Nabil Fahmy Named to Top Post at AUC

Cairo, Egypt, May 17, 2009 --(PR.com)-- The American University in Cairo announced today that Egyptian Ambassador Nabil Fahmy has been named to lead the university’s newly established School of Public Affairs (SPA). The School is being established to develop and enhance the capacity of individuals, governments, and NGOs to respond to the challenges and opportunities of the future as they strive to create a more prosperous, more sustainable and more equitable future while balancing the rights and responsibilities of individuals and communities.

Fahmy, who served as Egypt’s ambassador to the United States from 1999 to 2008 is currently ambassador at large at the Egyptian Foreign Ministry. AUC President David D. Arnold noted that Fahmy – as an AUC alumnus and an internationally respected diplomat - is ideally suited to lead the School of Public Affairs at AUC. “We are enormously fortunate,” Arnold said, “to have recruited a founding dean with energy, experience, vision and commitment. With Ambassador Fahmy leading this School, his mere presence at its helm signals our ambitions, and I am confident that he is the individual that will ensure that those ambitions are realized.”

At the outset, the School of Public Affairs will offer undergraduate degrees in journalism and mass communication and graduate degrees in public policy and management and law. Additional degree programs, particularly in international policy and practice, are slated to be added over the next several years.

AUC Provost Lisa Anderson noted that governments and NGOs are increasingly recognizing the importance of having employees who are both dedicated and knowledgeable about policy issues as varied as health, environment, poverty alleviation and conflict resolution, as well as being skilled in diplomacy, communication, management and analysis. According to Anderson, AUC is uniquely equipped to meet this demand, both in Egypt and across the region. “With a growing international demand for policy-makers and policy advocates knowledgeable about the particular Egyptian and regional expression of many global policy issues, there is an increasing international market for the kinds of work done at AUC,“ Anderson said.

Fahmy received his Bachelor of Science degree in physics/mathematics and his Master of Arts in management from AUC. He has been a career diplomat who has played an active role in the numerous efforts to bring peace to the Middle East, as well as in international and regional disarmament affairs. He headed the Egyptian delegation to the Middle East Peace Process Steering Committee in 1993 and the Egyptian delegation to the Multilateral Working Group on Regional Security and Arms Control emanating from the Madrid Peace Conference from December 1991.

Fahmy who has written extensively on Middle East politics, development, peacemaking and regional security and disarmament, stated that he was looking forward to the challenge of establishing the new school at AUC, which will draw on faculty and programs already well established at the university. “With half of the regions’ population below 25 years of age, academic institutions have a singular contribution to make in shaping the direction of the Middle East.” Fahmy said, “As we establish this new School it is important to recognize the talents and ambitions of the current AUC faculty of the Departments of Law, Journalism and Mass Communications, and Public Policy and Management.

These departments have a youthful international faculty with great ambitions and enormous energy and commitment. I look forward to working with them as well as the new staff we will recruit as we create the premiere School of Public Affairs in the region."

Over the years, Fahmy has been a member of the Egyptian Missions to the United Nations (Disarmament and Political Affairs) in Geneva and New York. He was elected vice chairman of the First Committee on Disarmament and International Security Affairs of the 44th Session of the UN General Assembly in 1986.

From 1999 until 2003, he was a member of the UN Secretary General’s Advisory Board of Disarmament Matters where he served as its chairman in 2001.

He has also served as Egypt’s Ambassador to Japan and political advisor to the Foreign Minister and has held numerous posts in the Egyptian Government. Since returning to Egypt he has also served as Chair of the Monterey Center of Nonproliferation Study’s Middle East Nuclear Nonproliferation Project. He is also serving on the Advisory Board of the International Commission on Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament.

The American University in Cairo (AUC) was founded 90 years ago and is major contributor to the social, political and cultural life of the Arab Region. It is a vital bridge between East and West, linking Egypt and the region to the world through scholarly research, partnerships with academic and research institutions, and study abroad programs. An independent, nonprofit, apolitical, non-sectarian and equal opportunity institution, AUC is fully accredited in Egypt and the United States.

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