President Dallal Addresses AUC’s Key Priorities
By: Amira Gamil
@amirasdiary
In his first on-campus Campus Conversation, President Dallal took to the Moataz El Alfy hall to connect with AUC’s community in person and discuss the university’s priorities going forward.
Given the latest currency devaluation, Dallal assured the community that AUC is trying its best to minimize the impact as much as possible, on both students and staff alike. The first measures taken were extending the payment deadline for students on deferred payment plans, as well as redirecting some of the funding from the Human Resources department to provide a one-time EGP 2000 payment for all staff from levels 1-9 of non managerial positions.
However, he continued to emphasize that these are simply short-term solutions that will not substitute possible long-term budgeting plans. Although it has been explicitly stated that the financial team at AUC does not have a solid strategy yet, Dallal explained that they are carefully assessing the situation to come up with the most optimal solution regarding the university’s budgeting plans.
“This is what we all intend to do to work on this collectively; to come up with a healthy way to weather the current situation and eventually recover from it with a minimal impact.There will be an impact, there is no way to avoid the impact. There is an impact all over the world of the current situation, not just in Egypt, by the way. But we want to minimize the impact,” Dallal said.
After covering the currency situation, the president highlighted how the university is focusing more on keeping up with the global changes in the higher education industry, with plans to offer new innovative programs of the future. This links with his plans to prioritize the quality of education at AUC, which he believes should start with the way the university engages with high school students and how accessible it can be to them.
“There are extremely brilliant students who wouldn’t even think of applying to AUC … we need to target them, we need to have a deliberate recruitment strategy. If they’re qualified students, we will work with them on finding the formula that will enable them to afford education at AUC; the key should be to recruit the best students out there.”
Dallal also shed light on how the university is planning on focusing not only on the quality of prospective students, but also on the high standards of faculty hired and maintained, which will be achieved by being even more selective with choosing those who meet the highest international standards. However, he also emphasized how AUC should be a source of support for faculty by giving them opportunities to grow. He talked in specific about those who aim to pursue a route in research, by facilitating that process and providing support for the research process in any field, but specifically those that focus on the emerging needs of the world on both a national and global scale.
“The expectations should be high, but the support should also be high,” he added.
Research initiatives can be enhanced through projects and partnerships with international researchers as well as international research institutions through the School of Continuing Education. Dallal explained that AUC is strengthened through its diverse student body as a part of a global community, in addition to the continuing recruitment of international students.
Dallal then focused on how AUC will be working toward emphasizing interdisciplinary work in all of its operations, explaining how it is “the way to the future” and that current emerging problems across the globe require professionals from different fields to solve them collectively.
“We need to intensify and amplify the interdisciplinarity of the work and the work that we’re doing. But in parallel with recognizing the importance of interdisciplinarity, for academic programming, we need to put in place structures that enable interdisciplinarity, it’s not enough to say that its finality is good, and then leave it at that. And if we do, it usually will not go anywhere, we need to put in place structures, institutional structures that enable and facilitate similarity, this is work that we need to do together, as we move forward,” Dallal said.
He continued to explain how none of these plans would be achieved if AUC did not have the proper working environment to encourage it; another one of his key priorities is refining the university’s operational setup to maximize its efficiency and productivity, to make the most out of AUC’s resources and capacities.
Dallal believes that with the existence of AUC’s large number of resources, it places a huge role on the entity to give back to Egypt and the region through services and other collaborative educational events with Egyptian ministries and public institutions, highlighting that within the past few weeks AUC has already been participating with multiple collaborative efforts in that segment; such as its recent work with the Ministry of Planning and Development.
“We are living in a great country. There are amazing things that are happening around us; we really need to be part of that story,” He stated.
Similarly, despite the current influential role the School of Continuing Education had on the Egyptian community, Dallal explained that we need to amplify its impact in order to give back to the community as much as we can, which can only be accomplished through collaborations.
“We would need to partner with sister institutions and national universities, because this is where there is enough work for all of us. We shouldn’t think in terms of competition, we should think in terms of amplifying our impact collectively through exploring all possibilities,” He further explained.
Dallal also revealed that AUC is planning on introducing PhD programs in areas that align with the university’s goals, given that “there is a need at the national level for qualified PhD students”.
Senior AUC administration may start looking at the financial models that will allow the university to operate and support such programs in the near future.
Additionally, Dallal briefly talked about the current COVID situation, explaining that we should simply try to co-exist with it while being cautious to an extent, which is why certain measures such as full capacities of classes are now implemented to gradually return back to normal.
“We don’t want to be negligent, but it’s totally normal. Normalcy is not a whim; it’s a need. It’s a must. It’s a necessity; we cannot suspend life anymore. We need to learn how to forge forward in conditions of uncertainty, whether it’s COVID, or currency fluctuation or, you know, the word promises to be a very troubled place. And that there is no shortage of problems. We need to live through them. And we need to learn how to operate under these conditions of uncertainty and COVID is one of them. So we’re moving forward as planned,” He explained.
Dallal ended his first on-campus Campus Conversation, with hope and excitement for what’s to come.
“We have a lot of work ahead of us. We have issues that we need to work on but you know, I trust I’m confident that there is enough intelligence in this institution that we’ll be able to do other things this period and come on safely,” Dallal said.
