President's Repor T

REPORT PRESIDENT’S 17 2018 1 President’s Letter 2 Chairman’s Letter 3 Pillars of Excellence 13 Accreditation: Committed to Quality of Education 15 Highlights 19 Financials 21 Sponsored Programs 25 Donors 53 Board of Trustees Facts and Figures TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE 55 Last year, we affirmed our centennial strategic plan, focusing on five pillars of excellence: quality of education, internationalization, institutional effectiveness, innovation and the AUC experience that sets us apart. AUC offers unique services to our host country, to America and to the world. As Egypt’s only globally accredited University reaffirmed in 2018 by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, we take great pride in this vote of confidence in our performance at the highest American standards. As a student-centered University, we strive continuously to enhance the educational quality of the unique AUC experience, with its emphasis on inquiry-based teaching and research. Bringing back students from around the world to Cairo is fundamentally important to maintaining AUC’s international perspective. Particularly important is the return of American students to AUC’s Center for Arabic Study Abroad, the world’s premier Arabic-language immersion program located here in the inviting and dynamic heart of the Arab world. Last year, we introduced several management and service innovations: digital tools, operational and governance reforms, new talent management systems and assessments, academic ventures and a Tobacco-Free Community Policy for both campuses. We increased our global partnerships, including student exchange agreements with Harvard University and King’s College London. We did all that while continuing to foster excellence in all we do and capitalizing on the strength and dedication of AUC’s strongest asset –– its people. Our 2019 - 2020 centennial year holds great promise. We thank you –– AUC’s trustees and other donors, alumni, parents and friends listed in this report –– for your generosity and truly vital support of AUC as we usher in another 100 years of excellence, innovation and service. FRANCIS J. RICCIARDONE PRESIDENT 1 I’m honored to serve again as chairman of the Board of Trustees and look forward to RICHARD A. BARTLETT working with everyone as the University commemorates another important milestone CHAIRMAN in its history. As AUC revels in the accomplishments of its first century of service to Egypt, it is inspiring to think about the promise of the next one. Since the University’s modest beginnings as a small school of 142 students, AUC’s remarkable journey to earn its place in Egypt and the region is a source of tremendous pride. That history provides a strong foundation for the new aspirations and greater horizons that will define AUC’s second century. During our 100th year, AUC’s numerous notable achievements included many pioneering initiatives. We became the first University in the region to offer a blended degree, collaborating with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Abdulla Al Ghurair Foundation for Education. We instituted Egypt’s first — and one of the first worldwide — master’s-level FinTech program. We inaugurated a Department of Psychology with the first community psychology program in the region. We celebrated the fifth anniversary of the AUC Venture Lab — the first University-based business incubator and accelerator in Egypt — and we graduated our first Al Ghurair STEM Scholar. We’re also fortunate to have welcomed several new members to AUC’s Board of Trustees this year: Nora Abousteit ’00, founder and CEO of social-crafting business CraftJam Inc.; Kristin Lord, president and CEO of the global development and education nonprofit IREX; and Laurie Fitch (YAB ’91), partner in the Strategic Advisory Group at PJT Partners. Their talents and commitment to the University’s mission have already been felt in the board’s deliberations about the University’s direction. The AUC community displayed its energy, intellectual vitality and pride on February 9 at our centennial kickoff celebration at which we inaugurated our new Tahrir Cultural Center. It is a privilege to be a part of the AUC community, and I welcome everyone to participate in all the upcoming centennial activities commemorating our past and welcoming another century of educational vibrancy at AUC. 2 Pillars of EXCELLENCE “From Good to Great” — That’s what the AUC Centennial Strategic Plan: 2019 - 2022 Vision is set to accomplish: capitalizing on the University’s strengths as it marks its centennial and continuously raising its trajectory of excellence. The AUC Centennial Strategic Plan is centered on five pillars: quality of education, internationalization, AUC experience, institutional effectiveness and innovation. 3 QUALITY OF EDUCATION AUC fosters academic excellence in a liberal arts culture. We continuously enhance student learning through innovative pedagogies; effective assessment of the curricula and faculty teaching methods; and interdisciplinary, community-based research. Provost Ehab Abdel-Rahman’s task force on the quality of undergraduate education launched a series of focus groups and surveys with students, parents, faculty members and department chairs. These yielded recommendations on both curriculum and pedagogy, many now implemented, to enhance faculty instruction, student creativity and critical thinking, and to remove any impediments to a positive student learning experience. These included: increasing experiential learning and career preparation in the curriculum; creating a stronger focus on creativity, entrepreneurship and innovation; redesigning AUC’s learning spaces to align with best practices for higher education teaching and learning; and creating a direct channel of communication among deans, department chairs and students. The task force also recommended improving teaching assessments and institutionalizing faculty professional development. AUC will also regularly revisit the admission process to ensure that the University continuously attracts and recruits top-caliber students. “We are constantly developing a culture of continuous improvement through advanced pedagogies and research that cultivate lifelong learning, personal fulfillment and adaptability to the future requirements of local and international job markets,” “I wouldn’t said Aziza Ellozy ‘64, ‘67, associate provost for transformative learning and teaching. “Our quality of education is what has defined be here if it weren’t us throughout the past 100 years and will continue to for the professors who helped define us into the next century.” guide me into this field during my years as an undergraduate. I didn’t start out with a love for mechanical engineering. It was only after taking courses with [these professors] and working with them as a research assistant that I really came to love this field. AUC is actually a paradise for ambitious people — plenty of opportunities.” OMAR EL SAFTY ’18 Mechanical engineering; currently pursuing his master’s and PhD in mechanical engineering through a fully funded scholarship at Stanford University 4 “By combining Harvard’s strong legacy in Egyptology with new digital humanities research and teaching tools, such as our Giza Project, we hope to help students excel in all aspects of the field. And where else to gain additional experience in Egyptology but in Egypt itself? We are very excited about this new collaborative exchange agreement between Harvard and AUC, and look forward to increased ‘traffic’ on this two-way street between Cairo and Cambridge.” PETER DER MANUELIAN Philip J. King Professor of Egyptology, Harvard University; Director, Harvard Semitic Museum 5 INTERNATIONALIZATION Diversity is one of AUC’s defining characteristics. A multicultural faculty brings a variety of perspectives to the classroom, while our students hail from around 50 countries around the globe. In order to maintain and enhance this international diversity, the University has further advanced its enrollment systems and procedures to bring more international students to join AUC. We now provide more timely notifications of admission and financial support decisions, publish the academic calendar one year in advance, continuously update the University website with particular attention to the interests of international students, and have established one-stop service centers to address international students’ inquiries and needs from the application phase to arrival on campus and afterward. “One of the key priorities for AUC is to re-internationalize the campus,” said Ahmed Tolba ’97, ’01, associate provost for strategic enrollment management. “AUC’s multicultural environment is a vital element of high-quality global education. We aim to realize significant increases in our international student body over each of the next five years.” Hence, the University is stepping up its presence at international campuses and recruitment fairs, promoting joint programs to enhance student mobility, continuing to recruit and retain top-caliber faculty, offering competitive tuition and financial support packages for international students, and working to raise awareness of professional opportunities and internships available to international students. AUC established a recruitment team in the United States, initiated a digital recruitment campaign and launched an Ambassador Program, whereby selected and trained students, faculty members and alumni advocate for the University in key locales. Through such initiatives, last year AUC has built new momentum

Load more