For the banks of the Rhine to the Nile’s corniche, students have crossed borders to discuss border crossings. University of Cologne students spent the final week of their winter course alongside AUC students, studying migration within the Global South. 

The Dialogue on Migration Governance in the Euro-Mediterranean (DiaMiGo), now in its third year, has brought Egyptian students to Germany and German students to Egypt, allowing them to discuss the transitory nature of migration across the Mediterranean. With migration rooted across the world, students analyzed Egypt as a gateway, a hub and a home. 

“The experience was impactful for not just the students visiting from Cologne, but also the AUC students who came from not just a CMRS [Center for Migration and Refugee Studies] program, but multiple different programs,” shared Emma Stotlemyer, CMRS graduate student and research assistant.  Stotlemyer coordinated DiaMiGo’s winter session alongside fellow research assistant Alaa Kasmo and Fatima Salah, Reem Adel and Hiba A.aseem M.Sharif. “We're able to bring their expertise, perspectives and experience to the program, and they were able to learn a lot more about refugees in Cairo.”

DiaMiGo encouraged participants to focus on integration in the everyday — dissecting Egypt’s role as host and transit hub for migrants, as well as the intersection of heritage, labor, health, activism and local governance on integration. 

Students attended lectures at AUC Tahrir Square, led by CMRS and SEA faculty Amira Ahmed and Gerda Heck, discussing the Egyptian social context, the role of media, culinary connections to migration and musical heritage. Dialogue encouraged participants to analyze what makes a place a home, and how they can expand these lessons into place-making for migrants and refugees. 

“The DiaMiGo Winter School was a truly enriching experience for our AUC scholars and students, as well as for the students from University of Cologne,” shared Ahmed, assistant professor in the Department of Sociology, Egyptology and Anthropology. “It created a dynamic and engaging environment where participants could delve into the key issues affecting migrants and refugees in both Egypt and Germany.”

While the lectures were an important facet of the winter school, what was perhaps more impactful was the dialogue between the German and Egyptian students as well as the refugee fellows who participated. Ahmed added, “One of the highlights of the school was the incredible diversity of backgrounds and experiences, thanks to the refugee fellowships, which offered a unique opportunity for refugees from Sudan, South Sudan, Syria, Somalia and Eritrea to present their perspectives and insights.”

One CMRS student, Rya Hammuod Hamuod Alhosin, described how important it has been for her to share her migrant background in an academic setting. “Writing my thesis on my experience as a Syrian refugee put me on a journey to find my own voice,” she said. Participants in DiaMiGo uncovered the ways that centering migrant history, culture and heritage in integration can be both successful and empowering. 

Narratives around migration often revolve around the Global North. Engaging in migration dialogues while being based in the Global South helped reframe the field for students and decolonize migration perspectives. “Egypt is one of the most important actors in the region to understand global migration routes,” shared Hannah Walsken, a student from the University of Cologne. “Talking to students and refugees in Egypt gives an important perspective. It’s not theory alone, but also the everyday lives of people.”

The variety of perspectives from refugees based in Cairo displayed how important the Egyptian context is as a case study for global migration. The refugee fellows got to share their stories with both AUCians and German students, lending their perspectives and humanizing otherwise abstract concepts. 

“It was impactful because the narratives around integration often focus on how refugees can change themselves in order to fit into a community or society,” said Stotlemyer. “Speaking with the refugee fellows and scholars allowed us to see how refugees are continuing to integrate within their new society in a way that involves their skills, talents, experiences, traditions, customs, food, language, dialects — how they make a place for themselves.”

Partnerships like DiaMiGo lend perspectives between the Global South and Global North, which is essential in an inherently international field like migration studies. Egyptian and German students will continue building global conversations when they meet up for DiaMiGo III this summer in Cologne. Until then, they will continue unpacking the important lessons they learned from engaging in dialogue with one another.

“Being able to unpack and learn how refugees engage in place-making in Cairo is incredibly important for migration studies, for refugee studies and for anybody who engages with any sort of migrant and refugee population — so that we can continue to de-center the narratives of the Global North and re-center narratives coming from the Global South and the refugee community. This allows refugees to create those narratives themselves,” affirmed Stotlemyer.

A total of 42 student organizations as well as members of the First-Year Experience program assembled 6,000 food packs on campus in an initiative organized by the Office of Student Life. This year’s collaboration created almost double the number of food packs from last year.

United by a desire to do good, a human conveyor belt of students assembled pasta, rice, oil and lentils into bags to be distributed to families in need in Heliopolis. “I personally came because I wanted to give back to the community,” said psychology senior Mariam Elbatran, a member of the Political Science Students Association.

Rawan Sherif is a junior studying electronics and communications engineering at the University, and serves as the vice president of Resala AUC. She has attended every Ramadan packing event for three years in a row and has helped distribute the packs in Heliopolis. The act of giving is what keeps her coming back. “Seeing the happiness on people’s faces and seeing how they truly live is really touching. I think this is one of the things that keep me going to be honest.”

After the packing, students joined President Ahmad Dallal and Dean of Students Yorgun Marcel for a community iftar in the AUC amphitheater. The Musicana student organization performed Ramadan songs and created a festive atmosphere.

