Magda Hayek Oral History

Interviewee

Magda Hayek

Date

2018-03-13

Description

Transcript of oral history interview conducted with
Magda Hayak on March 13, 2018 for
The American University in Cairo University Archives
[00:00:00]
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
This is an oral history interview for the American University in Cairo's University Archives. The interviewee is Magda Hayek and the interviewer is Stephen Urgola, we are on the Falaki Campus, the Tahrir AUC campus, and today's date is March 13, 2018. Uh and to start, can you give your full name, and place and date of birth?
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
Okay. My name is Magda Fouad Hayek. I was born in Cairo uh on March 16th, 1949, so very soon, my birthday, [laughs] in two days.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
Well, in advance, happy birthday.
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
Thank you.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
Can you tell me a bit about your family's background, what your parents did for a living where they may have come from? Before moving to the place where you grew up?
[00:00:56]
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
Okay. If we go back back like in the fort-, 1940, 1950, my parents came from Lebanon, and we moved, they, moved into Egypt, and then— it was the whole family, it was a large family, Zaydan, they had Abdul Noor. They had Sus— a very, very large family came in, they all came in in the '40s. My father uh started his business in 1945, commercial business, downtown Cairo, in Suleiman Pasha [Street], that's now known uh Talaat Harb [Street]. uh, we, he had a shop, he started by selling cars, and then with his cousins, the Diab, were the first in Egypt to build up an Egyptian refrigerator, because the cousin went and studied in the States and was able to get the Westinghouse motors. And they build the first refrigerators in Egypt, and he was then selling with uh the cousins uh in the- into this business.
2
[00:02:00]
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
My father passed away very young, at the age of 39, but my mother took over with the four kids of us, my sister was just born, so actually, I come from a family where we're more, a more into commerce, we're not employees. Uh I guess none of ou- any of the members of my family were employees, they were all into, you know, business, industries, and so on, so uh I lived downtown. I live in Champollion Street, which is about seven or eight minutes from AUC and that was one of the reasons, maybe, that I joined AUC. The other reason is because I was born Lebanese, the Egyptian universities gave quotas to the non-Egyptians to get into whatever. I wanted to study medicine, but unfortunately, there was another Lebanese who had like probably one or two percent more than I did, so he took the place, and I came to AUC. Luckily, I'm here. [laughs]
[00:03:00]
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
And uh could you te- tell me a bit more about who took over the family business after your father passed?
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
My mother took it. Actually, she did almost everything, and it was very hard then, because uh women uh not that they didn't work, but it was too much, she didn't know and at the same time, my father died in 1959, and all the nationalization came in '63, so although the business was flourishing, suddenly everything fell down, so she was really stuck into this business, with no business, and slowly, slowly her brother helped a bit, and we grew up a very simple family, and so on, and then when my brother, my two brothers grew up, they helped out as studen- you know, young, young boys go and help and so on and actually, uh my younger brother, my late younger brother who died like four years ago, he really took over the business.
[00:04:00]
And we became really what we did and he started, you know, getting big names like Westinghouse, like Sony, like so on, so well the Fouad Hayek business is supposed to be well known in the Egyptian community. And many families would come and buy all their appliances from our shop.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
And can you tell me something about your family's home? uh if you moved home at times? What was the place like? What was the neighborhood like?
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
Okay. Um, when I fir- I the one thing I can't remember is I uh I was born in Daher where with my grandparents, my father's side, and then slowly, my father took this uh apartment in Champollion Street. It's 20 Champollion Street where we the rest of the family, 3
the three others were born, and he died there and lived, and I was married and came back now and live in the same apartment, and uh guess what?
[00:05:05]
My brother and my sister live in the same building, we don't own it, we rent, and it was like our neighbors were all Greeks, and what happened is every time one of them would go to Greece, uh they would arrange with the landlord and my sister took an apartment and my brother took an apartment and then again, another apartment, so the whole building we lived there, we don't we just rent, we don't own it, but at least I'm surrounded by the whole family, it's a family [Laughs] building without being ours, without being ours, yeah.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
And could you um mention what was your family's religious background?
[00:05:44]
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
OK, we're Greek Orthodox and this is one of the-, if you go to Lebanon, maybe people now think that Maronite is the name of the game, but Maronites is new and the Catholic part is new, the umm original, I'm not trying to get say something, but the Greek Orthodox is one of the original, uh I don't want say religion, but the Greek Orthodox Church is one of the first churches in Lebanon, and that's where uh my both father and mother actually they met a church uh young when they got married, they met at church and the Greek Orthodox Church. Our church is a small church, yes, but it's the church in Daher where you would only meet, you would only meet Lebanese, Syrian, Palestinian, Jordanian uh all are part of- this is the community of our church, up till today.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
And can you tell me about, let's say, the celebration of religious holidays when you were growing up?
[00:06:44]
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
Oh, yeah, I mean, this is food, I mean, what else can you say when you live in this part of the world? It's mainly food, food, food. Reunion will always be in the grandfather, the older grandfather would be like, after my father died, my grandparents lived with us for some time to help my mother, so all celebration, I had one aunt from my father's side and from my mother's side, so my mother's side would get smaller religious [laughs] celebrations, but my father side, which is my grandfather, all the Christmases, Easter, everything would be done, but Sham El-Nessim, which is known here in Egypt as the Monday, Easter Monday, would be all the families like they had a big, big, big ranch somewhere in my mother's family, and every single member of any family, which was very, very large family, will spend it over there, we all be there together, we all be-, a large family up here, we grew up here very large, very, very large family. 4
[00:07:48]
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
And could you tell me about uh what other activities you uh pursued for recreation and socializing while you were growing up? Your family also?
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
See, my side, my the other cousins and so on would go more to clubs and so on, but because my mother was working and uh we were not really uh easy to go here and there, she wasn't able to help us out, so it was mainly people visiting us, we wouldn't go very easily to visit people, we were not part of the uh of clubs like others where like others where but um visiting would be- and schools were so much fun, I mean, our schools then we had so many activities, I guess, now they have, but then and then building itself, we grew up like one family, so we were not, you know, you always had something to do with the ne- neighbors. Neighbors were your family, neighbors were your family. So maybe uh not like other members of my family, we were not part of a group that goes to clubs and so on, it was mainly either the church or the neighbors and the school. That was our main recreational part.
[00:09:02]
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
Did the family take any vacations?
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
Actually, yes. Vacation important, that's the part where we would go to Alexandria, Alexandria was the only spot, nobody knew any other thing, so we started like school ended, let's say, June 15th. By the 17th, we were thrown up in Alexandria up till the first like September, I don't know, three or four, I don't remember when was it? The three months were fully in Alexandria, and that was the real vacation where we all had fun and so on. Um the eldest of the family, and uh although I was young, I wish to take care of my my siblings and my mother would come Saturday, Sunday uh to spend the weekend with us buy whatever is needed, and we'd go. We just crossed the street and the sea was there, beautiful sea, beautiful sea. Uh, Alexandria is different now because it was mainly villas, and uh, even uh, I don't know, less people, probably less people.
[00:10:04]
And we had our clans or friends of Alexandria. So the neighbors of Alexandria were another another group. We had to, we we really spent the whole summer with and come back to, yes, it was three long months in Alexandria.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
And where did you stay when you went to Alexandria? The same place or different places?
5
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
No no no, it's the same place, we had an apartment there and it was called Sidi-Bishr, Sidi Bishr, Mi- Miami, this was really a very nice place, and from our balcony, we used to face the Automobile Club because they have an Automobile Club in Alexandria just in front of us. And the beauty of it is that almost every Thursday they had a party, so all we had to do is sit in the balcony and, you know, as if we were sitting with them and spend the evening with the party of the Automobile Club, and the sea was very safe, we never had a problem, and there was always, believe it or not, then, there was always one or two guys at the umm at the um beach, you know, looking for all the kids around. So it was a safe place, a very, very safe place.
[00:11:12]
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
And you mentioned uh your education. Can you tell me where you attended primary and secondary school?
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
I spen- uh schools, French schools were uh in our family, everybody went to French school, so for boys, it was the Jesuites for girls was either Mère de Dieu or Sacre-Coeur. I went to the Mère de Dieu and my brothers went to the College De La Salle then uh before they went to Jesuites and then College De La Salle, uh we spoke French at home before school, I mean, and we still speak French at home, I don't know is it because of the Lebanese background or work, but we all speak French at home, whether we go to English universities or German universities, we'll still speak French at home. So our first language is, let's call it French. And then after school, I came to AUC, my brother one of my brothers came to AUC ،my sister uh and the younger brother uh went to Cairo University, but we still speak French. [laughs]
[00:12:17]
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
And can you describe Mère de Dieu, where it was located? Who were the teachers? What was what was the student body like?
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
We were not so many, I mean uh classes were not like the 40s and 50 students now. The Mère de Dieu is in Garden City at the back of the Italian embassy, uh we used to, I remember, we used to walk even from downtown to there. Uh my brothers had the bus and the uh school was wonderful, nuns, nuns, there was nuns and uh very severe, I mean, I there's no joke with nuns, you know, but still, it was a good school, uh good education, even how you sit, you were there.
[00:13:01]
And it's interesting that at that time they didn't know, I think, what they were doing, the nuns, but they would open the door in the middle of a class and would sit quietly and watch the teacher. And these are things that we do now, you know, educationally. You have to see what 6
the teachers are saying, and then I don't think they were doing it in terms of pedagogy [laughs] or something, it was innate in them. So teachers were wonderful to us that were good, and I remember uh in Thanaweya Amma [Secondary school's last year], it was either, which is the last year of study, you were the second and third year, you were either science or uh or uh art. And we were only seven girls who wanted at my time in 1966. We wanted like '65, '66, we insisted to have science and we couldn't, I mean, with seven students.
[00:13:57]
So they had an arrangement with the Jesuites and they had a van, they would take us to the Jesuite school to attend biology, chemistry and physics, and the rest of the classes, we would do it. And with years, like two, three years later, uh I guess the other students started to say, "Hey, science is a good thing," so they opened science and became like normal. But I was one of the first groups ever who attended the Jesuites for two years, being a girl. [laughs] Although we were sitting aside very, a room very close to the entry, nobody would see us. But it was great, it was really nice, it was really nice.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
Where were the nuns and the teachers from? Were they from Egypt, from or from outside?
