UA-R-GC-1914-01-01-1959-02-28_Page-018

of representing America well, the University could not be batter situated, Further, it 15 not unfair to say that the University is situated at the seat of influence of the Arab world. Cairo is the unquestioned center of Islam, as well as the center of political influence. Three-fourths of the books and journals in Arabic ars published in Cairo, where four large Egyptian universities and the ancient Islamic University, Al Azhar, "underwrite" this cultural influence. In good times and bad for almost forty years the American University has maintained good relations and has been gratefully accepted as a continuing influence from America. It has enjoyed a freedom from control or interference such as few other institutions in the Middle East have experienced. Even in these recent, more difficult, years the enrollment cf the University has st'adily increased, chiefly at the point of Moslem Egyptians. It numbers among its students many from the most influential Middle East families, and the alumni contain persons of vital significance in the Arab world. The American University at Cairo is not merely a passive factor in the total educational and cultural environment of Egypt and the Middle East. Instead, it is an active agent in working for qualitative change at many points. For instance, the Social Research Center of the University works consistently and in close cooperation with the statistical bureaus and Social Affairs Ministry of the government; the School of Oriental Studies of the University gains the cooperation of the professors of Al Azhar in many of its programs and seminars; staff members from the Under-graduate and Education faculties of the University teach occasional-ly in the Egyptian universities, and join in many committees and councils that have wide-reaching significance in many phases of Egyptian life