Introduction

In the wake of the events of September 11, 2001, the Core Curriculum Program at the American University in Cairo (AUC) sponsored a special project designed to use Internet videoconference technology and other forms of communication to promote dialogues between students at AUC and students in university classes in the United States. Informally dubbed “The Dialogue Project”, this initiative began with a series of extracurricular dialogues with students at New York University, the State University of New York at Albany and the University of Maine, covering a period from mid-November of 2001 through the spring semester of 2002.

From here “The Dialogue Project” evolved in a number of different directions, the most significant being the establishment of a three-credit-hour course focused upon a weekly videoconference with students at an American university. In the spring of 2003, an existing course title, “The Honors Seminar” (SEMR 300) was used to launch a pilot for a videoconference course. The successful completion of this course was used as a springboard for the development of an entirely new course, “Cross-Cultural Perceptions and Representations” (SEMR 310) fully dedicated to the videoconference format.

First offered in the fall semester of 2003, five sections of this course have been taught over the ensuing four semesters, including a special course offered in the fall of 2004, focused on the issue of gender treated cross-culturally and conducted with students in a class at Yale University.

In addition to dialogues conducted as part of the Seminar 310 course, “The Dialogue Project” also sponsors extra-curricular dialogues.
These come in two forms:

• Single-session videoconference dialogues with university classes in the United States, and;
• Face-to-face dialogues either with student groups visiting AUC or groups of students involved in study-abroad programs at AUC.

Moreover, “The Dialogue Project” has administered AUC student involvement in the Soliya program, by means of which students, sitting at personal computer terminals equipped with web-cams and headsets, join group discussions with students from universities in the United States and the Arab world.

Finally, along with the Department of Political Science at AUC, “The Dialogue Project” sponsors a special topics course “Arab and American Identities in Tension” (POLS 430) which brings students from AUC, the American University of Beirut and the University of Washington in Seattle to a small village in Cyprus for two weeks each summer to live together and discuss issues concerning the relationship between the United States and the Arab World.

By means of these various fora, the “Dialogue Project” has conducted dialogues with the following institutions:

i) SEMR 300 and SEMR 310

New York University
Duke University
The University of North Carolina
The University Maine
The University of Washington
Williams College
The United States Naval Academy
Georgetown University
Yale University
Ohio State University
Florida State University

ii) Extracurricular Dialogues

New York University
SUNY Albany
Maine University
Earlham College
Ohio State University
Georgetown University
The University of Washington

iii) POLS 410

The University of Washington
The American University of Beirut

iv) Soliya

Tufts University
The University of Maine
Centre College
Virginia Commonwealth University
Al Quds University
American University of Kuwait
Qatar University

Project Goals

The aim of the “Dialogue Project” is to encourage interaction between AUC as a liberal arts institution in the Middle East and universities in the USA in order to promote mutual understanding and to establish relationships that can be capitalised upon in the future. 

Contacts

John Swanson
Director of Core Curriculum Program

Hoda Grant
Associate Director of Core Curriculum Program

Eric Goodfield
Assistant Professor, Political Science & Supervisor of Dialogue Project

Mohamed I.Fahmy Menza
Dialogue Project Officer