[00:14:46]
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
Our time, they're usually from outside. Most of them were from either France, Belgium uh, I remember maybe one Lebanese only. Uh and then with time, after I finished uh after I've finished AUC, they called me and they said, "Nobody wants to teach chemistry, physics and biology and French. You owe it to your school." So owing to my school, I went back to teach chemistry, physics and biology to my school. And then there were still, the nuns where still uh I don't want to say foreign, but they lived here for a long time. And lately when I went to visit, they're only Egyptians. And uh they're not allowed into classes, they don't teach anymore. There are so many things, they're only in, uh just away from taking care away from the teaching, they're not allowed to teach in classes anymore. Or nuns and priests and everything are not allowed into scho-, classes.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
Uh, were there boarding students at the school, as well as students who came from home in Cairo?
[00:15:57]
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
Not my school, not this specific school. There were boarding schools, but not my school. The Jesuits years ago, and not anymore, long, long time ago, when my father died in '59, they had the boarding school in Helwan. And this is where my mother, uh put my brothers, we were too many for her, for three years in Helwan. And then um, she couldn't, I 7
mean, she said, that's not fair, and going to Helwan and so on. But boarding schools, I don't remember uh ve- very few here. More in Alexandria, but not much, not that I remember of here in Cairo, not that I remember in Cairo.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
Yeah, and you mentioned the nuns being severe. Could you say something about discipline at the school?
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
Oh, yeah, oh, yeah. Discipline, are you kidding? Can you, nail or hair or, I mean, you can't have long hair, you know, flowing. No, no, no, no, no, no. And dresses, the uh we were always well-dressed. No nails, no makeup. Are you kidding? When I see kids now with, no, no, no, no, there was, it's we were all—. And in the morning you have to go in front of the nuns,, and they will look at you and then you have to show your nails. And they look at you.
[00:17:09]
And we used to wear caps in the um in the buses when I used to, before young, I used to think buses. Sitting in the bus you have to wear your cap, so that people know that you are well dressed, and come from a good family and so on. And although there were rich and poor in the in the schools, never ever, never ever you can tell who was the rich and who was the poor, they would not allow you to show off or, you know, to show anything that's more than you, we have to all be the same. Uh books were the same, uh you know, pens, the same, nobody shows off a special thing to show he's rich or she is rich. That was good, and I don't know anymore. We had special classes or so for, you know, how to sit, how to eat. We used to eat at school. And this, I don't know if it's, I don't think it's anymore now sitting, you know, your hands at the back, and so you so that you can sit straight.
[00:18:05]
And when you see some, an old person, you jump and give your seat. And all these, you know, educational things that I don't know if they do them anymore. That was the specialty of the nuns, no teacher would teach you this.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
And were the students at the school from a mix of religious backgrounds? And maybe say something about any religious instruction at the school?
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
Oh, yes, yes, religious instruction, that's for sure. Uh it was not part of your uh it was not counted for grades, but sure, we had religious background. There are Muslims and Christians, uh we had a priest who came a Jesuit priest would give us the catechism, uh I can't remember what the Muslims, who — I think the Arabic teacher would teach them. There was not any religious person who would teach them the Quran, it was mainly th- the Arabic teacher who would teach them. But uh, we never felt any difference, you know, it was like—. And the father would come. 8
[00:19:10]
And guess what? The last year, I remember the year of Thanaweya Amma, and this is very few people uh have had this wonderful experience, uh the year of Thanaweya Amma the priest came and said "Next year you go into life, and you will not have somebody to guide you. But this life is your, you will have Muslims with you. You have to know what the religion is about." so for a whole year, we studied the Quran with a priest, so that he can tell us and and teach us what the Quran is about, so when we speak with others, we cannot say we don't know. We have to know what the religion is about.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
And do you remember if it was a sort of neutral presentation of Islam in the Quran or—?
[00:19:54]
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
[Crosstalk] Definitely, definitely, definitely. It was, it was for, not without, he was showing us, teaching us what the religion says, and what they say, with nothing, you know, no comparison saying ours and yours. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. He was reading the Quran. Because then uh to tell you, the Arabic classes, instead of poetry, many of them the the teaching of the Arabic language was mainly Quran, so even if you were not Muslim, we used to study Quranic like, you know, we used to study the Quran without probably knowing what it meant, because we studied it and wrote it down and so on. We were not asked to explain, we were studying because it's the Arabic language, okay? But he explained whatever, so that when we read, we know what it is said. He never compared anything to Christianity, never talked about it, he never talked about it. Yeah, it was different, it was different.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
And you mentioned the activities that were uh, arranged by the school. Can you tell me about that?
[00:21:04]
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
Um activities, we were, we grew up knowing our, you know, feeling with the poor. Visiting old uh folks homes, like homes. We were not forced, but we were taken by the school, to visits uh poor, poor families, you know, go with them and see, get food once a month. Or even money, whoever doesn't want to get food. And we go there. Uh we had trips, not many to tell you, the nuns were not very much into trips, but more into, you know, whatever helping the community. But we grew up knowing that there are poor, that there are people who don't have the money. We we grew up really feeling with the others.
9
[00:21:55]
Uh I don't know about, maybe because I don't have children, I cannot compare, but I see my nephews and nieces and so on. They demand, now, I mean, they want the best, they want everything. This is something we never did. Even if you had money, you don't demand, it whatever your parents give you, you get. If it's five piasters, it's five piasters, you never ask for more. And if you know that your parents cannot pay you see, I cannot go, if there is a trip. W- we never felt that money was a problem, we never felt this, we never felt money was a problem.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
And do you have any memories of uh specific places in Cairo or in particular your neighborhood during your years growing up? Sp-, particular shops, or just locations that stick in your mind?
[00:22:46]
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
Yeah, I grew up in a wonderful place, which is downtown. I mean, I don't know if people uh know, whatever you see now is nice buildings and so on, whatever is left of those nice buildings. But then we had like a street away from us, we had like seven cinemas. And, you know, and uh on Friday morning, Friday morning, the Metro Cinema, we would go for three piasters, you would go from ten to noon, from 10 to 12, watch cartoons for two hours, get a Coca-Cola, and so. I mean, we everybody, you see every part of the neighborhood, everybody you would meet at the cinema. We all sit there for two hours. And parents would never come with us, we just cross the street and go. It was so safe. And you walk around and beautiful, beautiful, beautiful shops. And, I don't know if ever somebody mentioned to you, Sednaoui have you heard about this Sednaoui? It's one of the, it was not a chain, it's somewhere in Attaba. If you have the chance to go and visit whatever is left of this Sednaoui, it was a replica of [French Department Store Galeries] Lafayette, first in the Middle East, first uh wonderful shop in the Middle East.
[00:24:01]
We had in what they call now 26 of July, it was called Fouad Street, for the King, and there were shops, I can't tell you, not anymore, Cicurel [Department Store] and all this. You, you were in Europe, you feel that you were in Europe. And guess what? My left cousins over there in Lebanon, when somebody would get married, believe it or not, they would come to Egypt to buy whatever they needed. Because they didn't have what Egypt had, then, my time. I remember it, [laughs] not my parents, I remember my time, I remember my time, yeah. So we were lucky to walk around, go to movies. Uh, the [Nile] Hilton was built, I think, in 1961. There was a huge garden in front of the building, and we would get probably sometimes our dinner and cross the street and sit in this beautiful garden in front of the Hilton. And lights and water, we had uh, oh my God, it was so beautiful.
10
[00:25:02]
And so safe at the same time. I don't think, I mean, it was a burden like me, this morning, [laughs] having to cross uh the the the Talaat Harb Street, it took me time, the Tahrir Street, and wait for cars to let me. No, I don't think. There was metros, ma- things, and there were stops, [laughs] you know, people would stop for you. So, yeah, it was fun, where I lived was fun. People that lived in Heliopolis had a different life, but mine is downtown. I always lived downtown, and still are, still are.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
And you mentioned uh relatives from Lebanon coming to Egypt. Do your family, including yourself, did you make any trips to Lebanon while growing up?
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
Oh, definitely, sure. uh probably in the years of '67, '73, when there was a war here, it was really hard. There was so little. I wonder, people now living, if they go to a grocery store and find only white cheese and Gibna Roumi [Roumi Cheese].
[00:26:07]
And so I used to go to Lebanon, don't want to disappoint you, but the trip was 18 pounds, uh the plane, and would go and get some apples, and get things on [unintelligible], taban [of course] uh nobody would tell you "What are you getting?" And all my family would fill up the food we need, and so on, and come back. Not that we didn't have food, but we had food, but, you know, apples we're getting apples from Lebanon, we're getting, you know, the Spam, they had big Spam things and so on. Yes, I used to go in Lebanon. And it was paid back, when they had the war in Lebanon, everybody, like six, seven families of my cousins, they all came to Egypt and lived with us for six and seven and eight [months] and a year or two and so on, during the war in Lebanon. So, yeah, exchange. I still go to Lebanon. But what's funny is, in Egypt, I'm Lebanese, and when I go to Lebanon, I'm Egyptian, so I really don't know what I am. [laughs]
[00:27:06]
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
Well, did you uh did your parents have Egyptian citizenship? And what about yourself?
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
Okay, uh yes, in the year 1935, I guess, if this is exactly the year, I don't remember, the King then said, because there were so many Lebanese and so on, the King then uh said, if anyone wants the Egyptian nationality, go ahead and take it. So my grandfather from my mother's side, who then they had industries with his brothers and so on, they all took the Egyptian passport. My grandfather, a very good Lebanese from Achrafieh, a very Greek Orthodox, stubborn, he said, "No, I was born Lebanese, I will die Lebanese." So I was born Lebanese. I kept the Lebanese passport. My mothe-, my mother had the Egyptian passport. 11
[00:27:51]
Which helped later on, my brothers, uh because there was a law, I think, by Jehan El-Sadat, who said any Egyptian woman married to a non-Egyptian and who is a widow and divorcee, can give the Egyptian passport to her so-, to her s-, you know, her children. I got it from my husband, and my sister got it from her husband, but my brothers got it from my mother, yeah. So, yeah, stubborn Greek Orthodox would not change the Lebanese. [laughs]
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
And your relatives in Lebanon, where did they live?
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
Uh, my relatives also changed where they lived. Some lived Downtown, some lived in Hamra, which is no more the place to live. Most of them, if not all, live in the mountains now, Beit Mery, and so on. There's only one member who lives in Achrafieh, where uh the rest, like my family, owns a house, not ours, the whole family in Achrafieh [Ashrafiya] where we originated from. But everybody is in the mountains, up in the mountains, since the war.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
And seeing the family business was automotive, did your family own a car?
[00:29:01]
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
Uh then, yes, yes, yes. It changed after automotive, we became electrical appliances, house appliances later on, because of the cousin who started, so. Yes, my father owned a car. Which was not very difficult to own, because you could have a car, but not the fancy three, four cars in the families now. Uh, but after my father died, we didn't have a car, we didn't have a car until we grew up at the age of getting a car, because my mother wouldn't drive. And she used to cross the street. I mean, our shop was like three minutes from where we lived, and that was very convenient. And that's why my father then picked up this apartment when he left Daher, to just cross the street and go uh to the shop, and go to the shop, yeah.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
And you had mentioned a reason behind you coming to AUC for university was that there was a quota system, uh at Cairo University—?
