Adli Bishay interview

              1
Transcript of oral history interview conducted with
Adli Bishay on December 19, 2005 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 interviewers are Stephen Urgola and Masha Kirasirova, and the interviewee is Dr. Adli Bishay. We are in Dr. Bishay’s office on Qasr al-Aini Street in Cairo, and the date is December 19, 2005. Please give your full name and date and place of birth.
Interviewee Adli Bishay:
Adli Bishay, or Adli Makin Bishay, my date of birth is 23rd of November 1927.
Interviewer Masha Kirasirova:
Could you please describe where you grew up and where you received your education?
[00:00:50]
Interviewee Adli Bishay:
Uh, I grew up in Cairo. I went to one of the model schools as a secondary school, called Farouk secondary school. And then I went to Cairo University, where I got my Bachelor’s degree. Then I traveled to England, where I got my PhD from Sheffield University, as well as my wife from Sheffield also. Do you want me to tell you how I got to AUC? [laughs]
Interviewer Masha Kirasirova:
We have some follow up questions before then.
Interviewee Adli Bishay:
Okay.
Interviewer Masha Kirasirova:
Um, I was wondering if you could tell us what it was like as an Egyptian to study in the United Kingdom.
Interviewee Adli Bishay:
Well at that time, at the beginning it was very difficult because they even had ration books where uh, I had to buy chocolates and then realized I had to have coupons to buy chocolates and so on. But also for someone who has been living in a rather conservative, uh, situation, it was opening up for me in England, so I played around the first year till I found out that if I have to get my PhD I have to work very, very hard.
2
[00:02:11]
I worked in the department of glass technology of Sheffield University, where I had to melt glasses and irradiate them and look at the spectroscopy and so on. I had problems with the, uh, chairman of the department who had a theory and he expected me to confirm the theory, but at the end I had to put it that my results are exception of the theory, so I managed to get my PhD because of that. Later on actually it was proved that his theory was wrong, but that was later on.
Interviewer Masha Kirasirova:
Um, and could you tell us a little bit more about what you did before coming to AUC? And how you came to work at AUC?
[00:03:00]
Interviewee Adli Bishay:
Well, I came to AUC directly after my PhD. In other words, I arrived in Cairo in the summer of 1955, and uh, tried, to be honest with you, to get into the Egyptian Universities, but there were no vacancies or they concealed the vacancies, and as I was passing with my wife in Midan al-Tahrir, we saw a lovely building, and she asked me, “what is this?” I told her, “This is the American University in Cairo.” She said, “why didn’t you apply here?” I said, “Well, this university is really for rich young girls who want to get married, and not for the academic aspect.”
[00:03:57]
She said, “Come on, let us go in.” I went in, I met Dean Howard at that that time, just before he left. And he said, “I’m sorry, but we already have one PhD man, Dr. Miller. We can’t afford to have more than one PhD man.” And I left. Two weeks later I got a form from the chairman of the department of Ain Shams University, and he told me, “Go to the American University.” I said, “I have been, there’s no use.” He said, “just go.” I went again, so Dean Howard met me, and uh, he told me, “our second man, who had a master’s degree, has resigned to open a tourist agency. So we have a vacant position now.”
[00:04:59]
And of course, I was delighted, but he said, “you have to wait till the chairman of the department comes to interview you.” I said, “Where is he?” He said, “in Alexandria.” “Oh, by the way, I’m going to Alexandria, because my family were there.” So he gave me the address of Dr. Miller in Alexandria, it was in a pension where missionaries lived. I visited there after making an appointment. I went with my wife who is English, and we had a long discussion. While I was there another couple passed by me and said, “aren’t you the son of Dr. Makin Bishay?”
3
[00:06:04]
I said, “yes.” “Oh, wonderful.” They were patients of my father. Later on they called my father and told him that Dr. Miller is very impressed by your son, however, his wife is wearing Japonaise.” You know the Japonaise? “And you know, this should not be the case.” Yes, fifty-five, AUC. And my wife said, “if that is the condition, don’t go. We have to be free to wear and eat and do what we want.” So I ignored that of course, and we took the AUC position. It was a very, very appropriate time, because then the president came, Dr. McLain, and McLain wanted to change everything in terms of making it an academic institution, and getting to A.I.D. for funds rather than depending on the missionaries.
