An American in Cairo
By Fatemah Farag
Walking up the grand marble and wooden staircase of the AUC main building, the visitor comes face to face with the portraits of eight men -- the first eight presidents of the American University in Cairo. Their elegant, polished appearance betrays no hint of the complexities with which they must have wrestled in the course of what is widely recognised as both a prestigious and a daunting task.
At the door to the President's office, we are greeted by John Gerhart, an unassuming man who puts us immediately at our ease, smiling out from beneath his neatly-clipped moustache while he slips one hand through his silvery hair. A slight accent hints at his hometown, Abilene, Texas, while his demeanour and ideas reflect both his many academic degrees, culminating in 1975 with a PhD in Public Affairs from the University of Princeton, and the great variety of his professional experience.
Before taking up his current position, Gerhart was Southern Africa representative at the Ford Foundation in Johannesburg. Although his career has kept him mainly south of the Sahara, as he moved from Tanzania through Kenya to Botswana, the man is no stranger to Egypt. Perhaps it is his taste for Turkish coffee -- mazbout -- that gives away the five years he spent in Umm Ed-Dunya between 1980 and 1985 as (already) the Ford Foundation's Representative for North Africa and the Middle East. Today, 10 years later, he is a man on whom his new responsibilities sit easily, who is aware of the challenges to come and is ready to meet them.
Decked in the colours of Princeton and wearing the official gold emblem of the American University in Cairo (AUC), Dr John Gerhart will be officially invested as the university's ninth president on 1 February. Ahead of the ceremony, he at length about the strengths he sees in the institution he will represent, and the many challenges that lie in the future
photo: Sherif Sonbol
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"I think my background is relevant to AUC in several ways," he says. "A lot of what we did at the Ford Foundation -- maybe half our grants -- was to fund universities. So, although I have not been based in a university, I have been funding universities since 1969."
In fact, during Gerhart's five-year stay in Egypt, he worked closely with AUC, funding the Social Research Centre (SRC), Cairo Papers and the Desert Development Centre (DDC). "The main advantage of my previous experience," he explains, "is that it made me a very enthusiastic supporter of Egypt and what has been happening over the past 20 years -- the opening of Egypt to the world. Coming back after 15 years, it is stunning to see the growth. I think that my previous experience in Egypt did give me a sense of where Egypt is heading and I think I can see enormous changes for the good."
The key, says Gerhart, is enthusiasm. "I actually think that if you are not enthusiastic you cannot be a university president. You are going out and asking parents to entrust their children to you. You are asking donors to give you money. If you do not believe in what you are doing, then you should be in a different business."
And so it is with great verve that he begins to outline for us the main roles played by the 80-year-old educational institution. AUC's first function is the provision of "an excellent foreign language education to Egyptian students to service Egypt's national interests. For example, our departments of business management, mass communications, international relations: on these we do a good job. We have the best foreign-language library in the Middle East and I think we are the best foreign-language university in the area. Parents, students and employers all agree on that." Yet, though the portfolio is certainly impressive, Gerhart is the first to acknowledge that it is not always smooth sailing.
Take, for example, tuition fees. Substantial increases over the past years have led many to question how accessible an AUC education really is to all sectors of Egyptian society -- a criterion stipulated in the university mandate.
"Because we are a foreign-language university, most of our students come from foreign-language high schools, which are mainly private. So I am afraid, that most of our students do come from, if not wealthy, then middle-class families, and that is something that we worry about."
There are full scholarships for talented students, and Gerhart is proud to point to a recent study which found that more than half of all scholarship students graduate with high and highest honours. But despite this success, he concedes that there is more to be done. "We are just about to launch a fund-raising campaign to increase the number of students from government high schools. Now the number is small -- about 50 out of 3,500 undergraduates."
As for the precedence of money over ability as a criterion for admission, he adamantly denies that this is possible. "No one has ever been admitted to AUC [who] didn't have the required marks. In fact, last year the minimum entry grade jumped from 74 to 90 on the Egyptian high school diploma. We got three applications for every student that we took this fall. All our students are outstanding." Gerhart stresses that AUC is simply "not in it to make money. In fact, we are trying to increase the endowment and the proportion going to scholarships. All money is ploughed back into the university."
Neverthles, over the years AUC has acquired the image of an elite institution indifferent to the society within which it is situated. Gerhart is aware of this fact and, although it is a concern, he is keen to point out the "other side" of the coin. "We have 15,000 students in the adult education programme and these [people] are not well-off. They are working people, upwardly mobile successful people in their places of work, but they are not from wealthy backgrounds. We provide the largest adult education programme in Egypt and it is not run for profit -- it barely breaks even. We also have another programme, which we never even mention, for graduate students at the national universities who can register to use our library. We have 4,000 registered users, which is important because this is the only major foreign-language library in this country, including 250,000 volumes and 2,500 journals. These pay a very nominal fee."