[00:30:01]
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
Yes.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
Um, could you tell me a bit about, a bit more about coming to AUC, and a bit about what your family knew of, what you knew of the university as you arrived?
12
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
To tell you the truth, I didn't know much, because maybe the first one of my family cousins and siblings, because the thr the close cousins left in the year '63- '64 went back to Lebanon. So the only cousins that were left, I was the first to come to AUC. Believe it or not, the AUC was— the really big thing about AUC, that it was seven minutes from home. So then it wasn't a big thing. It was 50 pounds, that was a big thing. But then my mother could afford then the 50 pounds, because it was the time when it was not much in '67, and not much work, but the 50 pound—.
[00:30:53]
But at the same time, I don't know about it, now, I don't know what's happening at AUC now, then we had something called the presidential scholarship. With a presidential scholarship, uh I used to get a scholarship, I used to get, I don't remember if it was 12 or 15 pounds, and that was more than a salary of a big person employee. I used to get the books also, so moneywise, it was not a problem. And then once at AUC, I met like a number of people, "Oh my God, this is from this family and that family." And we were so few, [chuckles] that we almost all knew each other. We almost all knew each other. So it was not picked up as AUC, to tell you the truth, it was picked up because it was convenient, near the house. That's all, yeah. That's all. [laughs]
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
And, and can you just tell me your undergraduate years? What year did you enter and what year did you graduate?
[00:31:47]
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
Okay, I as- I joined AUC in 1967. It was a very difficult year for all the people who had the Thanaweya Amma in '67 because the war was uh June 5th, 1967, and I rem- if, I don't remember, if our first exam was supposed to be June 8 or June 9, so I imagine after studying and your exam in two days and they tell you, "Stop, there is a war." So you don't study anymore, and you don't know when you're going to have your exams. Anyway, we passed, and we came here in '67. But the whole ide-, the university is uh was interesting because everybody was talking about the war. We used to have like plays, we has to have people to get to gather money for their game. And please, I I don't remember exactly, but I guess Caritas [Catholic relief organization], as Caritas was may, was initiated by the wife of the um, of the Spanish Ambassador. I don't know if it was in '67 or '68, and now Caritas is a big thing all over the world. And it's a it's an NGO [Non Governmental Organization] that helps people, and now, like drug addict, people and so on.
[00:33:04]
It star-, it was started for the war, to help and get money for families that lost their, a members of their families in the war. So it was interesting, and we got, and we had so many things to do in this university from '67, and I graduated in 1972. 13
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
And so just jumping before you enrolled at AUC, what was the uh, your experience of that '67 War like, besides the disruption of your exams?
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
We were stuck at home, this is for one. I mean uh, not a member of my family was affected, I should say, not even cousins and so on. Nobody was affected, I should say. And we were down in Cairo, we are not like Port Said or uh Ismailia, where people were really affected. We were not affected The only affected part is like you have to go home to be home at 6:00, you have to close uh, you have to have blue uh paint on your windows. This was really the thing. Not much to find in groceries. But to tell you the truth, I didn't feel much the war like others did, and lost members of their families, yeah.
[00:34:17]
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
And uh also, during uh your childhood uh, teenage years, do you have any memories of talking about politics with your family or any major events that, you know, worldwide or national events that come to mind?
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
Not in my case. Because don't forget, we didn't have a man at home. So men were usually the — now everybody speaks politics, I mean, even vendors in the street speak pol-. no, it was not the case. And my mother uh, so, I mean, it was too much for her to even think about politics. And politics was, what was politics? We had either [President] Abdel Nasser or Abdel Nasser, we didn't have much to uh to talk about. So not really politics.
[00:35:03]
It was not part of the game, we didn't talk politics. The only politics we talked about when nationalization came in, that's all. That was the major thing that happened in our family, nationalization, that's all.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
And so did the uh fall 1967 semester start late? When you entered?
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
No, no, it started okay. It's the exam that were late, then we started, I think on time. And everything went okay, and everything was going on and the Talent Show, and Miss AUC. And everything was going on the same. Uh, but we had more, I remember something uh, raising up money for for the war and so on, this was a big thing. But I don't recall specifically what we used to do. I remember raising up money, I remember the Caritas part, I don't know if it was '67 or '68. Uh I remember everybody talking about raising money. They used to even take like one pound from every salary for, you know, something like this, one pound or two pounds, something that was big enough then.
14
[00:36:12]
And uh, but talking about— because we didn't talk much about it at home, I don't think I was so much uh into politics then. Yeah, I was not into politics, yeah.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
And during these undergraduate years, did you notice other students, besides the charity work uh, were other students, engaged politics or talking about uh the national situation?
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
Don't forget that AUC uh was very, very strict about politics and relation. At the time, I I don't know about now, but I know that when I came to this place, it was very clear that no politics and no religion was to be spoken inside the university. And we had something called social probation then, I don't know if still on or not, the social probation, even if you swear at somebody, you were a social probation. It was no joke. It was really no joke to swear at the university.
[00:37:08]
So I don't think that uh, talking um politics — religion apart we never talked religion — but politics was not so openly uh spoken at the university, other than raising up money for the uh for the war and so on. But openly and having discussions, and people sitting around and talking about it, I don't remember this. Or maybe I was not part of it, I don't know. But I don't think it was accepted then. It was not accepted then.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
And as a student, were you aware of AUC being under sequestration from the Egyptian government? And if so, did that affect life at AUC at all for the students?
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
No, I um, at that time, we didn't look at this, no, no, no, to tell you the truth, I know I didn't know about that. I mean, not that I didn't know it didn't uh, it didn't worry us. We were studying [laughs] and that's it, we were studying and that's it, yeah.
[00:38:07]
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
Uh so can you describe the AUC campus in your undergraduate years?
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
Oh, lovely! To start with, we're not so many as they are now. I mean, we were few. Uh sports was the name of the game. And the Greek Campus for us was — the library was the Hill House, that was our library. The Hill House was our library. Uh it was lovely, because we used to study. And people were quiet, we didn't need to tell them to be quiet. I remember that I 15
never went home to study, I always studied here, we were already four at home, and not much space, so I used to study here. Uh, that was the Hill House.
[00:38:47]
The Greek Campus, I don't remember much, very. It was mainly the art students that were in the Greek Campus. Not many of the science, because most of the science classes were either in the Science Building itself where the labs were, or the classrooms on the Main, you know, the ones 109, 108, whatever, it was down there. I don't remember going much to the uh Greek Campus, not really other than for playing tennis. Because now where where the library, our new library is, it was tennis courts, two courts. And it was lovely, because I could come early in the morning, play tennis before going uh to classes. And then I played basketball, and this is was the, you know—. And we had uh some girls, somebody, there was a group folkloric group called Reda Group. And that was an important, very, very important folkloric group. And two people would come and train the students to to dance. It was not a shame, it was very good to do it. We had plays.
[00:39:52]
And then, this is something that uh I'm sure it's impossible to do now, we we had the assembly hour. We were, I don't want to say forced, but we had to attend the assembly hour. And they would take attendance. And if you missed few classes, you had social probation. And on that hour, or two hours we spent at Ewart Hall, whatever they have on the stage, you would sit to watch. Whether it's cartoons, whether it's poems, whether it's theater. So it was something else, something else. Plus, I, in 1973, what, what's what I can remember more and more, um the Opera House, the Egyptian Opera House was burned down. And most, not all, most of the things that were supposed to be played on the Opera House were played in the Ewart Hall. So that was beautiful, because as students we had like very, I don't remember how much we paid, or even if we—. So we attended so many things, that we wouldn't have been able to attend, not for money only. But to go to the opera and so on. But this you go out of your lab, or whatever you're doing, and you get into the Ewart Hall, and attend the best of the best in Ew-, Ewart Hall. So that was good, uh my time.
[00:41:14]
The university was big enough for us, we didn't have a problem. When you almost all, each other, uh like when I graduated we were only six. Uh the only thing we did, like when I, if you're talking about ta-, we we wanted— When I graduated as Chemistry-Physics, there was not one major. We fought for one major, and we fought to have Engineering in our university. We fought for it, I didn't do it, the people after me had it, so this is when we started the Material Engineering, I guess in '73, or '72 or '73. This is when we started the Material Engineering and then other things started over, and so on. My brother was lucky enough to graduate as Mathematics, minor Computer and so on. But I was Chemistry-Physics then.
16
[00:42:09]
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
So you mentioned the student body being smaller than in later years. Can you say something about the background of students at AUC? What kind of socioeconomic or religious backgrounds, or ethnic backgrounds they came from?
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
Everybody. You, you would meet everybody. It was like when you go to CAC [Cairo American College], where international every mo—-. So every family, that's the expatriates in this country who want instead of sending their children outside AU-, Egypt, everybody was here. You could meet any kind of background. We never talked religion. I can't tell you what the religion was, we never talked religion in this place. I, I don't remember a bit of someone talking religion in this university. But I know that there were Russians, there were Italian, there were Greeks, there were just, you name it, you have them here. You name it, you have them here.
[00:43:03]
Rich? Yes, there were rich people. But not, even then, they never showed it up. It's not like nuns or, but we didn't, never — we knew they were rich, we knew they had the means, but they never um, we never talked about it as being something special, "Oh my God! This guy is rich!" Or "This person is rich." We used to dress up like normal people, everybody, and uh games were there, uh plays were there. Yeah, we we had all kinds of backgrounds. Yeah.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
Were there international students like study abroad, students or students coming to study Arabic language?
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
I don't know if the Arabic language then was a big thing. I think it's, it was a bit later than that. Because the Arabic language, I don't think it started that early on to become such an important language, maybe in the late '80s or something. But I don't remember this Arabic uh—.
[00:44:01]
But uh, by the way uh, most of the Americans who ah, were teaching here or foreigners, the students themselves — this I remember very well because my late husband was one of them— and they taught them. The students taught the faculty and so on Arabic. And uh, and they married, by the way. Many married, because of those cla-, Arabic classes and so on. So they, but it was probably colloquial Arabic, not really the Arabic for for — you know, how to live in this country and so on. This was known, that you go, "I'll [?] teach Arabic. Yes, we can go and teach some Arabic to the faculty and foreigners" who were here. Yeah.
17
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
And do you remember any study abroad students?
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
Not really, no, I don't remember this. I don't remember.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
You mentioned uh some of the activities uh sports, can you told me about the place of sports, athletics at AUC?