[00:07:17]
So for me it was a terrific opportunity. Want to ask questions again? I can tell you stories [laughs].
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
Can you tell us, what was AUC’s science program and the science department like when you arrived at AUC and in the first few years?
Interviewee Adli Bishay:
Okay. AUC at that time had only the chemistry department. The physics, math where just subsidiary, and as I mentioned before, it only had one PhD, Dr. Miller who was an organic chemist, and I found myself in my first year teaching four different courses in the semester.
[00:08:04]
For me it was really something very, very difficult. I never taught before, and so I had to study at home until twelve o’clock at night every night. It was very hard [unintelligible]. However, as things started, I found out that there are always discussions between me and Dr. Miller and other American professors. When I say something, they say “uh uh uh. This is Egyptian or English system, we have American system. We have the liberal arts education.” At that time I had no idea what is liberal arts. And so after three years of agony and preparing courses and so on, I went to Dr. Miller and the president, Raymond McLain, and Hollenbach – was a terrific dean, wonderful dean – uh, I said, “listen, I have to find out what is liberal arts and what do you do in America. So I want a year of absence to go abroad to the States and find out what’s that.”
[00:09:19]
And they gave me that year of absence, and Dr. Miller with his connections, he contacted a college in Missouri called Westminster College at Fulton, Missouri. Where I spent a year of rather difficult, uh, experience because I nearly got a divorce. My wife who is professional, who was teaching here in Egypt before she left and in England, did not have a job, and the city—the only thing the city of Fulton had to brag about is the Iron Curtain
4
[00:10:13]
Churchill went there and talked about the Iron Curtain. However, while I was there, I wanted to do research, and there was no research in Fulton at all. But Columbia, Missouri was very near, and so I went to the University of Columbia two days a week to do research with one of the leading chemists there. While I was there, just by chance, I saw an ad from some place called Argonne National Lab in Chicago, which was operated by the University of Chicago, and it was under the US Atomic Energy Commission.
[00:11:00]
And they announced for positions vacant for US nationals, but in small letters down there it says there are very few positions for non-US nationals, uh, if they fit the required positions. So what did I do? I just got my c.v., I did not even write a covering letter, I did not have any hope at all, and I wrote on it “interested in temporary or long-term position.” I sent it. As you know my degree was PhD in glass technology. Three weeks later I got a letter from them saying, “If you are interested in radiation effects on glass, we would like you to come on such and such a day.”
[00:11:59]
Of course I went. And there I met the chairman of two departments, as well as the personnel director. I went to one department, which was called the Solid-State Physics Department. And I had an interview with him, I didn’t like him. To start with he was saying, “What courses have solid-state physics?” Well at that time solid-state physics, the terminology, had just started. There were no courses before that. And he was a little bit, uh, difficult to talk to. I went to another one, which is called Remote Control Engineering Division, a very new name, and he explained to me, the head of that department that because of working with radiation you have to work in what they call hot cells where they have windows made of special glass to protect the scientists and at the same time so that he can see what he is doing by means of remote control by robots.
[00:13:17]
And their problem was that this glass after a while darkens, becomes yellow and dark yellow, and so they can’t use it, and they would like to have someone to work on this point. And I was very, very impressed. And it was a wonderful opportunity to do research in that light. So at the end of the day the personnel director said, “Actually you have offers in the two departments. Which one would you like?” I said, “Listen, if the Solid-State Physics was the only department, I would still not say no. But I like the Remote Control Division.” And I got the job.
[00:14:01]
And at the end of the year the president of Westminster College tried to convince me—and he even convinced my wife by giving her a position in the library so that we can stay. “No thank you, it’s very kind of you, and they were [unintelligible].” By the way while I was there we
5
had something very interesting in the core college. The next building was the biology building, and the head of that building and that biology was a Jew. And so students used to call the passage between the chemistry department and the biology department the Gaza Strip, the Gaza Strip. But I want you to know that we became very good friends. He realized that not all Egyptians are bad, and I realized that not all Jews are Zionists. And so we socially we met, and both my wife and I and his wife and so on.