'..We are a university in Egypt... we have to be sensitive to our surroundings. Nevertheless, it is a slippery slope if you start telling people what they can and cannot read, and I think that one of the functions of AUC may well be to try and maintain the principle of not censoring books'
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In fact, the majority of AUC's 900 graduate students are from national universities. Tuition fees at that level "are very low." Gerhart is the first to admit that the undergraduate population is a fairly elite group, "but if you take the university as a whole, the mass is not."
When it comes to the future of that "elite" student body, Gerhart acknowledges that AUC faces increasing competition. But he is not unduly worried about the new private universities that are springing up in Egypt. "We welcome competition and wish the new universities well. A lot of them, however, specialise in professional fields like pharmacy and medicine -- fields we do not offer and, hence, I do not think there is any direct competition. At the moment, our real competition is overseas, because today many Egyptians can afford to send their kids [abroad]."
Is AUC up to the challenge? He clasps his hands and looks me straight in the eye. "I think we are very able. I went to Harvard and I think I know what a good university is. I wouldn't say we are at that level, but I would say we are competitive and we have other advantages socially." In Gerhart's view, the social coherence afforded by Egypt will continue to attract students who do not want to pay the emotional costs of loneliness and a foreign environment.
But the differences between East and West run deeper than just extended family values. "In the West," says Gerhart, "people try to get a broad education first, and then they get professional training if necessary This is particularly appropriate in today's world because people change their professions left and right." This brings us to the second major function of the university, namely the provision of a liberal arts education. Gerhart appreciates the point on the basis of personal experience and not just academic reason. "I changed seven or eight times between the time I entered the university and where I ended up. In fact, my position today is in itself a bigger change. So, if I had only done the first thing I set out to do, I would not have had as rich or interesting a life as I have had."
And Gerhart's switches were dramatic, starting with French literature and then moving onto the English canon, before switching to investigate first African history, then political science. Finally, he specialised in agricultural economics, authoring several books,before moving on to administration and a broad range of activities at the Ford Foundation. Now he is a university president. So it is hard not to agree when he suggests that "a narrow preparation would not have done me much good."
Gerhart believes the philosophy of a liberal arts education is particularly relevant to the new generation. "We want people that are broad and deep. Even if you are able to master a body of facts, facts are changing so rapidly that one is in constant need of development and updating. We also believe it is in the interests of Egypt, a country which needs to play a role on the world scene -- not just for its own sake, but for the sake of the Arab world. Egypt needs people who are well trained and competent in foreign languages -- who can move quickly between different issues. There is a danger of retreating into a narrower, as opposed to a more self-confident nationalism. In the narrow nationalism, everything is a plot and everyone is against you. In a more self-confident nationalism, people are more forward looking. They believe Egypt can lead in every field, and there is a lot of evidence that it can."
The proof, of course, is in the pudding, as they say, and the demand for AUC graduates on the job market verifies success. "All I need to see is the people who are successful, and it seems they are not only finding jobs, but they also excel [in them]. Only last week, there was an advertisement asking for AUC graduates only. Of course, this is [partly] because of the language skills, but also because our graduates perform well."
But there can sometimes be a conflict between the Western idea of a comprehensive liberal education and the social values of a conservative society -- an issue that has come up several times in the past few months. "I think we have to be aware that we are a university in Egypt, that 80 per cent of our students and 60 per cent of our faculty are Egyptian, and that we have to be sensitive to our surroundings. Nevertheless, it is a slippery slope if you start telling people what they can and cannot read, and I think that one of the functions of AUC may well be to try and maintain the principle of not censoring books."
Gerhart does add, however, that AUC "will enforce the law." The censor's office, after all, is something the university has always had to deal with. "Everything in the library and the bookstore goes through the censors. What has happened, I think, as a result of the Rodinson incident [Maxine Rodinson's biography of the prophet Muhammad was banned by the censor's office last year, after having come to their notice when it featured as a reference on an AUC course], is that the censor has been looking at far more books than previously. However, I think only two books were actually banned in the last year, in addition to a few other private books that had been on order -- not text-books, but single copies ordered by the library. There has been some misunderstanding, it seems. [In one widely reported incident], the censor had asked to review a book in the library, so the librarian gave it to him and he kept it for several months and then returned it. Although it is not a banned book, the rumour started that the university was starting to ban books from the library, which is not true."
Although Gerhart "promises" the law will be obeyed, he adds that "we are not going to censor ourselves, if we can help it. On the other hand, we do expect faculty to exercise tact and judgement. I mean, I am sympathetic with the parents who are paying these huge fees and then the child comes home in tears and says I have been given this book to read. You have to respond to this -- you have to be sensitive. [Moroccan novelist Mohamed Choukri's El-Khobz el-Hafi (For bread alone), the latest book to be banned from the university] has sexually explicit passages that are very offensive. I was offended when I read them. I couldn't read them aloud. The other one [Rodinson] was controversial... -- but we are talking about two out of thousands of books. So I don't think we have been significantly affected by the censor, [or that] it has actually affected the quality of the teaching. I think that in Arabic literature there is a rich enough array of books that you can teach contemporary Arabic literature without difficulty."
