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The American University in Cairo fosters a dynamic and multicultural co-curricular life on campus through programs and services offered by the division of Student of Affairs. Under the leadership of the Vice President, Student Affairs provides essential student services in the Offices of Enrollment Services, Admission, Student Financial Affairs, Career Advising and Placement Services (CAPS), and facilitates relevant student programs and leadership opportunities through The First Year Experience (orientation), International Student Affairs, Counseling Center, Mentoring Unit, Residential Life, Office of Student Development and Sports.
Student Activities are facilitated by the Office of Student Development within the context of university policy and the constitution of the General Assembly of the Student Body. The Office of Student Development includes four units: Student Organizations and Activities, Community Service Programs, Cultural Programs, and the First Year Experience and Leadership Institute. The administration reserves the right of veto in matters of student activities including those mentioned in the Student Union constitution.
The many extracurricular activities available at AUC reflect the diverse backgrounds and interests of the student body. While some events are sponsored and organized by the departments and units, most are initiated and carried out by student groups.
Student Associations and Clubs
Student Government (SG) is composed of legislative, judicial and executive branches. The Student Senate acts as the legislative branch and is composed of elected representatives from each major. The Student Judicial Board (SJB) is composed of five elected members and is represented in the Student Disciplinary and Academic Integrity Committees. The Student Union (SU) is the executive branch of the SG, and is headed by an elected president each year. SG provides student representation on university academic and other committees, and organizes events and services. Student associations and clubs provide a variety of opportunities for students to share similar interests. Student groups are formed for a number of reasons. Some groups are formed as a result of students having an interest in a certain geographic areas, like Al Quds Club. Others student groups have an interest in providing services to the Egyptian community, such as Volunteers in Action. Still others are formed around specific interests or majors, like the Political Science Association. Student organizations sponsor lectures, films, shows, and exhibitions as well as trips to places of historic, scientific, or other interests in Egypt. Each active student organization is required to have a faculty advisor with experience and expertise in the club’s area of activity. Membership in clubs is open to all interested AUC students. The Office of Student Organization Activities is responsible for guiding and supporting the Student Union, academic clubs, and the student conferences. New student organizations may be formed with approval from the Office of Student Development and recognition from the Clubs and Conference Committee (CCC). All organizations must apply for renewal of approval and recognition each year.
Student Organized Conferences
Student organized conferences, such as the Model United Nations, Model Arab League (under the auspices of the Political Science Department, and Office of Student Development for non-conference activities), the Student Leadership Conference, the Student In Free Enterprise Conference and Global Economy Conference, offer the opportunity for students to learn skills such as negotiation and public speaking, to improve their knowledge of the world, and participate in a major organizational challenge. Conferences involve hundreds of students from AUC and other Universities, both in Egypt and abroad and contribute significantly to student life on campus.
The Community Service Program
Anti Cancer team, Hand in Hand, Volunteers in Action, Student Action for Refugees, and more are community service clubs that work with the spirit of serving the Egyptian Community. The Community Service Program supervises all community service activities, and focuses on raising students awareness of the social challenges facing their community. The Program provides students the opportunity to take initiative in dealing with such problems. Students benefit from renewing their social commitment clarifying values of good citizenship and learn how to become engaged in a positive social action. Currently there are more than ten community service volunteer clubs operating with different groups of under privileged people including the poor, orphans, cancer patients, the elderly and refugees etc.
Cultural Activities
The Office of Cultural Programs is responsible for cultural clubs and groups. Competent professionals on an extracurricular basis throughout the academic year train the Choral Group, Music Group, Egyptian Folk Dance Troupe, and Art Group and other cultural groups. Trips to represent Egypt and The American University in Cairo at festivals
abroad are planned periodically for the choral, music, and folk dance ensembles.
Lectures and Concerts
Lectures held at AUC cover a wide variety of topics and feature scholars, diplomats, political, cultural and business figures and others from the university itself, and from Cairo and abroad. The University’s Distinguished Visiting Professor program enables individual departments to host speakers throughout the year. In addition, student organizations invite guest speakers whose lectures are open to the university community.
Musical performances by visiting artists and AUCians are given throughout the year. Concerts feature a wide variety of music including classical and contemporary Arabic music, jazz, and western classical music performed by local groups like the Cairo Symphony, by international ensembles on tour and by talented students.
Theatre
The Theatre Program, through its drama productions, is one of the most active student enterprises on campus. All AUC students, theatre majors as well as students from all departments are encouraged to participate. Under the guidance of the Theatre faculty, students from all nationalities act and occasionally design and direct several productions a year ranging from classics to modern experimental theatre. Students also play a major role in constructing sets, costumes, lighting, sound, and make up. Recent plays include Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Feydeau’s A Silly Goose, Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author, Farag’s Sulayman El Halabi, Sophocles’ Antigone and Ibsen’s Ghosts. Productions in English and Arabic. Plays take place in two new state-of- the art theatres in the Falaki Academic Center.
Films
Films are a favorite form of recreation at AUC and several university units organize regular showings.
Student Publications
Caravan, the student newspaper, is published weekly, in English and in Arabic, and distributed on campus without charge. It is both a learning laboratory for journalism and mass communication students who receive some academic credit for participation, and a co-curricular activity open to participation by reporters, photographers, and students with writing skills or artistic talent from the student body at large. Over the years many Caravan alumni have become professional journalists in Egypt, elsewhere in the Middle East, and in the West. Faculty advisors guide all student publication activities, including the Dimensions, the Independent Newspapers, and other clubs/conferences magazines.