Help came from all corners of the AUC community. Pilar Jordan, a junior studying abroad from Wayne State University in Michigan, came to Ramadan packing to support the community she has found in Egypt. “I decided to join because there are so many people outside of compounds and this community that don’t have the resources to get what they need. So as long as I’m able to walk, I’m able to give back.”

Ramadan packing has been a longstanding tradition at AUC. Sophomore Salma Hagras, vice president of the Help Club, attended her first Ramadan packing last year, and the event’s combination of good energy and community service brought her back.

“Even last year, I brought my sister. She’s out of University but came to help. I really love how people gather to do khayr (good),” Hagras said.

As many members of the student body were fasting while packing, mechanical engineering senior Karim Elzahby felt positive energy through the shared experience. 

“The community here is really connected. We have an intrinsic bond we didn’t know existed between us, and it's coming out all here.”

It was also a great opportunity to put Elzahby gym gains to use. “It’s really great using all the power I’ve been gathering in the gym, channeling it here feels like I’m benefitting people. There’s a greater good.”

Recent alumni of the Department for Journalism and Mass Communications and Kamal Adham Center for Television and Digital Journalism Center were recognized for their achievements in student media at the in the 2026 Broadcast Education Association Festival of Media Arts Competition.

The 2026 winners were selected from an international pool of 2,250 entries, representing over 300 colleges and universities, with the student competitions featuring an overall acceptance rate of 20%. 

For the second year in a row, AUCTV received an honorable mention at BEA's Dr. Marjorie Yambor Signature Station Competition. Awardees will be celebrated in Las Vegas this April at BEA2026.  

Students in audio courses taught by Professor of Practice Kim Fox have built a strong track record of winning in BEA competitions, contributing to AUC’s 12th place position in the 2025 BEA School Rankings for Audio and 18th place ranking in the News category. This year, two awardees were recognized for undergraduate audio projects produced in Fox's classes and received top honors in their categories.

Read more about the awardees below.

Student Radio News Feature:

Ouahiba Ait Elhaj Mhand ’25, Multimedia Communication and Journalism 

3rd place:  Permission to Leave: Christian Divorce in Egypt

Student Audio Narrative: 

 Judi Yassin ’25, Multimedia Communication and Journalism 

Award of Excellence: Podcast Promo-21st Philosophy

Graduate Sports Category :

Yasmin Nabil '25, Kamal Adham Center for Television and Digital Journalism

2nd place, "Egypt Breathes Football"

Graduate Student Documentary:

 Nour Wael '25, Kamal Adham Center for Television and Digital Journalism

3rd place: "The Nubian Code"

Bianca Carrera Espriu '25, Kamal Adham Center for Television and Digital Journalism

 Award of Excellence: "The Artist of the People"

In just 10 weeks, a cohort of students from the University of Chicago have explored every corner of Egypt. From Alexandria to Luxor, the students from the Windy City are dodging subzero temperatures back home to spend a winter studying Cairo’s history and Arabic at AUC.

“You’re really living with history here,” says UChicago linguistics senior Sam Contreras.

Both daytrips and weekend excursions to Luxor, Khan El Khalil, the White Desert, Tahrir Square and the Grand Egyptian Museum have brought students face to face with Egyptian history.

"I feel like we've gotten to see so much of the country. We went way down south, west into the deserts and even on excursions in the week. We've seen different parts of the city."

“Driving an hour or two, you’re at the pyramids, which are thousands of years old. During that time, you pass through Coptic and Islamic Cairo, which are thousands of years old themselves,” Contreras says.

The students are enrolled in Cairo: Middle Eastern Civilizations, a three-class UChicago sequence taught at AUC New Cairo, which takes students through the city’s history from pharaonic to modern times. The core classes are taught by UChicago faculty Assistant Professor of Egyptian Archaeology Anna Latifa Mourad Cizek, Assistant Professor of Classical Arabic Literature Pamela Klasova and Lecturer in the Department of Middle Eastern Studies Abdallah Soufan. In addition to studying Cairo’s history, students take Arabic classes taught twice a week by AUC instructors.

UChicago economics junior Teddy Robinson grew up in an Arabic-speaking area of Miami, Florida, but came to Cairo to continue improving his Arabic. “The Cairo program isn’t talked about enough in terms of how great it is. We have a campus in Paris, we have a campus in Hong Kong. Students there feel like they’re still at UChicago, whereas here we get to come to AUC. We go on all these excursions. Other programs don’t really have all the travel we get to do, and that’s been very enlightening,” Robinson says.

The students also explored Cairo and practiced Arabic with the help of cultural partners, Egyptian students in their age group who previously studied at UChicago and now live in Cairo. “You get a different perspective on young people’s experience in the city,” Kruger says. 

Egypt’s fair weather plus AUC New Cairo’s campus have allowed students to enjoy luxuries  usually locked off by a Chicago winter: working outside, practicing their sports and even stargazing.

A group trip to the White Desert was eye opening for Ashley Hayase, a UChicago economics junior also minoring in astronomy and astrophysics. “In the desert, especially, being able to see  all the constellations —  I didn't realize the size of them. I'd never seen them so clear before.”

