"AUC Lectures in the Nineties" Audio Documentary

Since the American university in Cairo was established in 1919, it played a major role in promoting an understanding across world cultures, regions, and religions. The university being in Egypt, a culturally rich country in every sense of the word, and an eminent country in the Middle East, was an additional asset to AUC’s mission of bringing together various cultures and ideas.

The AUC Administration managed to turn AUC into a melting pot, where cultural understanding is fostered through introducing a wide range of diversity. The faculty members at AUC, the staff, and the students all come from different countries, cultures, and social classes.

The interaction among people from different backgrounds in a liberal environment enriched the lives of many people involved with AUC along the years. Accordingly, AUC over the past century, contributed to culturally shaping many young minds that later became leaders on the Egyptian scene, and in the region of the Middle East like Gamal Moubarak.

The lectures given at AUC were always an extremely essential component to the role of AUC as a bridge, connecting many cultures, views and ideologies.

Final Project Promos

Audio promo:
Producer and narrator: Mostafa Mohamed
Sound Track: Soviet connection
SOT: Osama El baz, 1991 Lecture



Anchor: The gulf war, the Israeli Palestinian peace agreement the Kosovo war, and the Rwandan genocide. The nineties was a decade full of events, and the AUC lectures covered many of them.

SB:" it is in the interest of America, strategically, economically, politically and diplomatically to be active in the middle east."

Listen to the whole documentary at AUC's New Cairo campus on Sunday, May 16 and Wednesday, May 19 at 10 a.m. each day in the BEC building, room 1061.





Video Promo:

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Facts about Islam

1) "Islam" means " submission to God".

2) Islam is a complete way of life that governs all facets of life: moral, spiritual, social, political, economical, intellectual, etc.

3) There are five pillars of practice in Islam. These practices must be undertaken with the best of effort in order to be considered a true Muslim:
A) Shahadah - declaration of faith in the oneness of God and that Muhammad is the last prophet of God.
B) Formal prayer five times a day.
C) Fasting during the daylight hours in the month of Ramadan.
D) Poor-due "tax" - 2.5% of one's savings given to the needy at the end of each year.
E) Pilgrimage to Mecca at least once, if physically and financially able.

4) There are six articles of faith in Islam. These are the basic beliefs that one must have in order to be considered a true Muslim. They are belief in: A) the One God. B) all the prophets of God. C) the original scriptures revealed to Prophets Moses, David, Jesus, and Muhammad. D) the angels. E) the Day of Judgment and the Hereafter. F) the divine decree (or destiny).


5) Muslims do not believe in the concept of "vicarious atonement" but rather believe in the law of personal responsibility. Islam teaches that each person is responsible for his or her own actions. On the Day of Judgment Muslims believe that every person will be resurrected and will have to answer to God for their every word, and deed. Consequently, a practicing Muslim is always striving to be righteous.


6) Muslims believe in and acknowledge all the prophets of old, from Adam to Jesus. Muslims believe that they brought the message of peace and submission (islam) to different peoples at different times. Muslims also believe that these prophets were "muslims" because they submitted their wills to God.

Why Hijab?

A couple of days ago i came across this video addressing the issue of Muslim Hijab, and i instantly related to it, because it displayed an inner struggle that many of us have when we know the right thing to do, yet fail to follow through with it for different reasons. I'm a man and i don't have to wear Hijab, but as a Muslim i have to do a lot of things that my parents, my friends and my society consider to be outdated, retarded and unimportant. I try really hard to do the right thing and win my inner struggle, knowing that this struggle is not going to waste, but will be considered by god when the time comes.

Project #5: Radio story

(Creswell room)



(Debbane Room)


(AUC Library, Archive in last floor)




Script:

Since the early 1970s, the University Archives of the American University in Cairo played a big role in collecting, preserving and providing access to materials with historical value created by various AUC units.

The services of the AUC archives are of aid to faculty and student researchers, but the materials were very difficult to reach and use because of the huge amount of files and documents stored.

Now 2 projects in progress were started by the AUC record management that will greatly facilitate accessing materials in the archives.


Steve Urgola, the university archivist, and director of records management is overseeing the creation of an online Index for materials stored as well as digitizing the materials and putting it online.

natsnd of Steve Urgola:

Steve: “We started a new system last year with the help of our digital archivist to take our word files of indexes and put them in the AUC catalogue, so you can search the name of an AUC president for example or a department, and if we have those records that include that name or topic, the system will retrieve the index to that collection.”

Digitizing will not only help preserve a lot of the highly valuable materials in the archive, but also will provide access to the materials through a website related to the AUC library.

Streve “we set up this Dspace system, named AUC Dar, it‘s a digital archive and repository and it’s gives us the chance to hold all kinds of electronic records, student thesis, faulty publications, student projects, scanned items or audio files from the rare books library.”

The collection of the AUC archive is enormous, and it might be years before the digitizing process is completed, plus not all types of collections are being digitized. Terra Kridler, the Digital Collections Archivist said that only a very small portion of the collections were scanned. She also mentioned that not all types of archival material are equally being digitized.

natsnd of Terra Kridler:

Terra Kridler: “we‘ve actually gotten steady collections of materials but not nearly all of the holdings, not even close.”