[00:45:03]
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
Um, it was mainly, uh we had here the um, the basketball that was on the Main Campus. It was for basketball, volleyball and handball. The three were played on the same, because we didn't have much ground. And then one side, we have the tennis. And then I remember the Old Falaki, the Falaki [Building] there, Falaki what we call Falaki, then it was the hostel for boys. And the hostel, they had a huge ground for soccer, so they used to train the soccer there. And I guess, if I'm not mistaken, we had something, I don't know if swimming, but it was in the Nile. And they had rowing also, uh in the Nile. That was the outside the AUC. But inside AUC was basketball, handball, volleyball, tennis, and soccer were played on the grounds of AUC here, yeah.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
And were you on any of the teams?
[00:46:01]
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
I played basketball for some time, for some time. Tennis I was, I was just playing tennis for myself. But basketball, I had the plus because I'm left-handed, they loved it, because you can throw balls [laughs] when they know, not expected it. But I didn't go much into it, because of the studies, you know. I loved it, but uh you either want to be to keep your uh presidential scholarship [laughs] or you lose it. But yeah, I played ten-, basketball. I played basketball.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
And who did what other university teams or other teams that AUC play in those years?
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
At my time, I remembered it was mainly AUB, the American University in Beirut. That was the main thing. And little by little, later on with time, I think national universities like Cairo and so on, we started. Don't forget that AUC was not recognized by the Egyptian Ministry of Education until 1976. All the AUC graduates were not uh accepted to study, even in, you get higher degrees in Egyptian [unintelligible]. 18
[00:47:04]
It was in 1976, and if — I remember this perfectly well, because then I, it was my graduation for my Solid State Physics Master's degree. And uh they needed somebody, you know [laughs], to start on, and Farkhonda Hassan was the Chairman of the Science Building [Department] then. And she called up people from Alexandria University, Assuit University, Cairo University to sit down, and, for my thesis. And it was hell I want to tell you, everybody was asking questions. But guess what? Uh, they came up with something, they were wondering, "Is this a PhD? Or this is Master's degree?" And that was a plus for the university, not that because of me, you know, because we did it really very seriously in here. And in 1976 it was accepted. And I was, I wanted to go and get my PhD from Cairo University, because I was, it took time, no it was not that easy. But at least it was recognized by the Ministry of Education.
[00:48:11]
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
And besides athletics, you mentioned the Talent Show. Can you tell me what that was all about?
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
Oh, the Talent Show was the best part. I mean, forget about then, but even now, many of the singers that are on the uh, that are singing, some of them like Hisham Abbas was my student, Mahmoud El-Esseily, Aida El-Ayoubi. Uh this Mo- [?], the guy who the famous uh singer with Yousra, the latest, there was an AUCian. Many, many, many came out of AUC. Not because of AUC, because we had the facility to do that. The Talent Show was a big thing, you know, everybody was either singing or dancing or— .And it was the big prize, and everybody was sitting and—. And they had rehearsal, very easily, you could take even permissions for your uh, for your rehearsal.
[00:49:00]
So the Talent Show was very, very important, because really, many talented people came out of this Talent Show, from uh-. Don't forget, they spoke good English or French, that was not found in different universities, so this helped them a lot, this helped them a lot.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
And what about theater at AUC? Tell me about the place of that, dramatic performances?
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
I guess it was mainly the Ewart Hall. We had a small, I don't know what happened to it, a small theater that we used to attend on the Main Campus, going up the two stairs in front of the Science Building, I don't remember what what was.
19
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
The Howard Theater?
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
Was it called the Howard? I don't remember. It was a small, not bigger than this room. And this, we used to attend many small uh plays down there. Yeah. And you could go through it to the Ewart Hall, there was like [laughs] a passage to the uh Ewart Hall, that was too. But I don't remember uh, Wallace [Theater], taban, [New] Falaki [Building and mainstage theater] was not still here. So, yeah, like the Ewart Hall was the main part of uh our activities, mainly in Ewart Hall.
[00:50:13]
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
Are there any other student activities that you recall, maybe something like the Caravan student newspaper?
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
Sure. Sure, the Caravan was very, very important. And I was not part of it, taban it was mainly art students that were in the Caravan. And the Caravan was very important to us, because this is where we used to get all our news. And when you talked about discussing politics, uh no, I mean, we get to know things through the Caravan. We were not very much into— the Caravan. And they, any problems you had, you go to the Caravan. I don't recall going to higher, you know, talking to the to the Provost or talking to, never! We go to the Caravan when we have a problem, [laughs] you know, and they discuss it with them.
[00:51:00]
So the Caravan was very im- —. And we had the Student, not my time, I guess, after that, we had the Student Union, not my time, after that, we had the Student Union. And guess what? They had a celebration, this I remember very well because I just found all the uh certificates I got for, they would choose the best teacher of the year. So the students had a say, them, other than university. And they will have a celebration at the Ewart Hall, and you get a certificate, this is the best teacher of physics, this is the best teacher of so on and so on. And it was a big celebration done by the Student Union, then, when I was teaching. At the time, I was teaching, which is, I taught physics from 1972 to 1992, I taught physics.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
Are there any other student organizations or groups that come to mind? Maybe it, was there a Science Club or anything like that?
[00:51:58]
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
We had not really a science club, we had our own club. Uh Dr. [Salah] Arafa is really the head of anything that is done in the Science Building. He was like, oh my God, doing 20
everything. To start with, he started the Basaisa [project], so which is one of the villages where he had uh, the first uh solar cell. And he used to bring them down with th-, as they are, and we make uh fuul and fiteer and dancing and so on. And sometimes during the Assembly Hour when, little by little, we used to attend, I think only once and not twice, we used to sit in the Science Building in front of the Chairman, and have our own activities as science students. You know, get, bring food, cook food uh, sing uh, dance all together. And then we had on Fridays, this something I remember, also the science on its own, I don't know about the others, we used to go as groups to the pyramids then. Then, then, then long time ago, they had small bungalows sometime, somewhere in the desert.
[00:53:03]
And some of, I don't know if it was the faculty on, or one of the students who had a bungalow. And we used to go and dance, and sing, and eat, and spend the whole day together. This is something that I remember very, very well as a science uh group, yes, we did have this, we did have this, yeah.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
Did you and other students uh go up with Dr. Arafa to Basaisa, to work at the village there?
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
No, no, I didn't go with him. They used to bring her. But I remember I um, with Dr. Fadel, the late Dr. Fadel Assabghy, one of my projects was the first uh cell solar cell done in the lab. I did it with one of my colleagues, uh Hassan El Zayat, it was I remember very well, he put us aside, and we built our first solar cell in the lab. I don't remember, was it '71, '70, something like this, yeah, and many solar cell.
[00:54:03]
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
Can you tell me about other kinds of social activities among students at AUC while you were an undergraduate?
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
See, I'm I'm not a very good source of this, I guess, because uh they used to tell us, "You science people, you go and sit in your labs for hours." Which is true, which is true. I wasn't much into this. In the science, if you want to call it club, it was club, playing some tennis and so on. I tried to join the dancing, the Folklore once and twice and you know, "No no no it's so much time, I need to study!" [laughs] And uh no, I'm not, I guess a good source to help you with this. [laughs]
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
Can you tell me about the Miss AUC contests at AUC?
21
[00:54:45]
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
Oh my God, that was the prime, big thing that happens, and you would have everybody, clans here and there. And if you fall on someone who is rich, you would get cups, you would get you know, medals with her name. And, and the gowns, and the music, and it was lovely, it was lovely. It was really, really, really nice. I don't know, when did they stop it. I don't remember, I don't remember. But my time, the four years as an undergraduate or five, if you want to call it, this was the peak of the, a big event of the year. Both, the Miss AUC and the Talent Show. The Talent Show was around December, I guess, and the Miss AUC was in spring, I guess, it was in spring the Miss AUC, yeah. The two big events were there. And taban, when the AUB guys and girls would come to play here, that was the big event for us also, [laughs] yeah.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
And can you tell me about relations between male and female students? Uh, was there dating? Were there couples? Do people get married? You already mentioned about the uh faculty and some students meeting?
[00:55:55]
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
[Crosstalk] Yes, yes yes, many, many of our colleagues married, yes, yes. We had dating, and uh friends. And many of the people here married after university. Uh very few couldn't, because — this is only when we heard about the difference in religion — when some of uh without mentioning names, he wanted to marry a girl who was Muslim and his parents and her parents didn't want. That was the first time, I guess. I remember we talked about religion, and he couldn't marry because of the difference. But other than that, yes, there were marriages, there were friends, there were—. But you know, things were in the open, so there's nothing like to be ashamed of. Everybody knew about like Magda and this one, this one and that one, and that's it, you know, openly, openly. And we used to study together. And we had friends, like we had friends, friends without being, you know uh, boyfriends. They're friends, and you sit and study with people. That was very important. Friendship kept on, uh for years, for years we had friends, yeah, we had friends.
[00:57:06]
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
Did you get the sense that parents of AUC students didn't want relationships to form, they wanted uh, maybe uh, to have their children pair up with mates that the parents introduced them to?
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
Not that I know of. The only case I told you about was this case of a very good, uh of this guy. That was only. But the others, I don't remember parents interfering. Because we never did something that, you know, needed parents guiding or help and so on. And if it was 22
the marriages, arranged marriages, then it was done. And nobody talked about it. I mean, if you were to marry your cousins. Because here in Egypt — not in Lebanon, we're not allowed to marry first cousins, we're not allowed at all, church doesn't allow us to marry. But here it's accepted, so um, inter-, like cousins and marriages, this was arranged before even they get to AUC. And they knew about it, so, we don't talk about it. But many of my students, this I remember perfectly well, and how many times did I say to, you know, with problems and so on, yeah, but It was openly. Everybody knew about it. Everybody knew about it, yeah.
[00:58:19]
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
And you mentioned the uh boys dormitory, uh ca- can you tell me about uh students who were residential students at AUC, in the girls hostel or the boys hostel?
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
Sure. I don't know much about it because I was living down here, but I knew about the girls who are in Zamalek, poor girls, they threw the girls in Zamalek and they had to come all the way from Zamalek. The boys were here. I guess many of them were the ones either, I don't want to call them expatriates, but mainly the people that live outside Cairo. So it was convenient for them to live at the hostel instead of, you know, commute, which is impossible even to commute.