In the same breath, Gerhart announces that he will stand behind the decisions of his faculty. "They [the faculty] are competent and can decide what to teach and what not. In this latest case, we referred the complaints of parents to the department of Arabic literature. The department will put together a group of 40 novels and let the faculty members choose which ones they want to teach."
But then we are talking about books that are legal and have been available for tens of years. "I think AUC is always going to be under a microscope, because it is an elite institution, it has foreign connections and it has 'American' in the name. So people are going to observe and follow AUC in a way they might not follow another university, and I think that we have to accept that."
The third major function of the institution is to educate the international community about the Middle East. "Because we are an English-language university, and because we are in Cairo, we have a unique opportunity -- and, in my view, a responsibility -- to also try to influence the English-language audience elsewhere." This aim is pursued in three ways: Arabic-language programmes; study-abroad programmes which bring 600 foreign students a year to Cairo, 200 of whom are American; and the AUC press.
At this point, Gerhart gets up and draws our attention to a side- table piled with books. He starts to pick them up, handling them with obvious pride, showing off their attractive covers. "These are academic studies on a range of subjects: Bedouins, women, etc... Original books, mostly by AUC faculty. Then there is Arabic literature, which we publish in translation. We do four of these a year, as well as one Naguib Mahfouz book. We are one of the few serious publishers of Arabic literature. Then there are guide-books, and finally coffee-table books -- wonderful things, printed mostly in Europe. They subsidise the scholarly books and translations which, of course, do not make any money. We do not run the press to make money, although we try to break even." To date, the AUC press boasts a publication rate of 40 books a year, and the back catalogue has 300 books in print. "We are the largest foreign-language publisher in the Middle East," adds Gerhart, still holding a few weighty tomes in his hands, as if unable to put them down. "We have sold more than 600,000 copies of Mahfouz in the United States, which is an unprecedented introduction to the Arab world for Americans. We regard this as part of our mission, again by virtue of our location."
Still, Gerhart believes more can be done on this third point -- by which he probably doesn't mean adding Mohamed Choukri to the AUC press list. "I do not think that we have done this [educating foreign audiences] as conscientiously as we should have in the past. We have to be more explicit about it. We have to recruit more actively among foreign students. Already we have hired a new marketing person in New York, and this year we visited every foreign language school in the Middle East, including Jordan and Saudi Arabia, to recruit. So, we are taking this seriously. We feel that it is in Egypt's interest that people abroad know Egypt from first-hand experience, and not just from books. There is a lot of misunderstanding and even bias against the Arab world, and we need to counter that by letting people see for themselves. We know that everyone who comes to Cairo likes it, so we have to get them here."
But all of this needs space, and AUC is definitely cramped. "We have seven feddans on five different sites and 90 apartments in the vicinity. We have no sports facilities to speak of, and we would like to be able to unify the campus on one site. So we have purchased 250 feddans in New Cairo and hired a very distinguished Egyptian architect to direct the planning for the new campus. We are starting a fund-raising drive and we hope over the next 10 years to build a beautiful suburban campus -- something Egypt will be very proud of, and which will give us the space to do what we are unable to do now." The old campus will continue to function, however, housing the adult education programmes and most of the business school.
We could not leave without raising one last point, namely, the apparent contradiction inherent in an institution that aims at bridging the gaps between East and West, an institution geared towards promoting mutual understanding, and which yet has a history of discrimination against locally-hired staff in favour of professors recruited abroad. Whatever may have been said in this connection, Gerhart is adamant that it is a thing of the past.
"In May last year, the Board of Trustees eliminated the salary difference between foreign and local hire. This was a very major decision. There are still a few things to be done, but this has had a wonderful effect on morale. Basically, the Egyptians hired locally have all been given automatic [salary] increases [as of last] September. I think this was a very important step." It was preceded by a move to give Egyptian hire the same rights that had been given to American staff by a Supreme Court decision to lift mandatory retirement dates. "Some people sued the university and obtained rulings in their favour. In response to that, the university took the decision to give equal treatment." In this respect, Gerhart is proud that AUC may well be unique among foreign companies in giving local hire American salaries. "I cannot claim that I made this a condition of my hiring, but I would not have taken the job if they had not already decided to do it."
As we leave, Gerhart shakes my hand firmly. He has a long road ahead of him in his new job. His predecessors did not always find that road smooth or well-marked. But I cannot imagine that, as he walks up the grand staircase every morning, he will be avoiding the calm, confident gazes of the eight men who look down on the passerby from their frames. His own eyes are full of the "enthusiasm" he rightly prizes in others. And he is eager to get started on that journey.