Members of the AUC administration are supporting the project but there are still not enough resources or staff members to help finalize the project on a set date.

A very small amount of the documentaries, the photographs and the audio records are actually online in digital form but that will change dramatically in the next two years as the AUC DAR project will save AUC a lot of money, space and energy as well as making the life of researchers much easier.

Listening Journal #4: Bombs, stamps and throat singers

(Tuva in red on the map)


Producer: BBC world service.
Narrator: Ilona Vinogradova
Length: 22:37
Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/documentaries/2009/08/090811_world_stories_bombs_stamps_throat_singers.shtml

The documentary was a story about Richard Feynman, an American physicist and a noble prize winner; it addressed his fascination with Tuva, a remote region in Russia near the Mongolian border which he knew through his hobby of stamp collecting. He had a dream of visiting this amazing land, but his visa was approved and sent it to him a week after he died.

Ilona Vinogradova a Russian journalist who was raised in Tuva, Took Feynman’s daughter to the place that her father dreamed of visiting. The journey included an introduction to Tuva, the people that live there, their culture, their music, the religion practiced as well as the family that was in contact with Richard Feymnan.

The documentary was extremely interesting, because the start was very strong and it instantly got me interested in the story. A point of strength was also the emotional side to the story presented through Michelle Feyman’s Voice as she misses her father deeply.

The quality of the narrator’s voice was great and the delivery was very good. The narrator Ilona Vinogradova was raised in Tuva which positively affected her choice of nat sound (Tuva throat singers) and the sequence of events chosen.

The 23 minute documentary wasn’t long because the story was very interesting and absorbing. The mix of a man’s dream and the continuation of that dream through his daughter’s visit with the story of this magnificent region made this piece amazing.

The documentary ended with Richard Feynman’s voice combined with Tuvan throat singing and that powerfully ended the story.

Podcast: Sheikh Abd el Hamid Kishk

Script:

Sheikh kishk, one of the most influential Muslim scholars in the 20th century was born on the 10th of march 1933 in shobrakheit, beheira. He memorized the qur’an before the age of 10 then joined the religious institute in Alexandria. Kishk graduated from al Azhar University with the highest grades at that time.

After graduation, he worked as a teacher for Al azhar for a while then he was appointed as imam in couple of mosques before taking a job at Ein el hayat mosque which was the platform for delivering his speeches especially in Friday prayers since around 1962.

Kishk frequently spoke in his speeches against all forms of political oppression and corruption. He also spoke against the government decisions that he considered to be inconsistent with the Islamic belief.

He was arrested in 1965 and stayed in prison for two years, during which was moved around to different prisons and suffered extreme torture but he still kept his job as the imam of Ein el hayat mosque. Since 1972 his popularity increased significantly and crowds of more than 10,000 used to attend the Friday prayer with him.

In 1976 he started speaking out against the Egyptian government and the policies of Anwar al sadat especially after the Camp David treaty which he considered to be an act of treachery against Islam and Muslims. He continued to speak out in his lectures and speeches against all forms of corruption and oppression within Egyptian life until he got arrested in 1981. He was released in 1982 and forbidden to give speeches or conduct lectures.

In one of his famous speeches he addressed the Egyptian minister of health blaming him for the deteriorating health care program for Egyptians and the high medicine prices that many cannot afford.

He refused to leave Egypt except to Saudi Arabia for pilgrimage in 1973. He wrote about 115 books and is considered to be one of the most phenomenal Egyptian public speakers. Kishk also called for many reforms regarding al Azhar University. He died on the 6th of December 1996, when he was 63 years old leaving hundreds of recorded lectures, books and a great legacy to be found rarely.

Project #4: Yasir khan interview

Yasir khan, a multimedia journalist, reporter, and film maker. He worked in CNN, and CBC and produced many news stories all over the world. he was one of the first journalists to report on tsunami from the scene of the disaster. His passion for story telling and learning lead him to a career in journalism, a teaching job at AUC and finally he will be going back to his first love, journalism.


Interview script:

Mostafa: Dr yasir, your journalistic career began with an internship at CNN in 1996, then associate producer at CNN before moving to CBC in 1998, so tell me how was the start, how did you get hooked up with journalism ?


YAsir: My parents sent me to Canada to be a doctor and I have a degree in neuroscience, but during my second year, my sophomore year of degree in neuroscience I started writing for the university newspaper. And then within a couple of months I became editor of the newspaper, so I started writing in the newspaper and it was like a whole new world that opened up to me, and after finishing university I knew I wanted to do television because I’m a very visual person and I like to watch television, I like the process behind it and so I called CNN, somebody at CNN out of the blue and asked for an internship and they told me to get the hell out, because they didn’t know who I was and they didn’t know why I was calling them and I just kept persisting until somebody said fine, come here and show me what you got. So that was in 1996 I sold my car and took the money and went down to CNN in Atlanta state for a while and because it was an unpaid internship I would have to finance everything myself.