[00:58:58]
But I don't remember much, because I don't think, not that we were not allowed, but we never went there, we never went there. And even soccer was not played by girls then, it was not something that was even imagined by us to play soccer by girls. So it, this part of it, but uh the um hostel for the girls, I went a couple of times. It was very nice and quiet. Not many, by the way, not many girls, not many girls. And then came the hostel of uh Zamalek, that's a different one, and I think in 1990 maybe or something, yeah, don't know what happened to it now. [laughs]
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
So you've mentioned this a bit, but can you tell me about your academic studies at AUC, what program you pursued as an undergraduate?
[00:59:50]
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
As an undergraduate? I was a Chemistry-Physics uh student, so it was mainly Chemistry and Physics. And then don't forget, AUC we have to take 10 courses uh, 30 credits of non-science, so I took uh—. Arabic was one of the courses we used to, we have to take. History. I think I took Psychology, I don't remember, you know, we—, I took those 10 courses outside the science. But it was mainly science. And then I pursued my Master's degree in Solid State Physics. And everybody had to take Solid State Physics, because we had a program paid by I think it was an AID [United States Agency for International Development] program where 23
we used, we we had to get so many uh thesis. So the only thing we had was Solid State Physics. And then years years later, in 1994, I took Teaching English as a Foreign Language.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
Can you tell me about some of the faculty that you studied with in the, in your science programs?
[01:00:47]
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
Oh, yes, I, umm I had Dr. Omar, and Dr. Hosny Omar I think he's still around. Dr. Arafa, Dr. Assabgy. Uh uh Dr. [Pakinam] Askalani. Uh Dr. [Sheila] Mawaziny. Jehane Ragai taught me. Her sister, Aziza [Ellozy] also was uh teaching me. Uh there was a lady called Essaid [Akila Said], I don't remember her full name. Essaid [Said] to teach me Chemistry, wonderful teacher. I had Dr. [Sami Kirolos] Tobia for Ch,- for Chemistry, excellent teacher. Uh I had Dr. [Wahby] Wadia also. Uh, it was mainly, we were not too many. But those are the same that we took classes with, Chemistry and Physics.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
Can you give me a little sketch of any of them, any of them who are especially distinctive in your mind?
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
Oh, Dr. Arafa spec-, I mean, he was the name of the game around everybody. Dr um, Dr. Adli Bishay who was the Chairman of, he was like a great man, I should say, he was a great man who did a lot to this university.
[01:01:58]
Dr. Assabgy uh, very friendly because we spoke French and that was "ho, ho, ho, we speak French and others don't," you know. Very nice guy, he was really a very nice guy. Dr. Omar, Dr. Hosny Omar, I then worked with him later when I taught, I was mainly with him, and then he gave me the course. Dr. Tobia used to come from a-,. Those where the full-timers at AUC. But the ones from outside the university were Dr. Tobia, Dr. Wadia, they used to come into — but the regular, they were outsiders [laughs] by regular here, but regular here. Most of them were fantastic people, we never had a problem with their giving—. We used to have office hours then, I don't know if it's going on up to now. Because office hours were very important to us. We never had a problem, because all you had to do is knock at the door, "I don't understand this. I don't—." He would sit for whatever the hours were there, three hours and so on. Part of his job is to teach us. So I don't remember, I don't know how people take private lessons now, I mean, we never, we had a free private lesson [laughs] all the time. So, yeah, maybe because we had few, and the faculty, the full- time faculty.
24
[01:03:12]
English, I don't remember. I had who, I took one course of English. Uh I passed the English exam, but I think the the composition, uh they told me "You think in French. You write English, but you think in French." So I took a whole year, a whole semester of writing. I don't remember who it was, writing, that's the only thing I remembered from. Because we didn't have to take English courses, like now it's part, no, I don't remember, it was mainly this course I took, yeah.
[01:03:44]
And the Chemistry labs were fun, we used to have — I had a problem in my life in, at AUC, and it was a big problem for AUC. In May 1971, I was almost graduating year, my final exam, my uh the lab was uh like a big table, one in front of the other. And my colleague in front of me miss-put one of the uh acids, and it all uh burst into my face, yeah. And it was a big, big, big, big, big thing. I was a third degree burn and uh, I didn't know it was a big thing then because, you know, Egyptians don't know about suing, but the Americans know. So it was a big fuss, and everybody came to visit, and the Embassy came, and everybody thought that I would sue them and so on. And I stayed at home from May till October, I was a third degree burn, Allhamdullah [thank god] it was, it went all right. But then it forced the university to, you know, just have plates in front of the others, wear glasses and so on, it was not, you know, it was not done at my time. And it was, yeah, it was a big thing. And yeah, yeah.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
Well can you tell me about the science facilities at AUC, as an undergraduate?
[01:05:01]
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
Yeah, we, for that for us, it was wonderful. I mean, the lab, well, don't forget the Science Building was new, was very far- fairly new, yeah, you want to hear [unintelligible]
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
[Crosstalk] So but maybe before the Science Building?
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
Yeah yeah, I mean, I remember, I guess the first year, probably the first year or the first semester, the labs were on the Main Campus, the Main Building, an old, old old lab, it was in there. I don't remember where the President's office was, or the other part. The chemistry labs were there. I remember I took a chemistry lab there. And then we moved into the new the new Science Building. So for us, everything was new, every at every part of it was new. So we didn't have a problem, and I guess part of the problems I had in the science, in the chemistry lab, was because it was not yet built up correctly. It was, it took them two years or three years, and when the problems came up, they discovered that this part was not made. But we never had a problem I don't remember anything we needed was missing. Everything was there. 25
[01:06:08]
Everything was, for us, you know, for us, it was all there, and in our schools, maybe we were lucky because our schools, the Egyptian the the national schools didn't have labs, we did have labs in our schools, so we saw these things before. The ones maybe that never saw labs, this was, "Oh my God, what is this?" But we saw labs in our univ-, in our schools. That why, we were lucky for that. We were lucky to have labs in our schools.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
Was there also a computer in the Science Building at this time?
[01:06:40]
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
The computer? I don't remember if it was my last year of graduation or my Master's, I don't remember which year. It was on the sixth floor of the Science Building, and each, I don't know how many rooms, three or four rooms, one in front of the other like opened all together to have this big computer. And we we used to punch papers, like every word was big, [laughs] so to write one sentence means 20 things and you get in, and it was freezing because they had to cool down those computers. So I don't remember if it was my last year graduating or my first year in the Master's degree. It was like the sixth floor was mainly this computer, big, big computer sets up there, yeah, I remember those old computers.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
And as the Science Building was was new, can you tell me about efforts to move into the place or get it ready? Did you or tell me about how you and perhaps students and you and the faculty perhaps engaged in that?
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
I don't think we had a hand in it. It was ready for us, ah when we started the year it was ready. "This is where you're going to study," at the, no, I don't remember, I did something. Uh, what the faculty, probably maybe the faculty worked more in it. I personally didn't, I personally didn't.
[01:08:07]
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
Could you give me a general description of the building, impression of what it was like physically?
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
Yeah, ok. The building was new for us. Later on it might be. The the ground floor was mainly for big machines, where we couldn't get them up there.The first floor were the Physics Department. The second floor was the Chemistry Department. The third floor was also Chemistry, and advanced Physics. The fourth floor, too, and along with the labs, so the labs were on one side of the corridor, and the other side was the the faculty rooms and the 26
assistants' rooms, and, you know, so it was divided into, on one side were the labs and on the other side were all the faculty rooms. And the first floor were the Chairman and uh, all the assistants and so on.
[01:08:59]
So that I worked for 20 years in this first floor, uh where I had the freshman. I taught the freshman lab for 20 years. At the end I was responsible of all the freshman, uh labs, because there were many freshman labs at my time. I introduced the uh freshman lab as a summer course. And that was like, "What are you talking about?" And it was good, because it helped a lot of non science students. Because they were forced to take a lab, not forced, they had to take a lab. So it was good for them to take it during the summertime and get it over with. [chuckles] So we did offer uh, labs during the summer. And we even sometimes, when at the very last time, we introduced longer hours. Like from, we started usually we had it from 12:00 to 3:00 and 3:00 to 6:00. And then I introduced 9:00 to 12:00. And I introduced 6:00 to 12:00 for once only. But most of the labs were taught from 9:00 till 6:00 in the evening, whether the freshmen lab or other labs, or other labs.
[01:10:16]
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
And so can you tell me how you came to work for AUC then, teaching that freshman lab?
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
See, when you're a fellow, when you get the fellowship, you usually have to teach part, instead of paying money. The fellow, you don't pay money, you get the scholarship, and part of your scholarship is to teach uh like in, and in English they teach English, in Chemistry they—. And I taught the physics lab as a Fellow to start with, not really teaching, a Fellow.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
And so this was in connection with your graduate, your Master's study?
[01:10:49]
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
Yes, that was part of my Master's degree. What's funny, maybe I don't know if it's relevant to this, our discussion, when I got my degree, I I applied to AUB. I wanted to get my Master's degree from AUB. And I got a scho-, a fellowship and everything, you know, by letters and so on, so I went to Lebanon. And it was in 1972, "Oh, lucky me," and going to Lebanon, and I have the family over there. And I go to the registrar with my letter, and uh ready to start. And then they open the papers and the credentials and thing, and she said "You're Lebanese?" I said, "Yes, I am Lebanese." "So where is your Lebanese Baccalaureate?" I said, "What are you talking about? I'm coming with a a sci- you know, I have a degree, why do you want me to go back 5 years?" She said "Because you're Lebanese, so you either have a GRE [?] and this and that. And she gave me a list of of uh things to do, and it took me like, 27
three days to go back to AUC, where I was offered uh to study. So I came back to AUC instead of going to uh, I mean, not instead, I didn't have a choice. [laughs]
[01:12:04]
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
Then can you tell me a bit more about your graduate program there at the AUC, the Master's in Solid State Physics?
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
Yeah, Solid State Physics, Solid State Physics, I had Dr. uh Adli Bishay was uh, really the head of the, everybody had to go through Dr. Adli Bisahy. It was very, very difficult. I used to work with sand and glass, and it was the time where where you talk about fiberglass is like, "What? What are you talking about? Fiberglass?" And we worked uh with fiberglass and many, many things. We did experiments with fiberglass. And the sand, see, the sand in Sinai is a very special sand. Uh people my age would remember in the time from '67 up till seventy-something, nine ['79], when we got back Sinai, all the bottles — we never had white bottles. It was all green, because the sand we used to get from Sinai whenever, we were never able to get it.
[01:13:05]
And this is where we studied glass. So my work in Solid State Physics was mainly glass. So, what was in it, and the construction. So it was party chemistry and partly physics, it was both chemistry and physics. And so many experiments, and nights and nights. And not only this, we didn't have computers then. So when you used to type your thesis, if there were one mistake or two, you had to repeat the whole page back again, so I don't want to tell [laughs] you the ordeal to finish typing, or doing your own thesis. At the end, it took, I can't tell you how much it took me to do. We even had an undergraduate thesis, by the way, things that even Cairo University didn't have When I, my undergraduate studies, I used to have a thesis also for the undergraduate. We used to have a thesis for undergraduate.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
And then what was your undergraduate thesis?