Robinson and Hayase are both student athletes, running track and playing soccer, respectively. Hayase says AUC’s facilities have let her stay sharp in the offseason. “Utilizing the facilities has been great. During the winter back in Chicago we rarely are able to actually practice outside at all,” Hayase says.

A yearlong civilization studies requirement is needed to graduate from the University of Chicago, and students can meet this requirement by studying abroad for one quarter. Camille Kruger, a UChicago junior studying public policy, chose the Cairo program to experience a new culture beyond the popular study-abroad destinations peers sought out in Europe. 

“I feel like we've gotten to see so much of the country. We went way down south, west into the deserts and even on excursions in the week. We've seen different parts of the city,” Kruger says. 

“A lot of us have gone and explored Cairo on our own. But even if you didn't do that, you would walk away from this program having seen so much of the city and the country and gaining a lot of knowledge.”

With Ramadan and Lent falling on the same month this year, many members of the AUC community will spend the next few weeks fasting. As students, faculty and staff, knowing the best practices for fasting can be the difference between a failed test or an excellent presentation. 

News@AUC sat down with Fayrouz Sakr-Ashour, assistant professor in the Institute of Global Health and Human Ecology, to ask her for some tips and tricks on the best methods for keeping healthy while fasting.

Fasting for Lent and Ramadan started one day apart this year, meaning both Christian and Muslim students will fast at the same time. For Christians, they can only eat one full meal a day on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, and for the time in between, have certain days they must abstain from meat. For Muslims, they can only eat from sundown to sunrise the entire month of Ramadan. “Fasting is a way of changing food intake,” Sakr-Ashour described. “It can be for religious purposes or for health, like through intermittent fasting. Either way, it's very important to use healthy eating practices while fasting.”

Sakr-Ashour is a physician by trade who became interested in nutrition while working in a hospital and realizing how impactful diet was on patient health. Since becoming a faculty member at AUC, she has researched nutrition for vulnerable populations and nutritional food environments. As AUC community members embark on their fast, Sakr-Ashour shared the most important tips to have a healthy and meaningful fast: 

1. Make sure you have quality food when you break your fast.

Fasting makes it more important than ever to have high-quality foods in your intake, as your body is already in a more fragile state. For both Christians and Muslims, this means focusing on non-processed, balanced foods that will fuel your body. 

2. Break your fast with fluids and something to raise your blood sugar.

While many might want to jump right into a big feast, this — after fasting all day — could risk making you sick or putting you in a food coma. It's best to start with something small, such as a date, which has sugar and fiber. After this, you’ll want to pause as your blood glucose levels rise. From Muslims, this is normally the time for prayer, showing how tradition has evolved to replicate what is most healthy for the body. 

3. For iftar (fast-breaking meal), focus on protein, vegetables and fiber.

These three elements will give you the most balanced meal post-fast. It is best to avoid refined carbohydrates like white bread, rice and pasta. When we’re hungry, our hunger hormone ghrelin is high, which leads us to make bad decisions and be less able to control our portions. For Christians who abstain from eating meat, it is still important to get protein from other sources, such as through fish or lentils. 

For student athletes, protein is especially important. Without a balanced meal post-fast, athletes risk not fully recuperating their muscle glycogen stores. Inadequate protein intake over several days of fasting improperly can contribute to muscle loss, especially in athletes training.

4. For sohour (pre-dawn meal), continue to emphasize protein.

Limit excessive coffee, which can increase fluid loss and disturb sleep. Instead focus on food that both hydrates and provides protein, such as yogurt or a glass of milk, and complex carbs like foul, hummus, whole wheat bread. This will help you sustain your body glycogen levels for longer and stop your blood sugar levels from fluctuating in an unhealthy way. 

5. Don’t forget to hydrate.

Hydration is incredibly important to remaining healthy while fasting. Emphasize foods that will hydrate you as well as provide protein, such as soup. Don’t forget to continue drinking water throughout the evening, so your body does not get dehydrated during the day.

6. Don’t completely cut out carbohydrates.

Cutting out carbohydrates also comes with risks in terms of replenishing muscle glycogen stores. Make sure your meals are balanced, high quality and satiate not just your hunger sensors, but also your body's individual needs. 

7. If you are going to eat refined sugars, do it in moderation.

Refined sugars should be eaten sporadically during fasting, as you easily risk overeating. Focus first on consuming protein and vegetables so you’re not making bad decisions while hungry. 

Without proper fast techniques, you risk being fatigued, overeating and not properly allocating your energy. Weight gain and weight loss are both possible when eating patterns are unregulated. It’s important to eat balanced, high-quality foods to avoid the health instability that can come with fasting. 

As fasting is an important practice across religions, it is important that all participants are thoughtful about the way they fast in order for it to be the most impactful. “I think the discipline and meditation associated with fasting, paired with the intake of proper nutrition, make the experience more holistically positive,” Sakr-Ashour said. “Failing to fast properly can break down the religious experience. Caring for your health means you can focus on what the practice means, across religions.”