Magda Hayek was a faculty member from the mid 1970s to the 2010s, teaching physics laboratory and later English language at the American University in Cairo, having been an undergraduate and graduate student in science and Teaching English as a Foreign Language at AUC. Of Lebanese and Greek Orthodox background, she speaks about family members’ Egyptian citizenship status and ties with relatives in Lebanon, with whom visits were exchanged over the years. Hayek tells about her family’s automotive and electrical appliance business and aspects of their life in a downtown Cairo apartment building, and recalls the cinemas and grand department stores of downtown in the 1950s and 1960s. Her primary and high school education at Catholic schools are described, with discussion of matters ranging from religious education to dress, discipline, and opportunities for female students. Hayek relates how she came to AUC and her studies as a Chemistry-Physics major and later a Solid State Science Master’s degree student in the late 1960s and early 1970s, describing science faculty, facilities (the new Science Building, safety, etc.) and the social life of the Science Department and its students. A detailed portrait of student life is provided, from social life and male-female relationships to athletics and volunteering, and major student events like the Talent Show and Miss AUC contest. Hayek recounts her experiences as a part-time physics laboratory instructor at AUC from the mid-1970s to early 1990s, describing changes in the nature of the AUC student body over the years. She tells about pursuing a Master’s degree in Teaching English as a Foreign Language in the 1990s and shifting to teaching English and later serving as an administrator with AUC’s Division of Public Service and Center for Adult and Continuing Education and School of Continuing Education, and discusses personnel and other aspects of that unit.
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