Mostafa: Then you moved to CBC in 1998, why did you make that decision?

Yasir: Well my family was still in Canada, and working in the states is great and there is a lot of opportunity but it’s a boring story about paper work, and also when you graduate out of university in Canada if you don’t want to take money from your parents which I didn’t, you have student loans that you need to pay off, if you start working outside the country they expect you to pay the whole loan back immediately, because they don’t know how much money you are making, but if you work in Canada then they structure your re-payment of the loan according to the salary that you are making so for very boring reasons of student loans I had to move back to Canada and I got an offer at the
CBC and I took it and said goodbye to CNN.

Mostafa: When did you come to AUC?

Yasir: August 2007

Mostafa: You said that coming to AUC you wanted to share and transmit all you knowledge that you have learned in the 12 years.

Yasir: I cam to AUC because I wanted to see if I could teach, I had 12 years of experience of doing journalism and I had never taught before, and this was a new challenge for me and If you look at my CV I’m, constantly moving around tp places where I can learn something; if I stop learning in a place then I’m out, so at my previous job it was a wonderful job with a wonderful crew and a wonderful show but had just stopped learning.

Mostafa: how were you able to transmit your experience and knowledge to AUC students?
Yasir: All I know is that I’m showing up to class and I’m telling them everything that I know and showing them how to do things from what I know, whether or not I have transmitted my knowledge I have no idea, I guess the fact that I still have a job here means that I’m doing something right, no body has walked into my class and said you are fired professor Khan. So the idea was to bring whatever I have learned from 1996 to 2007, actually from 1995 to 2007 to bring it to class and share it with students and teach them how to do things as I have known them.

Mostafa: So you are leaving AUC, so why are you doing that?

Yasir: I have been meaning to go back to journalism for a year now. I feel that I have figured out how to teach and I would love to come back to teaching in about 10, 15 years with a lot more experience I feel I have a bunch of experience but I feel I need more and journalism is my first love, story telling is my first love and I’m finding that while teaching I’m not left with the energy or the time to actually practice journalism on my own. So I have received a wonderful offer to go back to the world of journalism especially at a time where journalism outlets are being shutdown or down sized and cutback; to get a job offer in this climate is actually quite spectacular so I am going back to my first love which is journalism.

It's Not Funny Anymore: Comedy in the Recession (Listening journal #3)

Producer: Maria Bartholdi
Narrator: Maria Bartholdi
Length: 18:09



The documentary was about a comedy club going out of business in Wisconsin. The owner, the comedians who work at the club and everyone involved in this club are soon to be out of business as the owner is filing for bankruptcy. The comedians in this particular club take comedy seriously and follow creative approaches involving their audiences in the skits making it more like one big happy family. Narrator Maria Bartholdi, approaches the recession topic emotionally, in the documentary, the fact that lots of lives are involved in a comedy club with the sole reason of putting laughs on the faces of people, and that those lives as well as this unique institution are jeopardized by the recession is presented in the documentary as heartbreaking. This is achieved through the utilization of Nat sound, parts of the interviews with the owner and the comedians and the description of the setting in which this sad transition is taking place.

This documentary was very interesting because, although a sad story is being told which was very clear through the narrator's voice, the use of nat sound, the music and the script showed hope and also let the comedians make fun about the whole situation to prove what big of a loss this is.

The quality of nat sound and narrator's voice were great although the use of use of some of the parts of interviews were not clear as they were voiced over by the narrator. The interviews were used effectively to go along with the tone of the piece, sad then happy then sad again.

The last segment in the documentary was especially very good because Maria Bartholdi at the end asked each one of the comedians about the way they feel in the last night and that successfully went along with the tone of hope the documentary introduced in the second half.

The documentary was about 18 minutes but it felt like 5 minutes or shorter; it was sad, funny, sad and then full of hope.

The documentary had a good start but the end was particularly strong because it closed with a conversation between Bartholdi and one of the comedians that ended in a hilarious punch line, and then a song started that really related to the documentary.

PSA#1 Awladi Orphanage

Organization: Awlady Orphanage
Contact Info: Tel: 5212700/659 Fax:5212598
www.awlady.org
Heading: Awlady Orphanage
Airdates(s): March, 2010 – May, 2010

Duration: 30 seconds


Music: (Starts MA Maistro Track 12)

Anch 2: (Impressed) These children look amazing

Anch 1: (Depressed) Do you know that some of these children sleep hungry and others do not have medical care?

Anch2: (Disappointed) And why is that?

Anch 1: (In a sad tone) The money we receive from donators annually is not enough. Have you ever considered giving your money to our orphanage?

Anch 2: No, What do they provide for the children?

Anch 1: Awlady Orphanage tries to provide a home for the children, with emphasis on
education and vocational training to ensure that they become productive members of
society.

Anch 2: How to donate?

Anch 1: Either through Misr International Bank #5505356 or Visit our website www.awlady.org

MUSIC: (fade music out)

-End-