View of the Library at Alexandria from my Office Window
I taught my first Egyptian class on Friday, October 7, as the result of a last-minute decision. A car and driver picked me up at my apartment at 6:30 on Friday morning and drove me to Cairo in a little under three hours. I spent six hours (10:00 am to 4:00 pm) teaching a Financial Statement Analysis course in an Executive MBA program at a Ministry of Education building. Then I was driven back to Alexandria, returning at about 6:30 – a twelve-hour day. I will do this for six Fridays and have a final exam on the seventh Friday. Friday is the holy day here and most people don’t work, so the highways mercifully have very little traffic.
I agreed to do this on Tuesday. A graduate student introduced me to another professor. I was invited into the professor’s office and we talked a bit. I learned that he was the Director of the Executive MBA program. He learned that I was an accounting professor. He asked if I would be interested in teaching a Financial Accounting course for MBAs in Cairo. Since I had taught a similar course in Wisconsin, I said that I would be interested. He said he would talk to the dean about it. I asked when it would start; he said Friday, this week. I was a little surprised, as it was a bit of a short notice. Later that same afternoon, when I was trying to decide whether I really wanted to do it, the program administrator walked into my office with a syllabus and a textbook and informed me that a driver would pick me up on Friday morning. So, evidently, the decision was made.
This is what I surmise happened: Alexandria University has a joint EMBA program with Georgia State University that is, at least partially, funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The administrator that I referred to above is paid by USAID. The program calls for some faculty exchange, but, according to the administrator, the dean at GSU wouldn’t let faculty come this fall because of the political unrest. So the director was trying to figure out how to staff the course and I came along at just the right time. But, I’m just speculating here.
Early in September, I met with the dean and other faculty members. After some discussion, we decided that I should co-teach a comparative taxation course with the dean in the Fall and then teach a financial accounting course in the Spring. I would teach the US taxation part of the comparative tax course. I was waiting to find out exactly when I would start teaching and was not getting much specificity. In fact, I still don’t know when I start; which is why being so suddenly thrown into the EMBA course was a little ironic.
In all fairness, the dean has had other things on his plate. As part of the protests, there has been the demand that all public university presidents resign their posts and that all dean positions be filled by election. Only a few days before school started, elections were held for the deans. Our Faculty of Commerce dean was handily reelected (99 to 23) which, if nothing else, has made my life a little easier. However, the president has not resigned her position and has stated that she will serve out her term. Popular feeling, evidently, is that university presidents were all appointed by the Mubarak regime and, therefore, should all step down. Some have and some have not. There is a daily demonstration beneath my office window calling for the president to resign. It is not large or disruptive, just a regular reminder of student demands. Some professors are showing support for the demands by boycotting classes. Our exchange student son, Abdelrahman, who is in the Engineering program, has a few professors who have been boycotting. Fortunately, there are other sections of the same course that he can sit in on to stay current. I suspect our dean may also be dealing with this issue. So, at some point, I will be teaching taxes, possibly on very short notice.
Finally, I have a few graduate student demonstrators who want to learn about US federal taxation. Demonstrators in the Egyptian educational system are like graduate assistants. They are graduate students appointed by the university who act like teaching and research assistants. Two such students approached me about learning about the US tax system and related academic research. They hope to be academics and look at my presence here as an opportunity to get more exposure to academic research. I agreed to meet with them once a week. A third student e-mailed me and asked to join the group. Today I was asked to allow a fourth. I agreed but said that I would accept no more than five. This could escalate into an unscheduled class. I think I will enjoy this because there are no grades, no exams, and no assessment. There is no syllabus; we go at a rate that works for everyone. Just students who want to learn – what a concept!
My Year in Egypt 