[00:15:07]
Then of course I wanted to extend my stay, because the research was doing well to the extent I got five US patents with the atomic energy. But President MacLain every year says, “Hey, when are you coming back?” Finally at the third year he came and visited us in Chicago. And he met the president of the, the head of Argonne and my department and so on, and he told me, “Listen, you have to choose. Either you come back at the end of this year, or you resign and I have to look for somebody else.” And he gave me what at that time I considered a very good offer, because he realized I’m not coming back with the forty pounds a month which I used to get when I first joined AUC.
[00:16:06]
And I accepted, and funnily enough the one who encouraged to accept was my wife. She loved Egypt, she preferred the work in Egypt — although she worked in a very good school in Chicago also. So we came back, I came back to AUC, and a year later it was then that Bartlett came. Terrific president. And it was after that that he decided that its about time that Miller retires and I take over the department.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
Can you discuss your time as Chairman of the Science Department? Specifically what kind of programs you instituted, what kind of change you made.
[00:17:01]
Interviewee Adli Bishay:
Well, one very important thing which I started with was the belief that a university cannot be a university without a graduate program. And so I started a master’s degree in what I called solid-state science. Not solid-state physics or solid-state chemistry, solid-state science. And it became a very popular program, because the Egyptian universities did not have that program, and so we had some of the best students coming from Cairo University, Ain Shams University, Alexandria University. As a matter of fact, you should know that Zewail, the Nobel Prize laureate, applied to my program, and I’m very glad that I accepted him, I did not say no! [laughs] As a matter of fact we gave him a scholarship, however at that time he got a very good offer from Pennsylvania University, so he went there.
[00:18:04]
As a matter of fact I did not remember that until he came recently, and he reminded me. So, we were getting the cream of the young people from the different universities. We also got
6
not only science students, but also engineering students, because solid-state is as well engineering as a science. Well, that went on very nicely, and some the graduate students of the, of this program, are Fadel Assabghy, the former Dean, uh Pakinam Askalani, Professor of Chemistry Jehane Ragai, uh Farkhonda Hassan—I mean they are all very good people. Well then I felt that the Egyptian market needed engineering.
[00:19:10]
And in order to attract more Egyptian students you have to do something about it. Now it took a very tough time to convince my department to add materials engineering to the program. This is when I had to be a dictator—a dictator in the right thing. I mean I did not care I—I managed to get them to approve it after going from here and there and there, and that was how—first we changed the department’s name from Chemistry to Physical Sciences Department, and then from Physical Sciences to Materials Engineering and Physical Sciences. And this is where we added Materials Engineering courses as well as, uh, different basic engineering courses and so on.
[00:20:10]
I can go on and on. Uh, it was then that after a while I felt that I need a change, and that AUC should go into the area of public service—not just in terms of education, but public service in every aspect. And it was then that Sadat was the president, and he was saying around, “Let us go to the desert.” And I noticed people who are economists will go and study the economic aspects of desert development, people who are biologists or agronomists will study the agriculture of desert, architecture will study the architecture, and so on.
[00:21:12]
But I thought that this is not the way. The way is an integrated approach, so that when you are creating a new community in the desert, you need all the disciplines to be able to attract the people to move there, live in nice housing, get jobs, get recreation facilities, and so on and so on—plus of course agriculture. Well, I did not know anything about the desert, but they tell me that the best way of knowing something about something is to teach it. So we had in Materials Engineering [pause] a course which is called “Selected Topics in Materials Engineering.”
[00:22:02]
So I made that year the selected topics as “Materials for Desert Development.” And I invited as lecturers different people from different disciplines who worked in materials, whether in agriculture, in irrigation, or in solar energy, wind energy, biogas, and so on—architecture and so on. During that period, the semester, I wrote a report to the president, who was then [pause] after Thoron—
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
Cecil Byrd.
