interesting semester coming up

Tomorrow is the delayed start of our Spring Semester (Sunday is a normal teaching day in Egypt, the academic weekend being Friday/Saturday). After Mubarak’s non-resignation speech the other night, I would have estimated a 5% chance of actually beginning tomorrow. But we’ll be starting after all.

We missed two weeks, which will be made up somehow. We also missed our university President’s inauguration, and I’m not sure when that will be rescheduled.

But what will be most interesting is to see if the students are different now. How much livelier will our discussions of Machiavelli and Rousseau be in the intro section this semester? (That’s been an effective combination of authors in my intro classes, along with Plato of course.)

Let me now share an anecdote from last semester. Our student body president at AUC was actually impeached on a number of corruption charges, to all appearances justly. In retrospect, what was most interesting is how excited the Egyptian faculty were about this event. They saluted the students and wanted to send them a letter of congratulations on following proper impeachment procedures. Yes, I sensed some metaphorical depth to that enthusiasm, but only now is the incident revealed in its true significance.

One night last semester I asked my students if that was the first time in university history that the president had been impeached. A young woman in the class deadpanned: “First time in Egypt.” The other students began chuckling, as did I.