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AUC Board Launches International Search for AUC’s 13th President

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August 5, 2020 - Search Committee to Solicit Input and Nominations from the AUC Community and Beyond 

The American University in Cairo’s Board of Trustees has launched a search for a successor to AUC President Francis Ricciardone, who will retire at the end of the 2020-2021 academic year. The Board formed a committee of ten trustees and five senior faculty members to conduct the search and to provide input to the Board. In accordance with the University bylaws, the full Board elects the president. 

The search committee plans to conduct a rigorous, international search process and to seek frequent input from the University community, through town-halls; meetings with students, faculty, staff, and alumni, as well as other forms of engagement. “The selection of a new president provides AUC an opportunity for introspection and invigoration,” said Richard Bartlett, chair of the Board. “Our next president will help us write the first chapter of our second century, and we will be looking to our community for ideas of what that chapter should say.” 

Search committee co-chair AUC Trustee Kristin Lord said, “I am honored to be co-chairing the search for AUC’s next president. Our goal is to be as deliberate, inclusive, and thoughtful as possible in our search process. Our aspiration is to identify outstanding candidates who will build on AUC’s long history of academic excellence and lead AUC’s next phase of growth, innovation and impact.”

Search committee co-chair AUC Trustee Tarek Masoud said, “Finding an educator of the intellectual and moral caliber to lead what I consider to be the Middle East’s finest institution of higher education is a task of the utmost gravity. It will take a special person to lead the University, and it will take an effort of the entire University community to find them.”

Correspondence addressed to the search committee may be sent to [email protected].

The members of the search committee are:

Richard Bartlett (ex officio), Chairman and Managing Director of Resource Holdings (trustee)

Nathan Brown, CASA ’84, Professor of Political Science and International Affairs, The George Washington University (alumnus and trustee)

Jillian Campana, EFL ’94, Professor and Associate Dean of HUSS, Department of the Arts, AUC (alumna and faculty)

Amina Elbendary, MA ’00, BA ’96, Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Arab and Islamic Civilizations, AUC (alumna and faculty)

Hisham El-Khazindar, BA ’96, Co-founder and Managing Director of Qalaa Holdings (alumnus and trustee)

Laurie Fitch, YAB ’91, Partner in the Strategic Advisory Group at PJT Partners, London (alumna and trustee)

Ayman Ismail, MBA ’97, BSc ’95, Associate Professor, Department of Management, AUC (alumnus and faculty)

Kristin Lord (Search Committee Co-Chair), President and CEO of IREX (trustee)

Tarek Masoud (Search Committee Co-Chair), Professor of Public Policy and Sultan Qaboos Bin Said of Oman Professor of International Relations, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University (trustee)

Magda Mostafa, Associate Professor, Department of Architecture, AUC (faculty)

Hanadi Salem, MSc ’87, BSc ’83, Professor and Chair, Department of Mechanical Engineering, AUC (alumna and faculty)

David Tirrell, Provost and Ross McCollum-William H. Corcoran Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Caltech (trustee)

Mark Turnage, ALU ’82, CEO, DarkOwl (alumnus and trustee)

Gretchen Welch, ALU ’02, U.S. Diplomat, retired (alumna and trustee)

Jonathan Wolf, YAB ’75, Founder and President of Wendover Housing Partners, LLC. (alumnus and trustee)