7
Interviewee Adli Bishay:
Pedersen. Pedersen. I wrote him a report suggesting that we start a desert development, and demonstration project, and that we get five hundred acres and do our experiments in the desert.
[00:23:10]
He called me and he said, “Hey, from where are you going to get the five hundred acres?” I said, “From the government.” He said, “The government of Egypt did not give one penny to AUC. Do you expect it to give five hundred acres?” I said, “Let me try.” He said, “Alright, you try, and if you are starting a course like that you should be the one to fund it so that it will not be a liability on AUC.” Well, I kept that conversation and while I was talking to my students in Materials for Desert Development one lovely girl, a student, came to see me in my office, and she said, “Sir, have you contacted the Minister of Irrigation for that proposal?”
[00:24:06]
At that time the irrigation minister was in charge of land reclamation. Land reclamation in Egypt has moved from one ministry to another, it went to irrigation it went to agriculture, it went to—everything. So I said, “No of course not.” She said, “Why not?” I said, “I have not yet found enough information to talk to a minister.” She said, “Didn’t you present a report to the president of AUC?” I said, “Yes.” She said, “Can I take a copy of that report?” “Yeah, sure, here you are.” A week later she came and she said, “The minister would like very much to see you. How about next Saturday?” I said, “I’m sorry,” “Why?” “I promised my wife to take her to Alex during that week.” [laughs] So she went to him, and he came—she came back three days later, she said, “The minister is now insisting that he would meet that professor who dares to say no to a meeting with the minister.”
[00:25:08]
And she mentioned a day which I managed to go to, and I was very impressed because he already had a map showing the location of what is now our site in Tahrir Square [South Tahrir]. And he said, “I suggest that you take this one, because actually the equipment is already in the stores, it has never been touched, so its virgin land,” and so on and so forth. And I always asked myself how come this girl managed to get to the minister? I found out later that she’s a girlfriend of his son. [laughs] So things like that help. And that is how it started. Um, but of course what happened here is that I believe that again other than a course in order to start something big like that you have to have an international conference of people all over the world who know, who have an experience in desert development.
[00:26:14]
And this is where we started our first conference for desert development, invited all these people, and invited Sadat to open that conference. Well, one day before Sadat answered, Kafrawi, who was the Minister of Land Reclamation at that time, and—Housing and Land Reclamation, called me and he said, “listen, Sadat will be in Camp David during that week, because he was signing the, uh, agreement with Begin and Carter. But he asked me,” asked
8
Kafrawi, “to take his place. I know nothing about the subject. Can you kindly come and see me, and discuss it with me?”
[00:27:02]
So I said, alright. I went. It’s not far from here by the way, [unintelligible] next door. And he said, “I was very intrigued by this idea, and I’m very pleased, what can I do to show the Americans that the Egyptian government wants to help AUC?” Frankly, usually, you go and beg a minister that he can offer you something, not personally, but for your university or program or whatever it is, but for him to start that way, it was astonishing. Well, I knew that he is in the area of buildings. I mean, he is a, an engineer, an architectural engineer.
[00:27:51]
So I said, “Sir, in the different programs which we get support for, usually the international agencies would give you money for conferences, for research, and so on. Very few of them would give you money for buildings. How about giving us money for the first building of AUC in the desert?” “Ah, wonderful! Wonderful! How much do you want?” I said I didn’t know. “I, uh, I did not come to you for that purpose.” He said, “what about fifty thousand dollars?” Alright, then one of his assistants said, “ah, fifty thousands dollars, but in the official rate.” At that time the official rate was I think forty-three piasters or something like that. I said again, “I don’t know.” So he said, “Listen I will announce fifty thousand dollars, but I promise you that if it is more than that I will still pay it.” I said, “wonderful.”