Counseling and Mental Health
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The Student Counseling Center promotes and encourages wellness and healthy work life balance through individual counseling, assessment and workshops for AUC students. SCC services facilitate student intellectual, emotional and social growth by increasing self-awareness, improving learning ability, assisting with setting personal goals, meeting and resolving personal challenges and applying new behaviors in day-to-day interaction.
All students are expected to possess the mental stamina and stability required to undertake an academic program. Students with chronic mental health issues should inform the SCC of their needs.
The SCC observes strict professional standards of confidentiality essential for the development of trust. No information is disclosed to any other party without the student’s written consent.
The university physician and counselors refer students to professional help outside the university when necessary.
The New Cairo campus food service is delivered in a variety of ways. The campus center is home to the food court offering various types of meals, and to the faculty lounge. There are food vendor carts around
campus that offer fresh drinks and salads. HUSS, the administration building and the Mostafa Core Academic Center each have a food outlet and coffee shops are plentiful throughout the campus. Catering for special events is available.
International Student Affairs
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The office of International Student Affairs (ISA) promotes student learning and intercultural understanding and responsibility. Through programs and services, ISA assists over 1100 international students from over 70 countries around the world. ISA staff and active AUC student leaders serve as critical facilitators in the intercultural educational experience. ISA offers integrated student services to the international undergraduate, graduate and intensive Arabic language students. In addition to a comprehensive orientation program, ISA provides day-to-day non-academic advising on a broad range of international student issues such as financial, social psychological and cultural concerns. To facilitate adjustment to Egypt, ISA publishes, The International Student Handbook, facilitates panel discussions, and the faculty mentor program. Cultural activities include International Day, Ramadan Around the World and International Student Coffee Hour.
The university clinic, staffed with the university physician, trained doctors and nurses, is open every day, except for Fridays and Saturdays, to provide medical services. The clinic is open from 8:00 a.m. till 5:00 p.m. For further information regarding the AUC clinic, you can access the clinic’s Web site http://www.aucegypt.edu/services/medical/Pages/default.aspx
The university provides limited accident insurance for all students while they are on the campus or engaged in certain university activities. The student must pay medical costs beyond the provisions of this insurance. International students are required to have health-insurance coverage.
All new students are required to attend the University orientation program held the week before the start of classes. Special orientation programs or sessions are available for new graduate students, undergraduate student, language intensive students and non-degree students. Orientation provides the information and tools needed to transition successfully to the AUC community.
Student Conduct and Academic Integrity
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The American University in Cairo is a guest in Egypt with a purely educational mission. It encourages open inquiry and examination of all intellectual subjects. Both its curriculum and extracurricular activities are dedicated to helping produce informed and independently minded human beings. But as a matter of basic policy AUC carefully refrains from involvement in political or religious matters, and it does not permit its campus or facilities to be used by outsiders, by AUC personnel, or students for such involvement. The AUC Board of Trustees does not take positions on political or religious matters, nor are any AUC bodies or entities permitted to do so. The university approves humanitarian assemblies, provided authorized procedures are followed. (See The University Policies on Student Expression)
Students who attend the university are expected to show concern for each other, for their teachers, and for the university itself. Student behavior is expected to be appropriate to life at an academic institution and to take into account Egyptian society and traditions. Rules of student conduct, intended to perpetuate and reinforce these policies, are explained more fully in the Student Success Handbook and Planner.
Because of the importance of maintaining the complete integrity of its academic work and of ensuring that AUC remains a purely academic apolitical institution, respected in the community at large and maintaining its liberal education atmosphere, the university views the following violations of AUC policy with particular seriousness:
I. Cheating (see Academic Integrity Policy under Academic Regulations section).
II. Involvement in political or religious issues or activities on the campus or in the dormitory or the instigation of such unauthorized activities.
III. Behavior that disturbs university functions and activities.
IV. Participation in any illegal activity, on or off campus. Students who violate standards of conduct, particularly those mentioned above, may be subject to disciplinary action, including dismissal. All cases of Academic Integrity should be reported to the Academic Integrity Committee (AIC) at the Provost Office. All non-academic misconduct cases should be reported to the Chair of the Student Disciplinary Committee. The committee’s recommendation, based on investigation of the case (see Student Success Handbook and Planner), is submitted to the Vice President for Student Affairs, who is the final authority.
All violations related to student activities should be reported to the Student Judicial Board SJB. Unresolved cases and clarifications of university policies and procedures will be referred to the Student Organization Legislative and Judicial Committee SOLJC for further investigations. Similar to the Student Disciplinary Committee, final recommendations of the SOLJC are submitted to the Vice President for Student Affairs, who has the final authority.
The Office of Residential Life administers student housing at AUC. Two residence facilities – Zamalek and New Cairo – provide accommodation for students. The Zamalek residence houses 350 students and is located in one of downtown Cairo’s most popular residential districts - Zamalek. It is an island slightly northwest of central Cairo; an urban up-scale area with a large cosmopolitan population. It is approximately 38 kilometers, or 23 miles, from New Cairo campus. The residence in New Cairo is part of campus with close proximity to classes and university life for 480 students. New Cairo is a new development comprising 46,000 acres of land with a projected population of 2.5 million people. Males and females live in separate sections of the residences. Both facilities are air-conditioned, and have housekeeping services, high-speed internet connection, 24 hour security, and clinical services. An AUC physician has clinical hours at the Zamalek residence and the clinic is located on campus at the Campus Center. Living in the student housing provides not only a comfortable and secure environment. Residing in either Zamalek housing or on campus, students meet students from all over the world. The multicultural living environment AUC offers is a unique opportunity for learning and growth. For more information about the AUC residences, visit http://www.aucegypt.edu/students/reslife/Pages/default.aspx
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