UA-R-GC-1914-01-01-1973-05-16_Page-039

• THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY IN CAIRO October 17, 1973 Dear Landon, I hope this letter reaches you with some sort of despatch. It is entrusted to the care of a U.S. public health doctor who wil I take It on the American tourist exit boat to Athens and thence I know not how it may reach you. The boat leaves to­morrow morning. The alternative route out of Egypt is a long 24 hour bus ride to Benghazi, where it is stated aeroplanes are avai lable to carry you to Europe. As far as the University is concerned there is not much to say about the current situation. We have suspended classes for the last two days of last week and this week under pressure from the students supported by a number of Faculty. For a little while at the beginning of last week we had what might have turned into a traditional kind of student-faculty-adminis­tration type fracas. This has been side-stepped and we have established a student-faculty committee specifically for making recommendations to me about the University's role and policies in the situation as it develops. Whi Ie classes are suspended the students are engaged in a number of civi I de­fence and humanitarian activities appropriate to the times. The morale of the American faculty members soems to be reasonably good and I have detected so far no panic and no significant desire to leave or even have dependents leave. We keep our fingers crossed since al I this could change as circumstances change or if we are unable to restart classes fairly soon and boredom t akes over. The reasons for suspending classes are several and rather complex and whi Ie I took the step regretfully I feel it was virtually inevitable. Our planning now incorporates ways of making up the missed classes but again there is no tel ling, at this stage, how many classes we may miss. OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT ~""'.'I'. ' ·"< • /2. 113. SHARIA KASR EL AINI. CAIRO. EGYPT .e.,.."f!:' ,lI.,.ra L.A.J I' ~ I~ eJu..II