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Welcome to the New Academic Year

  1. About AUC
  2. AUC Statements
  3. Welcome to the New Academic Year

September 7, 2026

Dear AUC Community,

This week marks the start of the 2026-2027 academic year and brings the welcome arrival of returning and new faculty and students. For those of us who have been preparing throughout the summer, it is wonderful to see the campus back in full swing, with a remarkable new year ahead.

This fall, we had our strongest recruitment cycle in the past four years, breaking last year’s application record and strengthening our yield. We not only met our recruitment targets, but we also became more selective with an increasingly qualified pool of applicants competing for spots at AUC. Now in its fourth year, the Excellence Scholarship Program continues to ensure we attract top performers, including Egypt’s highest achievers in IB, IG, and thanawyia amma, as well as students from all other diplomas and international students. We awarded scholarships to more than 530 students, with 292 top achievers receiving full-tuition coverage. We also awarded more than 290 First-Year Achievement Scholarships to high-performing students. These students, along with other outstanding scholarship recipients on campus, represent almost 40% of our student body. 

Equally impressive is our incoming cohort of about 53 distinguished faculty members across more than 13 disciplines, from more than nine countries, including the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Greece, Canada and Egypt. Earlier this summer, AUC announced the appointments of Dean Maurice Pomerantz and Dean Mohamad Al-Ississ, who will lead the School of Humanities and Social Sciences and the School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, respectively. Our success in student and faculty recruitment this year further underscores AUC’s prominent place as the University of choice in the region, on par with some of the strongest institutions in North America. 

While this year has many important initiatives across our schools and departments that are spearheaded by our faculty, there are a few particularly important milestones: 

Campus Inauguration

In June 2025, we broke ground on Campus 2026, which consists of three transformative projects central to AUC’s Strategic Priorities Roadmap. I’m pleased to share that in May 2027, we will celebrate together the formal inauguration of the Technology, Research and Innovation Lab, the Extended Ed Hub, and the NextGen Student Living and Learning Spaces. Each project plays a central role in advancing the seamless transition between academia and the real world, lifelong learning, and a fully immersive educational experience for students from across Egypt and around the world. 

AI University-Wide Initiative

Last year, I formed a task force to engage stakeholders across campus and develop a University-wide plan that guides our approach to AI, building on the existing work already underway in this area. This year, we will implement the action plan for the University’s AI Strategy (see summary report). As AI adoption and potential risks move at breakneck speed, we recognize that we will need to adjust our strategy constantly, while keeping core values at the heart of our Guidelines for Responsible Use of Generative AI. Because AI literacy and education underpin our approach, we will organize an extensive program for faculty, students, and staff to expand their knowledge and participate in critical discussions about what the future will look like. To aggregate resources and provide useful links, the AI@AUC website will serve as a digital information hub that will continue to expand. Throughout the year, various groups across campus will work to build our core institutional literacy around AI, drive innovation, and ensure we continue the necessary conversations about the impact of this evolving technology on how we teach, learn, conduct research, and work. This is a campus-wide effort, and I hope we all fully participate in shaping our institutional priorities and approach.

Middle States Accreditation

This year we will also continue the reaffirmation process for our US institutional accreditation by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE). The process provides an opportunity to reflect on our achievements, assess our effectiveness, identify opportunities for continued improvement, and reaffirm our commitment to the mission, values, and aspirations that have guided AUC throughout its history. As part of the 2024-2027 process, an extensive University-wide effort produced a draft self-study report. 

In addition, Dr. Benjamin Rifkin, provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at Dickinson University, has been appointed chair of our MSCHE evaluation team. Dr. Rifkin brings extensive experience in academic leadership, institutional effectiveness, and accreditation. He will conduct a virtual visit with AUC from November 2-4, meeting various AUC community members. This is an important milestone in the reaffirmation process as we move toward finalizing the self-study and preparing for the evaluation team visit in March 2027. The self-study report will be shared broadly with the AUC community through the accreditation website and a town hall discussion in November. I thank the more than 60 faculty, administrators, and staff working tirelessly on this important process, and I look forward to everyone’s participation throughout the year. 

The higher education landscape is changing worldwide. Advances in AI, shifts in geopolitical forces, economic conditions, and pressing global challenges require self-reflection and a critical review of the role and impact of universities — at a speed far faster than academia typically moves. At AUC, we continue to define and shape the University’s trajectory as the world changes around us. The three new projects we will inaugurate this year and the AI initiative are only two examples of how we must continue to evolve as we equip future-ready graduates and contribute our knowledge to solving the challenges of our time. 

 I look forward to seeing you all on campus and at the many forums where we will discuss these issues and more, including the first Campus Conversation of the year, scheduled for Wednesday, September 30, at 1 pm in Alwaleed Hall. 

I wish you an intellectually rewarding and successful year ahead. 

Sincerely,

Ahmad Dallal
President