizations very popular in the society and the private media.

 It was only after the dispersal of Rabaa Al-Adaweya Square sit-in that the media accused human rights organizations of “being supporters of the Brotherhood or working for the US” as they condemned the dispersal that caused a huge amount of killings. Morayef said that there was no provision of safe exits for the wounded.

In an interview, when asked about the future of human rights organizations in Egypt, Morayef said: “Until we see a shift in media, that influence (shifting government policy, pressuring government to make certain demands) will be limited.”

Ekne3ny Shokran – Minimum Wage Policy Debate

By: Nermeen Abdel Fattah, Radwa Youssef and Shahenda Kareem

CAIRO, Egypt – An economic debate forum on whether or not to apply minimum wage in Egypt took place on Nov. 6^th at The American University in Cairo (AUC), held by the ‘Ekne3ny Shokran’ initiative.

The panel included Manal Metwally, professor of economics at Cairo University, Tamer Wageeh, director of the Social Justice Unit at Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, Mohamed El-Sewedy, chairman of the Federation of Egyptian Industries and Alia El Mahdi, a professor of economics at Cairo University.

Metwally and Wageeh were arguing for the government to implement minimum wage soon within the workforce in the governmental sector and in private businesses. However, El Mahdi and El-Sewedy debated that it should only be applied under certain conditions and not before a few years.

In announcing her proposal to increase the minimum wage, Metwally explained that due to inflation in prices minimum income should be implemented to secure a decent life for the citizens and this minimum income should be divided into: minimum wage and social securities.

El Mahdi argued that by implementing the concept of minimum wage in Egypt nowadays would only backfire on the public, as it will be the ultimate cause for the rise in market prices. Before such an ideology is implemented, it is vital for the economy to be stable.

Wageeb stated that 30% of the work force is self-employed and the rest work for others. Half of the 70% earn 30 LE per day supporting a family of four or five living below the line of poverty. However, in developed countries they provide the work force with decent jobs that allows the employee to live a decent life.

An attendee proposed that the government should implement minimum wage per hour, an amount that is suitable to sustain and secure the workers life and allow him to live comfortably.

“Before the debate I was against the motion, because I think that Egyptian productivity doesn’t deserve to raise its wage level, and after the motion I am still against it”, said Jana Abd El Menam, an attendee from AUC.

El-Sewedy said, in a personal interview, ‘the most important thing the market takes the lead when it comes to setting the wages not the government’.

Happiness: An Abstract Concept in Post-Revolutionary Egypt.

By: Lara Al Huneidi, Farah Moustafa and Salma El Saeed. 

“Inti Mabsouta? Revolutionary Experiments in the Pedagogy of Visual Ethnography” Lecture at AUC

CAIRO, Egypt- In a lecture held at The American University in Cairo (AUC), Assistant Professor Dr. Mark Westmoreland discussed an experiment a group of his students conducted by asking Egyptians “Are you happy?”

The lecture, entitled “Inti Mabsouta? Revolutionary Experiments in the Pedagogy of Visual Ethnography,” took place on Tuesday, October 30th at the Sociology, Anthropology, Psychology, and Egyptology (SAPE) seminar room at AUC.

While teaching a Visual Anthropology seminar during the Fall 2012 semester at AUC, Westmoreland started this experiment in response to a widespread interest he realized his students had in recording post-revolutionary times. He instructed his students to film a variety of Egyptians responding to the question “Are you happy?” 

“Most [students] were interested in some aspect of the revolution,” Westmoreland said. “This idea of ‘thinking with a camera in revolutionary times’ was sort of the…subtitle of this course,” he added.

Westmoreland said that, due to the precarious period of political transition Egypt is currently in, many Egyptians were suspicious of the students’ intentions and agendas. 

“Having a camera instantly gave us a political position,” he said.

Westmoreland was inspired to start the experiment by two French films, “Chronique D'un Été” (1961) and “Le Joli Mai” (1963), both of which documented everyday life in Paris during a critical political time. Similarly, the projects Westmoreland’s students completed took place during November of last year, close to the anniversary of the Mohamed Mahmoud clashes.

