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Academic Area Restructuring

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  3. Academic Area Restructuring

September 14, 2021

Dear AUC Community, 

At AUC, we are committed to a process of continuous improvement. This means that we are regularly looking at our structures, programs and processes to ensure that we are serving our students in the best ways possible. As part of this process, and in order to better meet the needs of our students, in consultation with the President-elect, I am announcing some changes in the administrative structures within the academic area.  

One such change is that the area led by our vice president for student life is moving to be a part of the academic area, reporting to the provost. This area currently includes: Student Life, Center for Student Well-being, Athletics and Residential Life; the Career Center is also moving under this area. This reorganization will ensure that we are best prepared to support our students holistically and coherently. 

We will soon initiate the process to hire an associate provost for enrollment. This position will oversee the Office of Student Financial Support, the Offices of Recruitment (including the recruitment team in North America), Admissions and Enrollment, as well as our International Programs and Services Office.  This will enable us to provide comprehensive and synchronized support for all of our Egyptian and International prospective students and applicants, as well as offer a more unified approach to admissions and financial support to recruit and attract highly qualified students.

Along the same line of thinking, we are integrating the Office of Research, Innovation and Creativity with the Office of Graduate Studies. I am grateful that the dean of graduate studies Adham Ramadan agreed to take on the additional role of the associate provost for research. The synchronization between these two important functions within the University allows us to best serve the research needs of our graduate students and faculty, and to maximize the uses of our resources. 

My heartfelt thanks to Alaa-Eldin Adris, for his service as associate provost for research, innovation and creativity for the past four years. Among his many accomplishments are the implementation of the Bartlett Fund for Critical Challenges, which supports faculty research focused on addressing Egypt’s most pressing issues, now entering its fourth year. Adris also introduced a new Artist-in-Residence program, and established the Proof-of-Concept program within the Technology Transfer Office. Under his leadership and in partnership with the Library, AUC introduced the Digital Commons Initiative, making over two million works from 530 institutions available to members of the AUC community. As part of this initiative, we introduced the AUC Knowledge Fount as a repository for AUC’s research and creative outputs. He led on academic programming during AUC’s Centennial year, including the establishment of centennial labs, organizing conferences and public events, and supporting publications. He has also overseen the annual Research and Creativity Convention, and our visiting scholars program of Distinguished University Professors and Distinguished University Researchers. I wish Adris all the success in his move to a new opportunity outside AUC.

We have recently launched a peer tutoring initiative, which has been piloted in two courses, Economics 2061 “Mathematics for Economics I” and Engineering 3202 “Engineering Analysis and Computation I.” This initiative will soon be expanding into a university-wide peer-to-peer tutoring unit, led by Fady Morcos, the newly-appointed assistant provost for innovative learning experiences, reporting to Aziza Ellozy. In addition to launching the tutoring unit, Morcos will also be working closely with faculty to develop innovative learning experiences where our students will be challenged to address real-life problems.

I am also establishing a Student Affairs Advisory Board (SAAB), made up of the provost, vice president for student life, the associate provost for enrollment, the dean of graduate studies and the University registrar. SAAB’s role is to ensure that all services provided to students are done with a student-centered approach that empowers and supports all students to achieve their full potential through their journey at AUC, from application to employment. SAAB will review student processes as well as policies related to student services, and make recommendations on amending policies or establishing new ones. 

The above changes will be implemented as of October 1, 2021.   

Sincerely,

Ehab Abdel-Rahman
Acting President and Provost