Suad Joseph, who served for two years as the director of the UC Education Abroad Program at the American University in Cairo, has spent many years forging alliances between UC Davis and the Middle East. (Debbie Aldridge/UC Davis photo)
In this Spotlight
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- "A cultural ambassador uses ties with Arab universities to help forge pact" — Suad Joseph
- "Reflecting on UC Davis' Building Bridges effort toward peace" — Kais Menoufy
- "Partnerships will prepare UC Davis students for global citizenship" — Omnia El Shakry
A cultural ambassador uses ties with Arab universities to help forge pact
As a young professor, I listened to Maya Angelou when she visited Davis in the late 1970s and invited us into the work of cultural translation. She said, "Nothing human is alien to me."
As an immigrant to the U.S., I had to learn American culture. I believe that any people can understand each other. Nothing, I believe, is better for cultural understanding than working together, shoulder to shoulder.
As scholars, it is by engaging each other, breaking bread together and doing the hard work of research, teaching and applying our ideas to the material world that we build the foundations for peace. I put my beliefs to work in August 1999, when I packed up my family for a two-year assignment to Egypt as the director of the University of California Education Abroad Program at the American University in Cairo.
Only UC center in the Arab world
The Cairo university is the only UC center in the Arab world. My research had focused on my native Lebanon, an hour's flight away, where UC had a center until the Lebanese Civil War broke out in 1975.
My position as director of the Education Abroad Program entailed advising UC students at American University in Cairo and representing UC in Egypt. But this was also a golden opportunity to build the UC presence in Egypt, I thought, and in Lebanon, Palestine and possibly other countries.
The American University in Cairo has produced more Arab TV and radio journalists than any other university in the Middle East and has the leading American-accredited school of engineering.
In Lebanon, the American University of Beirut has probably produced more generations of political and cultural Arab leaders than any other university in the region, and has the leading research hospital and agricultural school in the Arab world.
A fast-growing English-language university
The Lebanese American University (two campuses — in Beirut and Byblos) founded the first institute for research on women in the Arab world and is one of the fastest growing English-language universities in the region.
Birzeit University, located on the outskirts of the West Bank town of Birzeit, is the leading university in Palestine and houses the leading department of Women's Studies in the Arab world.
The curricula of these universities are American-based and taught in English. Many of the faculty of these universities were trained in American universities, work with colleagues in the U.S. on research, teaching, applied work and send their students to U.S. universities for further training.
Many of their students come to the UC system, and a number are students or faculty at UC Davis.
‘Often UC Davis educates their leaders — there are UC and UC Davis graduates throughout the Arab world.’
Suad Joseph, director of the Middle East-South Asia Studies Program
Sharing conditions with California
The region they work in shares many of the agricultural and environmental conditions that we have in California — limited water, arid agriculture, almost identical crop production.
Partnerships around research, teaching, applied work, and faculty and student exchange seemed obvious to me. Indeed, such partnerships have flourished for decades. I wanted to bring more of them to UC Davis.
I met with the presidents of the Egyptian and two Lebanese universities, and later Birzeit University. The enthusiasm for working with UC and UC Davis in particular was overpowering.
I shared these ideas with John Marcum, director of the systemwide UC Education Abroad Program. By June 2001, we had carried off together the first meeting with the Egyptian and Lebanese partners and UC (in Beirut), with subsequent meetings in 2002 (Washington), UC Santa Barbara (2003) and UC Davis (2003, 2004, 2006).
In 2004 Birzeit University joined what we came to call the BCBCB Initiative — Beirut (American University of Beirut), California (University of California), Beirut (Lebanese American University), Cairo (American University of Cairo), Birzeit (Birzeit University).
Formalizing seven years of collaborative work
When Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef visited Egypt in March 2007, the signing of the BCBCB Consortium agreement formalized seven years of collaborative work.
The presidents, provosts, deans, and key faculty from the five universities met for a daylong conference to develop partnerships around research, teaching and student-faculty exchanges.
Under the leadership of Sacramento businessman Kais Menoufy, we linked this work with important new partnerships created with Egyptian universities, research centers and government ministries.
Why are the BCBCB Consortium and the other partnerships the chancellor signed while he was in Egypt important to UC Davis faculty, students and the United States? These universities are educating the leaders of the Arab world. They respect and emulate American education.
UC Davis educates their leaders
Often UC Davis educates their leaders – there are UC and UC Davis graduates throughout the Arab world — two UC Davis graduates currently hold ministerial portfolios in Egypt's government cabinet, Mahmoud Abu-Zeid, minister of state for water resources and irrigation and Ahmed Darwish, minister of state for administration.
There are other reasons, too:
- UC Davis' School of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences recently won a U.S. federal contract, with other universities, to help develop Iraqi agriculture. When it proved too difficult to plan the training of the farmers in Iraq, American University in Cairo offered UC Davis its facility at its Desert Development Center.
- In a visit to UC Davis, Dean Fuad Hashwa of the Lebanese American University discovered that Lebanon and California shared a problem in olive oil production — how to treat olive waste. The two universities are now considering collaborations to solve this problem.
- California and the Arab world also have similar problems around water and arid land agriculture. The BCBCB Consortium is launching a collaborative project on global warming and water management.
Lebanese want a school of agriculture
Looking ahead, Lebanese American University is interested in establishing a school of agriculture. The BCBCB Consortium linked Joseph Jabbra, Lebanese university president, with Neal Van Alfen, UC Davis' dean of agriculture and environmental sciences, for consultation.
In addition, the five universities share interests in gender studies. The BCBCB Consortium launched a project on gender and justice to develop course materials for doing women's oral histories, to do research on gender justice and to train graduate students.
A project group on Middle East studies plans to organize annual conferences for graduate students doing research in the Middle East to be held at BCBCB universities.
The consortium will work on opportunities for students to study abroad, do internships, engage in distance learning and research with fellow students in Egypt, Lebanon and Palestine.
The possibilities for working together are limitless. A few people can make a difference by committing to creating productive collaborations. The doors of opportunity are open. Through person to person partnerships cultural translations flourish.