Although the footage Westmoreland collected from his students’ projects recorded a unique moment in the political transition in Egypt, he said that the experiment, in its current form, is not complete.

“It would be really valuable to have an extended project, even for decades, perhaps…it would create an incredible archive," Westmoreland said.

However, while Westmoreland recognizes the value of creating a linear video by documenting the change of atmosphere in Egypt during the 10 years or so following the January 25th Revolution, he plans on completing the experiment by the beginning of next year.

Translation for Bigots: The Art of Translating Arabic Literature into English

By: Nehal El-Sayed and Eman Sarkes

(Photos by: Eman Sarkes)

CAIRO, Egypt – Adam Talib, assistant professor of Arabic Literature at The American University in Cairo (AUC) gave a lecture titled “Translation for Bigots” on Sunday.

As part of an interdisciplinary series organized by the AUC Center for Translation Studies, Talib discussed his anecdotal experience with translating modern Arabic literature for English readers.

“When you’re translating into English, you’re translating for a world,” said Talib as he emphasized on the English language being global. Talib stated that when he translates, he has a fair amount of discretion, in terms of what to emphasize or de-emphasize.

Talib talked about his experience with translating modern Arabic literature and trying to make his translations readable. “I often do things to the original text to make them approachable,” he said.

He related bigotry to the differences in cultures and discussed how it affects the literary translation. He showed examples of Google automatic search engines such as, “Do Arab women marry black men?” Talib believes that this is not evidence for bigotry, yet “an evidence for the cultural gap between the specialist translator who knows his environment well and his audience”.

A discussion question was raised on what translators should do in the use of language to correctly represent the situation. He stated his experience saying, “A lot of times, you translate what’s on the page, and the reviewers find it peculiar”.

Talib stated that translators only care about the translation not the political questions surrounding it. He gave an example of a translation by a French translator who ignored translating a scene about Jews for a specific legal reason that they have a law about Holocaust denial.

In response to the question about the role of translator, Yosra Ali, political science and history sophomore, said, “I believe that translators should not change anything of the authentic text, but at the same time they may provide comments as footnotes to clarify the meaning”.

In a personal interview with Professor Talib, he said, “the better a reader the translator is, the better translation he’s going to produce.”

Egypt: A Country Lost Between the Generals and Islamists

By: Sarah Yousri, Menna Al Malky and Karima Aly

CAIRO, Egypt -- Sharif Abdel Koddous discussed Egypt's continuing struggle since the 25^th of January revolution at The American University in Cairo (AUC) on Wednesday.

The lecture was hosted by the Middle East Studies Center (MESC) and the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication (JRMC).

Koddous started the lecture by stating that it has only been 1000 days since the first revolution. He then continued that the problems that have initially sparked the first revolution have not yet been solved such as the fair distribution of wealth and freedom among citizens.

“The military is firmly in control," said Kouddous. The military is using the constitution to establish it's political and economic power as well as seeking to ensure it's supremacy in the country.

The current political crisis is a result of the power struggle between the military and the Muslim Brotherhood according to Koddous. Both parties played a "zero-sum game," which demands choosing between the two powers.

Koddous went deeper into the struggle between the two powers by adding that both only seek their own political and economic concerns over that of the public's. He also added that both powers are defined by hierarchy, secrecy and superiority.

Nine-thousand strikes took place throughout ex-president Mohamed Morsy's year in power after he used harsh tactics against the opposition encouraging a brutal security sector in addition to restricting citizen's rights to protesting in the draft law. 

Morsy's opponents mainly consisted of Human Rights advocates, revolutionary activists, business elites and the Coptic Church.

Koddous then talked about Tamarod, a genuine movement appearing in early May 2013, and how the military managed to successfully co-opt with the movement to regain power. 

The military managed to gain publicity through liberal figures. But managed to demonize Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, also a liberal figure, for disagreeing with it's violence against the Islamists.

Koddous' audience reacted positively towards his lecture. Mai Mekawy, a finance major student at AUC, believed that Koddous summed-up the situation in a balanced way.

In an interview, when asked whether or not he thinks that Abdel Fattah El-Sisi will be running for presidency, Koddous said that Sisi will want "to be the real power of the country but not to be the face of the government."