Stephen Nimis Oral History

Stephen Nimis was a faculty member in the Department of English and Comparative Literature in the 2000s and 2010s. Nimis sketches out his upbringing, education, and academic career prior to AUC. He describes leading study trips in Egypt for students from his university in the United States in the early 2000s, and being a visiting professor at AUC in 2002-03; he describes the downtown campus and neighborhood venues where faculty socialized at that time. Nimis speaks of taking a faculty position at AUC in 2014, and later serving as Department Chair. Faculty, staff, and students in AUC’s English and Comparative Literature Department are described, along with its academic programs and issues affecting the department. He speaks about ECLT’s place within the School of Humanities and Social Sciences (HUSS), covering Deans, other HUSS departments with connections with ECLT, and the HUSS Lab program supporting humanities research, teaching, and public engagement. Nimis discusses the faculty’s and University Senate’s relationship with Presidents Lisa Anderson and Francis Ricciardone and the Board of Trustees, related to matters like the status of the Faculty Handbook, erosion of faculty benefits (such as bus service), university finances, upper administrative appointments, and the situation with tenure at AUC and controversial cases. Nimis mentions faculty responses like the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) chapter on campus and the Senate’s vote of no confidence in the President in 2019. The New Cairo Campus is described, along with the emphasis on security cameras and other measures, and the no-smoking policy introduced on campus for which Nimis proposed ideas. Nimis offers a portrait of his life in Cairo, from his faculty housing apartments in Zamalek and interaction with neighborhood residents from all walks of life, to taking public transportation and frequenting local eateries and cafes