[00:28:57]
And sure enough he came to the conference and he announced that decision, and on the basis of that decision, we invited different architects to make designs for the first AUC building in what we had then also [unintelligible] at that time five hundred acres in Tahrir. The building cost us, according to the design, the new design, double the amount, one hundred thousand dollars. So I went to him with the drawings and so on, so he said, “So what?” I said, “I want your approval that you will pay that much.” He said, “Yes, you have my approval.” And on my way out I said, “Mr. Minister, I know that you are interested in Sadat City, Sadat City we had nothing to do with. We had only five hundred acres in Tahrir. Sadat City is new, “I know that you are interested in Sadat City, and that we are working in Tahrir next to you, so any help from the technical point of view you are willing to—.” He said, “Dr. Bishay, come, sit down. Are you telling me that that building will be in Tahrir and not in Sadat City?”
[00:30:15]
I said, “of course. We don’t have land in Sadat City, we have land in Tahrir.” “You have land in Sadat City.” I said, “We can’t just accept that.” “Come on,” he called his undersecretary and said, “Take Dr. Bishay, show him the maps of Sadat City, and give him up to ten thousand feddans in Sadat City.” Even the undersecretary was amazed. Anyway, I saw it and took a copy, and Pedersen was away at that time, so we contacted him. He said, “No, don’t take any decision until I come back.” As you should know, Americans don’t accept gifts if it means a lot
9
of liabilities. Egyptians may take it and then have it on their head, but Americans are very good in that.
[00:31:07]
So he said, “What are we going to do with it?” I said, “I’m not saying you should do it, but we have to answer.” So, at that time the, uh, company which was actually supervising the building of Sadat City was an American company with Egyptian partner. So I contacted them. I told them “This is the situation, where do you think is the best place for us as AUC?” They directed me to an area next to what was supposed to be the White House. The White House, because Sadat was going to build a house in Sadat City where he would move and the ministries would move. And the area was not more than thirty feddans, something like that.
[00:32:00]
So, I whispered to the ears of Pedersen, I told him, “The people in Sadat City will take you first to the industrial area. You say no sir, thank you, I am not taking it. And then finally they will have to come to that place,” and that’s exactly what happened, and we accepted I think twenty-five feddans at that time, and this is where we built that building, which was completely paid for by uh, Minister Kafrawi, by the government in Egypt. Of course, we built the building in a way which is not always accepted. The Hassan Fathy way, where you have domes and courtyards and so on, and from adobe bricks, because this is the best for insulation. And it’s the reasonable way for building in the desert.
[00:33:01]
But we also wanted very much to have solar energy, and at that time I had a friend in the World Bank who told me about a story, that there’s a company called Arco Solar in California who donated ten, um, what is it? Megawatt, uh, sample—I mean, uh, portable stakes to a country in South Africa—in South America. I believe it was Venezuela. But that, at this time a revolution occurred in Venezuela, and I was supposed to be the reason for that revolution. I caused that revolution. So, the company is ready now to look for another country to give them that. So, at once I arranged to travel to the States, and I had a number of NSF projects and so on and even from the Air Force and the Navy. So I would be able to use the money to go, and I went, I went to California, I gave them a lecture, and we got the equipment.
[00:34:14]
And they came at there own expense and put it, and if you are visiting Sadat City you will see it. Although unfortunately now, solar energy, wind energy, and biogas and so on are not the priority of AUC, which is not my business. So this is how we started also the Desert Development Center.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
Can you tell us about other support you had from US government sources, or other foundations, and other collaborations you’ve had, laboratories, other institutes?
10
[00:34:50]
Interviewee Adli Bishay:
Sure. One, um, a number of supports came from the National Science Foundation, as I mentioned, uh, Ford Foundation, Near East Foundation, because they had a man working for us for a long, long time, Cartier [?]. Uh, but uh, the longest and the very effective, uh, program we had was from USAID, on what they call the University Linkage Project. The University Linkages Project was based on the fact that an Egyptian University will work with an American university on a project which has development activities. And um, as it happens, one of my ex-students was in charge of that program in USAID. No I’m sorry, one of my, my ex-colleagues, and he told me, “I suggest you apply because you have very good ideas.” So I contacted Alexandria University, and we had one of the first US-Egyptian University Linkage projects, on the desert.
