CAIRO: The American University in Cairo (AUC) on Sunday welcomed its undergraduate students and faculty for the spring semester 2011, after a postponement of almost two weeks as a result of the historic protests that took place in Egypt. Graduate students are expected to start classes on February 20, and continuing education classes offered by the School of Continuing Education (SCE), the Management Center (MC) and Engineering and Science Services (ESS) will resume on February 27. As the University resumes operations, deadlines for submitting applications and documents for the fall 2011 semester have been extended to March 30. Most of the university's facilities are operating. The Student Services Center is open and receiving visitors, as isthe Day Care Center, the clinic, the Library, AUC Press Bookstore, most of the administrative offices on the New Cairo campus, and the CIB branch on campus. All food outlets are also open, including three for 24-hour service. However, the downtown campus is not fully operational. Since many of AUC's international faculty and students are in transitto Cairo, the university expects that a few classes may not be in session during the first week of the semester. Each school will be monitoring the situation, and representatives will inform the students about any postponements of sessions on a case-by-case basis. “As we try to return to normalcy at our institution, we cannot ignore the changing conditions around us, and it is our moral obligation and educational duty to facilitate for the university community its engagement in constructive political debates,” said AUC Provost Medhat Haroun. Under the tentative title “The University on the Square: Documenting History in Real Time” the university has begun to work on a university-wide project to collect testimonies, photographs, audio recordings, artifacts, memorabilia and other documentary evidence of the events of the last several weeks across Egypt. BM