[01:13:59]
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
Ah that, that was the m-, I started off with glass, and with colors. See, when you go to the old pharaonic places, the colors are still there as they are, the blue is blue and not—. And I worked on the colors then. And I remember this perfectly well, because I went somewhere in one of the industries, it's called El Casa Fusimi [?], where they have mugs and plates and so on, it was somewhere in Shubha. And we used to go and find out how did they color all this? And it came from the sand. So the pharaonics, the old people, we used to get their colors from their own land, from the sand. So I worked on this, on the coloring then.
28
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
And then your graduate thesis, what was that research?
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
It was about uh fiberglass. Fiberglass yeah, fiberglass. Then it was going to be used instead of electric, then, it was the big thing uh in 1976, '76'yeah.
[01:15:06]
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
And so after receiving your Master's degree at AUC in '76, did you work for AUC full time at that point?
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
No, there was no full time, I was a part-timer. I was a part-timer, they didn't offer many full-timers, then. It was mainly the few full-timers, then. I was a part-timer, and I taught for four years at the school, at the Mère de Dieu School teaching chemistry, physics and biology in the morning, and then came to teach physics labs. It was like twice a week, if I remember, and that was not more than that. I worked for till 1992 in, I guess it was '89 or something like this, I met a lady and she told me "My daughter loves your teaching, come and teach with us English." And I said, "What are you talking about? Me teaching English?" And then she called me back again, again, and she insisted, so I attended one of their training courses.
[01:16:06]
And it seems I did well. Hey, after you teach 20 years, there's no big deal to teach [laughs] whether it's English. So they offered me to take a course with the Cambridge University. It's called RSA [Royal Society of Arts]. I took the RSA, and then we had an American guy, Tom Cassidy was working, he harassed me to take, he really harassed me, this guy, to take the Master's degree in Teaching English as a Foreign Language. And they paid for one course, so I took it course by course, while they took me at, then, I don't remember if it was being DPS [Division of Public Service] or CACE [Center for Adult and Continuing Education], and in 1992, I decide, it's enough, I couldn't take here 20 hours and here 12, it was too much for me. So I went back to, actually to English. And when I finished my Master's degree, I got a faculty position with the English Department that I never got with the Science Department. [laughs]
[01:17:11]
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
So in your years teaching the uh labs at AUC, so '72 to '92, as we go through the '70s and into the '80s, uh what are some changes you observed in the AUC student body? Uh, general changes at the university?
29
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
Guess what? One of the reasons I left in 1992, other than, you know, I started with the English, it was the student body that changed a lot. There was less respect with the students. Uh, I was like very friendly with my students, but there was this respect. I was very lucky to speak French, because many of the students that came from French schools, and that was their first encounter at AUC, because this is a freshman lab.
[01:18:00]
And the minute they hear a word of French spoken, they would run to me, you know, because it was difficult to to change from French to English and labs and be present reports and so on. So I was very, very lucky to have this, you know, friendship with my students. But respect was the name of the game. But with years with years, students uh changed a lot. Imagine if I tell you in 1992, I left the physics lab because the students were impolite, I don't know what they are now. To me, that was impolite for someone to go in and start talking and loud voice and not even look at you. I mean, this was too much for me. So this is the change from '72 to '92. But uh, in general, it was it was okay yanni, in general it was okay.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
Did it seem to be a matter of students coming in with different backgrounds, different kinds of education or uh socioeconomic level or anything like that you might attribute it to?
[01:19:04]
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
Everything. Socioeconomic was part of, you know uh, people that are called nouveau riche, this was the name of the game, you know. They had the money to pay, because then it was like, I don't know, nine thousand or ten thous-, so it was a lot of money for people. Yes, socioeconomic was mainly part of it, and AUC started to be the only place to go to. Then it was like if you go to AUC, that was the big thing, so people came in and didn't respect really the value of AUC, they wanted to be part of AUC, but they didn't know to be an AUCian is so a very important, you have to be something else different. Yes, socioeconomic was part, education, yes, schools. I can tell you that schools came down the drain, then you could tell, uh I want to tell you that with years I can I could point out this student is from a German background, that one from a French background and this one is from the English National Schools.
[01:19:58]
It was impossible because they wouldn't know a thing that English was terrible, they've never seen a lab, so everything went wrong for a long time, yes, but mainly socioeconomic, yes, mainly socioeconomic, change the game.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
What about changes in science at AUC in these two decades teaching, uh new programs or new emphases uh coming in, the arrival of new faculty? Can say something about all this? 30
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
Oh, yes. I mean, many things have changed then. By the time I was an undergraduate. Then we had the Biology Department, we started to have the the Engineering Department growing from Material, introducing other things. Even the Biology Department was not known to us. And With the introduction of new, uh new uh uh degrees, more more faculty came.
[01:21:04]
And many, like we had a Chinese guy, we had Americans, we had, we had many people because we were not ready. We wanted to have the best to start with, and then get from from Egypt. The ones, although the Egyptians were wonderful, but they always wanted to start with the best, to start the uh degrees. And yes, and many of my own students still work now at AUC. Uh, many of them uh, one of my first students, I don't want know, I don't know if I can say names or not, but one of my first students, one of the very early students when I taught, is Dr. Deena Boraie. She was, I met her as a student. She was like one of the youngest students I taught thens she was 15 I guess, one of the youngest. And now she's really uh up up the sky, and she's my best friend up till this minute. She's the only and best friend I have, and she was my student. I still have many of my students as my friends. But Deena is special.
[01:22:09]
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
Any other students who went on to big things in the science world?
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
In the science world, I don't know about science world, but I can tell you in 1976, uh when uh when Sadat opened up Egypt, and many companies started to come, uh the ads were very funny. You would open the [Al-] Ahram [newspaper] and so on, "AUC graduate." And that was all they needed, was AUC graduates. So you would find bankers, the best bankers on Earth that are still here or now, or out or this and that. Many industries they started. So the big names uh, are, many of them were my students, I can't remember names, is too much asking remember names, but I know that many of them went into big, big companies, because of their background.
[01:22:57]
And they worked hard, I mean, no, others then in 1976 would uh, would be speaking good English, and have the background of an American, French, English company that could work other than the AUC students, then. And they all I guess, I don't know about science, I I don't remember. I don't remember names, to tell you the truth.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
And the emergence of engineering at AUC, say something about that, how that affected things?
31
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
Uh uh uh, engineers?
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
Right. How engineering programs came onto the scene?
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
Oh, yes. Engineers I taught, because many of the engineers had, most of the engineers, have to take a freshman level. So, yes, most of the engineers and I'm, the funny thing was their projects. It was great to see the projects of those engineers and sent in front of the Science Building, and each one doing things, and we would stop and they would explain it to us. Yes, engineering changed, changed a lot, the university.
[01:23:58]
Especially after uh the the university was recognized. So those engineers not only became engineers, they became engineers in the union [syndicate] of the engineers, the Egyptian engineers, so they would have jobs that before they wouldn't have been able to get, in governmental status. So that was good for the students themselves that became engineers, and we-, were able to get jobs that others wouldn't have been able to get, then. I mean in '76 we didn't have engineers that were, that many. But yes, yes, engineering changed the face of AUC a lot.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
And did the emergence of professional programs like that change the balance, the male-female ratio of students at AUC?
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
I don't know if we had a problem with male-female, not that I know of. I mean, we were like male and female, we didn't have a problem. Maybe my time more female because of, you know, being secluded and closed then, you know, maybe, maybe. Uh and males would could jump on buses and go to Cairo University and so on, maybe. But no, I don't think we had a problem with male-female uh ratio, not that I know of, not that I know of.
[01:25:18]
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
And just a question on the freshman laboratory that you taught, wha- what was the focus of that, of that course?
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
The course was an introduction to Physics. Would take all the uh, the very first, like sonometer, like electro, you know, very, very simple uh experiments that were, if you were in a good school then, you would have seen those. But yeah, and everybody had. And it was good, because it was not an easy lab, it was important. Simple things that you hear about, sonometer, ding dong, ding dong, pendulum, you know. All things you would hear about, even 32
if you're not a scientist, you would see the pendulum, you would see a clock and so on. So it was interesting for many of the people to attend this lab. It was an interesting lab.
[01:26:07]
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
Were there any other major developments or events in the '70s and '80s at AUC that come to mind? It could be something major change on campus, or something from outside that affected AUC?
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
Not from outside. They started building the new library, and that was a big event for us, big, you know. And I don't know, I told you about the 75th uh uh yeah—.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
The anniversary?
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
The anniversary, this part of the, like what you are doing now, everybody was working on it, and each one had had a role. I don't remember my role but I, [laughs] I knew that everybody had a hand in it. And big celebrations, and Ewart Hall was full of people. And they would call people, and at a point in time, because of this celebration, I guess they started initiating those names on the, on the chairs, in the Ewart Hall. And I guess each and every one had a name there, his name and her name.
[01:27:09]
This I remember perfectly well. It was a big thing for us, and we had mugs and uh pens and all the 75th and so on, yeah, yeah.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
Um, and so jumping ou-, way before that uh, you've uh mentioned the impact of the '67 war at AUC. What about the 1973 war, its impact on campus?
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
I don't think it has an impact because uh, the impact of the '67 to '73, this is one thing maybe I didn't mention. Many of the non-AUCians who wanted to get out of the country, their way out was to come and take a graduate course here, and apply to university outside. And applying as a student, you would be accepted and you can get out of the country and not go into military, you know. That was one thing probably in, between '67 and '73.
[01:28:04]
But after '73, I don't see, I I don't remember, to tell you the truth, I don't remember, what was it? I, I don't know, I was studying for my Masters, I don't remember, no, I don't remember, not to help you with, I'm sorry, I can't remember something. 33
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
And do any of the uh leadership at AUC the presidents like Byrd, Pedersen, uh any of the provosts, did you have interactions with them in your teaching years? Provosts?
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
Not really, the only interaction was with the uh with the Registrar, Dr. [Mohamed Abdel Khalek] Allam, taban his son was my student, and his daughter was my friend. But also, uh because most of the uh probation and uh letters and so on came from the Registrar, so his secretary or his assistant, I should say, his secretary, his assistant, would always be with me.
[01:29:05]
Especially for the freshman year, they would have problems with students that, you know, they are afraid won't continue. And they would follow up with me, and probably others, not me, this I remember. She would call me, "What did Ehab do? What did this one do? What do you think he is doing with the—," you know. Because they would have a background of him having bad grades in different other courses, so whether it's a probation or disqualification, you know. So this was mainly the Registrar. Sure, I mean, the Registrar Office and everybody were all friends with everybody, and the uh people working were also few and many friends. And many who were working then were also students. So you would graduate and work at the Registrar, you would graduate and work at the library, you would graduate and so. We were like a big family, working and studying and uh teaching, all the same, all the same.
[01:30:02]
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
And from uh your student years, through the years you were teaching, uh teaching science, how extensive was um academic dishonesty, plagiarism among students?
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
I don't think it was something that we we knew. Don't forget, uh the plagiarism came because of the computer, I guess. Because of you finding things down very easily, Google it and find it. But for us to find it, you go to the library, go through all the cards, from the cards, you go to the name, I was, "Why should I bother? Do it myself, it's much easier," you know, it was much easier. I don't think we had, I heard of a plagiarism, like in maybe in the eight-, the '80s, that was one case of plagiarism, I heard about, in the English Department,, not in the Science [Department]. In the English one lady, and was not uh, was not given her Master's degree because her thesis, they were [unintelligible].
[01:31:01]
But in the '80s computers started to show up. But for us to find articles, oh my god, you don't want to know the, the h- the hours we used to spend in that library to go up and down and go in the corners and so on, I don't think we would bother to- to go and uh — do it yourself is much easier.And uh no, no, cheating was not also something that we used to know, we had one I had one of my colleagues, very cute, I mean, it was funny, not for something, move your 34
hand because I'm left handed, he would see whatever I write, you know, these things, but not, as, you know, done, it's was for the fun of it, you know yeah.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
Were there many changes in the equipments, the ease of getting supplies, things you needed for teaching lab over the years?
[01:31:53]
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
I was not responsible for getting the the material, and plus the freshman lab, how much can you do with the beginning? It was mainly the same thing, you changed the same pendulum is a pendulum, whether, you know, so I was not a responsible faculty members were responsible, I was responsible maybe later on to write the booklets, to write to paper-, you know, to make it easier instead of leaflets have it in a book, these things, but uh mat-, no, I was not responsible for uh material themselves, the material of the lab, no, material, writ-, written material exams and so on, yes, I was responsible for this, yeah.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
From your lab teaching years, do you've any other anecdotes or memories that come to mind? Anything with the Science Building or anything at all?
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
[Laughs] The Science been, Building, because of the long hours we used to spend there. And and uh food, food was the name of the game, you know. And I remember one day, uh somebody, one of the assistants, I tell you, this is something maybe that many people do not know, after I was a fellow, I became responsible solely of the lab, so I had assistants myself.
[01:33:05]
An assistant would get like what, 400 pounds or 300 pounds. He want to tell me that an AUC graduate would come and work as an assistant? No way on earth. So most of the assistants I would get were coming from either Cairo University, and very good, perfect English and so on, but they were not AUCians, you know. So happily and everyone wants to get some, and we had breaks like uh, I if I worked from 12 to 6 sometime, you know, around 2:30 and so on. So one of these days, one of them got fesikh [fermented, salted fish], have you had fesikh in Egypt? Okay. [sniffs] And we went the back, we sat down and we ate fesikh, and then the guy, the kids came, I mean th- the students came at 3:00 o'clock, and one of them, "It's very funny, it smells like fesikh in this lab." You know, and it was funny because it was really fesikh. And we uesd to eat and drink and so on, but at the back. Never never, this is one thing I saw once I was passing by, I don't know how food in inside the lab, we never had this. No, you know, ethically, [chuckles] many things have changed, yeah, yeah. It was food, food, food. [laughs]
35
[01:34:18]
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
So you've mentioned how you uh got interested in going into a a different branch of teaching, teaching English as a foreign language. Can you tell me about that program at AUC? Uh, who you studied with, what that program, its curriculum was like?
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
Um, when I joined, I didn't have in mind to get the Master's degree of teaching English. It was a very important, and you would not believe it. In 1992, as I told you before, the one thing that really bothered me is the attitude of the students, the attitude of the students at AUC was, my God! "I have money, who are you? Come, you are the teacher, come and help me. You have to—." You know, these things.
[01:35:02]
And we all knew that the DPS or CACE or whatever you want to call it then was the poor people that had no money. And, and guess what? When I started teaching there, it was the most motivated students I have ever seen in my whole life. Very dedicated, wonderful students. Simple, no problem, and so on. So that was one thing. And later on, when I started uh studying at AUC itself to take, to get to get my Master's degree, sure, I was not young. I was old when, and the other students were much younger, you know. And I recall one one thing, uh I did, but I never meant to do it, and it was a big thing. One of the teachers, with no names, he was teaching statistics, you know. The guy was putting something on the board, and I without thinking, I just answered, and it was like, "What are you doing? I have to teach this the whole class," you know. And it started to you know, we started to get, and that then I told him I'd never meant it.
[01:36:10]
And no, so it helped me a lot, my teaching for the years I taught at Phys- in the Physics helped me a lot in my courses that I took in English. And I remember very well at the very end when I was graduating, we had um, they always meet you, all the teacher they taught you, they meet you and ask you, "What did you get out of this course?" And so on. And I told them, "You know what? One thing I got for sure is I found names for everything I used to do in the classroom, I never knew, like classroom management, eye contact and all those things you were teaching me. I was doing them, not knowing what they meant, what they meant." Yeah, so, yeah, it was wonderful teaching. Great classes, I should say.
[01:36:52]
And then when I was attending TESOL [Conference] as this institution, huge institution in in in the States, I was uh I would present papers every year and go. To tell you the truth, uh comparing ourselves AUC and what we taught at the DPS, CACE, I would feel very, very proud. We were a way, way, way higher than people coming from other countries. Really, really, we were way, way higher. We had wonderful programs down here. They had certificates, and this 36
is one thing I was attracted to, or they forced me to do, we had, uh certificates in tourism, in hotel, uh, medical studies, accounting, uh secretarial studies, that was the big thing about AUC. Uh and I was teaching what they call teaching English for specific purposes, so it was mainly me with scientific background, I would teach the English for doctors, English for hotel, English for tourism, English for so on. So I really had fun, wonderful years, great years I spent with here and there, both parts of my life were great.
[01:38:05]
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
Could you tell me about some of the other um faculty and DPS that you worked with, maybe some of the administrators you dealt with over there?
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
I dealt with them and I became one of them at the end, you know, I became an administrator after like a few years of teaching. And then they pushed me into administration, and I mi- the minute I got my Master's degree, I became a faculty and administrator. I taught much less, and then I didn't teach at all. And I used to be, yes, uh all my connections were with people offering certificates in tourism, in hotels, in uh medical, and this was mainly uh my contact with them, because I would offer the English for these people. And they would do the part, that's all things that have to do with ticketing and hotels, and doctors and so on. But they always start with me, because it was the terminology they needed to teach them first, and that can get into the certificate.
[01:39:02]
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
So you provided sort of a module, it was sort of a team teaching situation?
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
Yes, yes, yes, mainly the English part, the introduction of every certificate, every certificate.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
So who are some of the leading figures in DPS which became CACE?
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
When I joined uh, I joined the English, so I didn't know much about the others, but uh there was then they used to call them division, I guess division, there was a Computer program, there was a Business program uh, the English program, Arabic program, and Computer program. I dealt with all of them, because they all needed somebody to teach the English, not the Arabic, because the Arabic, they didn't need me. But the the Computer, the Business and uh the English, so I was mainly part of the teaching English as far as the specific language.
37
[01:39:58]
The leading names were, for instance, the Computer, Dr. [Mohamed] Younes was very well known in Computer, he was coming from Cairo University and he really initiated this Computer program. And after him, di- came Dr. [Mohamed] Ashraf El Kosheiry, who also uh did uh continue with the Computer program, until it died. The Arabic, I don't remember, but Abdel Aziz, I don't remember who was before Adel Aziz something his name was, and then the Business was, this lady, I can't remember his name, her name, and then came an American also can't to remember, they brought in an American to lead the business program at AUC— at the teaching at CACE. And Arabic was doing fine, great then, before all the problems we had with students. The summer programs with the Eng- the Arabic department were, oh my God, you can't imagine the hundreds and hundreds of students that used to come to take the Arabic uh courses at the CACE then. I don't know, was it cheaper than now or well organized? I can't tell you, I don't know the difference, I never knew.
[01:41:10]
But the CASA at AUC I think was different, it was not, it was offering like uh program, a year program. Ours were a summer course, maybe that was the attraction because it was a summer course. They used to come for three months and so on, it was booming. I should say the CACE at a point in time was really booming, and doing a lot. Many of what, they don't call them anymore secretaries, but many of the girls that used to work in any office here, were provided by the CACE, yeah, provided by the CACE. Because they had to have six months training. So you would send them to whatever places where you knew people, and they would keep them, you know. And most of them had to have uh training six months, so in tourism, they would send them to KLM, f- Air France and so on, they would keep them. They send them to hotels, they keep them, and yeah, it was good, yeah, it was really a good program, a very good program. Much smaller now. [laughs]
[01:42:15]
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
And so who was who is uh who's in the leadership of DPS, and CACE that you dealt with?
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
I dealt with my director, Magda Lawrence, and then we had uh, you you met uh Dr. Harry, that you met uh—.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
Harry Miller.
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
Harry Miller. I dealt with Harry Miller. And Harry Miller was uh was here for, I guess maybe 10 or 12 years, for a long time. And one day he came to me and he said, "Magda, we want to do something very important." I said,"What?" "You know that Egyptians like to stay 38
late." I said, "Yeah." "Okay, start courses from 9:00 to midnight." I said, "What?" And he said, "Just do it. Offer one of each level and we'll see." And guess what? It was booming. It was booming, 9:00 to midnight.
[01:43:03]
And uh, and you would not believe it, most of the teachers were girls, girls. I mean girls, not ladies, even girls, 22, 23, they would all come and teach the evening courses. And then little by little, you know, "We couldn't go into the university that late." So I remember that's one of the things. And I guess he was the one who um, who got us the School of Continuing Education was Dr. Harry Miller, he he worked very hard to get the School of Continuing Education instead of being Continuing Education only, it became a school. He forced everybody to have a school, and to have a dean, and to have everything, yeah, I guess it was Harry Miller who did this.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
And so where were the instructors recruited from? How are they uh, how were they found?
[01:43:51]
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
Word of mouth was one of, name of the game. Word of mouth, that was the thing, it was mainly word of mouth, and people would tell others and so on. We were very strict in, in uh recruiting them, they most of them had to have training before coming to us. The interviews were really tough, we were not fun with interviews. We had good teachers, I should say. Many AUCians, believe it or not, they would have it as a second job, like in the evening. Why not come twice and have make some money in the evening and so on. So AUCians would come, and many others, it was word of mouth. And then what the recruitment started when we offered the teacher training courses for everybody, and opened — one of the courses taught at the School of Continuing Education was a teacher training English program. And we even had another teaching program for science teachers. That too was, so you teach them how to become teachers of English, and you teach them how to become teachers of science, and so on.
[01:44:57]
So it was not the science that meant, but how to become a teacher, and classroom management, and eye contact, and all this. So through the courses, once they finished the courses, most of them applied and became teachers at the School of Continuing Education. So It was the courses, word of mouth and the courses offered by the school.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
And when you went into administration with Continuing Education, what was your specific role or position?
39
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
My position was, to start with, uh I was then we ca- they were called coordinators. I guess we would call Coordinator of English for Specific Purposes, I was responsible for that. And then they changed it. When I left, I left the school year for four years, I went to the States for four years, and when I came, I came, I left in '97 and came back in 2001. And then I came as an Assistant Director to the English [Studies Division], pure English only, and we stopped the coordinators, is no more. We didn't have no more coordinators. I had two assistants, my Director, Assistant Director and two assistants only for English, uh no specific purposes uh courses anymore.
[01:46:13]
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
And can you describe the facilities for the Center for Continuing Education, CACE?
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
Oh we had we had teacher rooms, beautiful teacher rooms, one of them is on the main campus, is called 08 under the cafeteria. That was one of them. We had one in uh 407 in the Greek Campus. Uh teachers had everything they needed. The quizzes were ready made for, we we were responsible of providing the core, the courses. We had scheduling, they used to come, have their schedule, get their books and leave. Then when I was teaching, I I was responsible, we had three semesters or three terms, if you want to call them. Now, they have four week terms, six week term, I don't know, it's no more, what, when I left in 2011, it was mainly this and some summer courses.
[01:47:08]
Uh I started also for the English, the 9:00 to 12:00 morning ,and we were uh, we wanted to teach mothers and housewives. And we thought that when they send their children to school, and a good time for them to come and take their courses is 9:00 to mid-, noon. And it worked, it worked beautifully. And, but unfortunately, we had to offer those classes in the Zamalek, because then the main campus was still here, uh they had not moved out, so priority goes to AUC. And Zamalek was difficult to get there, so we had less students than when they moved out, we had more 9:00 to 12:00. And little by little, I guess, money is the name of the game, people don't study anymore as they used to do.
[01:47:58]
And the DPS, CACE students, School of Continuing School students, when I told you when I came in and all motivated. Because they all wanted better jobs, they studied English for better jobs. Now with fewer jobs, why should they spend money and teach and learn English? So, that also killed a little bit. But they still have, it's booming, they still have many students.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
Can you describe the building over on the Greek Campus, that was the the home for DPS and CACE? 40
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
Oh, yeah, yeah. We uh, we our uh, our offices were on the fourth floor. We used to be first on the ground floor, w- the ground floor, and then they moved us up to the fourth floor. And we had uh an office, and the whole first floor of the Zamalek building, the whole first floor were all the classrooms we we took it over by the School of Continuing Education. We had a teachers’ room over there. The fourth floor, we had uh um offices like one, two, three, four, five, six offices up there, and all the classrooms were there.
[01:49:05]
Uh, we even had labs, we even had labs to teach computer and so on, and we touch, very first touched computer was by the uh we teach, "This is an apple," "This is a fish" and so on. Uh, it was very nice, I mean, I wish they stayed in the Greek Campus and never came to the [laughs] facul- where we came to faculty, it was to the Falaki it was not really fun. It was, there, it was open air and gardens and so on. Anyway, they wanted the Falaki, and we came to Falaki [laughs] we came to Falaki yeah, much smaller, much smaller.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
And so how much interaction was there between the uh English programs at CACE and AUC the English Language Institute and the TEFL program, was there much interaction between the faculty?
[01:49:58]
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
Not much, not much. The only one, I should say, Liz England was one of the persons who taught at the uh English Division, Department [ELI], and she used to, I knew her as a, as a friend, and she would, used to send her students to to teach our classes. That was one good thing she did. But after her, I didn't have anybody, no much interaction, up till this day in time, people looked down at School of Continuing Education. They don't know that these students were much better than them, [laughs] much better than they are. Not much, but we used to travel together when we went to TESOL [Conference], and so on, it was all of us, we used to travel altogether for TESOL every year, papers and so on. Never papers together, paper from, but yeah, we were friends, we knew each other. But not the students, not much of the students, no, not much of the students, yeah.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
Is there anything else about your time at CACE, DPS, about that division you'd like to bring up?
[01:51:01]
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
It was a great time, I spent really a good time there, the colleagues were wonderful, we never had problems, maybe the only problem started later on when the students then started 41
to speak up, and I don't like this teacher, I want this teacher to change, and this was not known before, this is not something that we used to hear about. And uh maybe sometimes when you go into classes and the teacher is not performing well, this is when sometimes some clashes would happen. But we were a great group together, all together, very understanding, working hard, all of us, and no, I didn't have a problem. I didn't have a problem, yeah, I really enjoyed working with them.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
And when did you finish up with the School of Continuing Education?
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
I left in August 2011.
[01:52:00]
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
And so did you observe uh how the revolution and the uprisings around Tahrir affected that uh Continuing Educational at AUC?
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
It must have, because I left when it was, sure it did, it must have uh, but now, uh with the starting off with the new campus, they gained a lot of students uh from the new campus, from uh the surrounding, not wealthy people from New Cairo, but from Rehab. Rehab is a small city and Madinaty, you could find, and they would go to, so they have, it seems they have very good classes, not my time either, it was not my time when they started those courses. But the few times when I meet them, they say "We don't have a problem." But everybody misses the certificates. When we stop the certificates, you know, that was a good thing at uh the School of Continuing Education. No more, no more the certificate, that was really, no more Computer Science, no more.
[01:52:59]
You know, it was, the thing is, people started to open up other places. And it's sort of, not really killed, but it was much cheaper, and what is the difference? What do you know the difference between somebody giving you the same course for this amount of money or coming to AUC? So uh, I guess killing the certificates hit a little bit the School of Continuing Education. But according to all my colleagues that I uh, come and visit, they say they're doing very well, they're doing very well, still doing well.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
And could you just uh elaborate a bit more [interviewee coughs] about the spring of 2011, and how that affected uh, continuing ed-, continuing education programs here uh by the Tahrir campus?
42
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
Sure. I mean, we had the conference to start with. Uh we, this is one of the conferences that started at the School of Continuing Education in 19-, in 1987 was the first. Now it's called Nile TESOL, but before it wasn't. Before it was mainly for the School of Continuing Education. The lady who started it was the director of the school, of the division, whatever you want to call it.
[01:54:04]
And uh I remember very well, we had our conference on Sunday, and you know the revolution was, so we were we came up till the Thursday. I remember very well Thursday at 7:30, all the security came up and said, you have to leave, the midan [sqaure] is full and so on and taban it was a mess, because many people were coming from abroad and we were able to move them into Sharm El Sheikh and so on, so it killed our confidence, that's it. Taban a number of courses stopped for some time, yes, we had a bit of a problem and but it took us back again when things were quiet, but I would imagine parents would be afraid to send their children downtown and so on. We had our Heliopolis branch was doing well, Zamalek Branch was doing well, but the downtown people started to get scary, which you understand it then.
[01:55:10]
And I left in August, so I really don't know what happened later, but according to them, it is doing fine, it's doin- so we don't have anymore the Heliopolis branch, we don't have any more of this Zamalek branch, we only have the downtown and the new campus.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
Um, so as we uh, come near closing the interview, can you uh tell me about any other people at AUC you remember that you'd like to bring up, people you haven't mentioned yet? Or any other developments or uh, anything else at all you'd like to reflect on?
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
Too many years, [laughs] Steve, so many years to remember. Every single person, I think I met affected something in my life, you know, whether it's my teachers, my colleagues here and there.
[01:56:04]
I owe a lot to Dr. Bishay, I should say, the Chairman of the Science Building [Department], he really helped me a lot. It was, I used to hate him because he made me work so hard, but then when uh the thesis came out and everybody was, "Oh my God, what's this?" I was so proud, so proud, really. He was a great man. Dr. [Hosny] Omar worked with him for the 20 years, was under him. Doctor Assabghy was a wonderful friend, uh we didn't work much together, but we're friends and we used to go the Fridays together and spend the days and sing and so on. His wife is a dear friend, too. This is from the Science Building [Department], I remember, taban, Jehane Ragai is a great lady. Dr. [Pakinam] Askalani I remember many of my students, but I don't remember names. I can't remember names [laughs] after all these years. And the 43
funny thing, at the end of every year, I would remember either the best or the worst [laughs] [unintelligible] in the middle I forget it, you know.
[01:57:05]
But it's so funny that over the years, when I met people uh, whatever in a bank or they stopped me, I wouldn't remember. The very lazy were the ones who really got best jobs, they never, [chuckling] it's as if, you know, their social life was so open, they were doing so many other things that they were able to get through in life easily, easier than the ones sitting studying and [chuckling] so on. No, but I, it was wonderful in Physics, in Science. Here in [School of Continuing Education] English [Studies Division], everybody was so nice, I should say, everybody. I owe Tom Cassidy a lot, because he pushed me. I, when I told you he harassed me, he called me at 10:00 in the evening, tomorrow morning we'll come in at 10:00. It was a good thing, because I wouldn't have done it if he hadn't done this to me.
[01:57:55]
We had a great director uh, before Magda [Lawrence], Christine Zaher, she was like very, very severe, but we learned a lot from her. And then Magda Lawrence came as a director, when I left, I became her assistant. All my colleagues Hoda Gad Elrab, Nermeen uh, who I remember, now I'm going up to see uh, meet some of them, but the only one I keep uh as the best friend of mine is Deena Boraie, she is a great person. Great, you should see her, you should go and meet her, [laughs] you should go meet her.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
All right. Anything else to add as we close?
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
No, I enjoyed it. I never knew it was all this my life, more than anything, [laughs] you made me remember things I couldn't remember. [chuckling]
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
Well, thanks so much.
Interviewee Magda Hayek:
[Coughs] I enjoyed it. Thank you, Steve.
[01:58:47]
[End of oral history]

Coverage

Cairo, Egypt

Medium

Oral histories (document genres)

Collection

AUC Oral Histories and Reminiscences

Publisher

Rare Books and Special Collections Library; The American University in Cairo