[00:36:04]
So suddenly we were able to get a lot of equipment, a lot of scientists and so on. This continued all the way until I even left AUC. Um, I think this is the major one, but also one thing related to that Science Building. When I came back from the States, just very naively I wrote a list of equipment and presented it to President McLain and I said, “We need these equipment.” So he smiled and put the paper in his lowest drawer. Couple of months later he called me and he said, “You know two months ago you asked for equipment and so on.” I said, “Yeah.” He said, “Is it for you, or for the research of the students?” I said, “For both.”
[00:37:07]
He said, “Alright, send me more details and specifications.” I said, “why?” He said, “because AUC now has a grant from USAID to build a science building, uh, and of course equipment.” So I was thrilled, I sent the equipment, and this is the equipment which was the basis for people like Fadel Assabghy, Farkhonda Hassan and so on to get their degree. But, it has a story too. Now as it happens maybe all over the world, you start a project and you have a certain fund for it, but then because of inflation the prices go up unexpectedly, and so when we were building suddenly the contractor and the architect came and said, “sorry, your money will not be enough to build the six floors.”
[00:38:04]
So, again, uh, McLain was not in town, and we had a meeting with Dr. Allam, I think was the chairman, and they suggested that I forget about the equipment so that we can build the six floors. I had a bad temper, and I exploded. I told them, “Listen, I just came from a place, in Chicago where we worked in pre-fab buildings, and we had the best equipment in the world inside. If you want AUC to simply be here as a propaganda campaign, I’m not part of it, and tomorrow in the Ahram you will find out that statement.” I really threatened them.
11
[00:38:56]
Of course they couldn’t take an action, and so they sent a telegram to, or at that time it’s the telex, to President McLain, who said, “Wait til I come back.” When he came back, we found a solution. How I get my equipment. The top three floors will be just a skeleton, no finishing, no division or anything, and the rest will be built. And that’s what happened, and later on they got the money and built the rest. But you see, in my work at AUC, and now of course with this NGO, if you don’t fight, as long as you are convinced that this is not for you personally, then you win. If it is for you, then you are a greedy bastard, you—I wouldn’t fight at all.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
Can you say anything about the design of the science building? Anything more about the construction process?
[00:39:58]
Interviewee Adli Bishay:
Yes. Um, we had a very clever and able architect at that time, it’s called Medhat Shahin. Medhat Shahin unfortunately after finishing that building he immigrated to Canada. [laughs] He felt that he can’t live anymore with his ideals in Egypt, because at that time one of the worst times in Egypt to build something or to have, uh, nice quality or aspects. So, in order to build the building the way it was built, he had suffered tremendously, and I want you to know that at the end of the time, at the last three months or so, where we were supposed to open the building officially and so on, I think in September or something like that, Mr. Dold, who was the business manager, wanted to leave to his short leave or whatever it is for three months.
[00:41:06]
So he gave me the authority to go ahead and do whatever I feel is necessary to finish the building. So I had people working twenty-four hours a day. I myself worked to twelve o’clock at night these days in order to build it in such a way that it will be acceptable, because we had not just the ministers coming to open it, but we had top-notch scientists coming from the States for that opening. That was the first science international conference we had. Uh, one interesting thing you should know is the way the building is built, where its façade on Tahrir Square has no windows at all, is being studied at the Faculties of Agriculture of Cairo University and Ain Shams University as the best architecture because of the effect of the sun and so on. So, that architecture was very good, and it’s a pity that he had to leave to Canada.
[00:42:11]
Interviewer Masha Kirasirova:
Can you discuss your relationship as Chair with the Dean of Faculties Richard Crabbs, with President Thomas Bartlett, Christopher Thoron, and Cecil Byrd?
12
Interviewee Adli Bishay:
I mean you want something about this?
Interviewer Masha Kirasirova:
Yeah, stories.
Interviewee Adli Bishay:
Alright, stories. [laughs] Well, I had very good relations with President Bartlett. We became friends, my wife and I and Molly and Tom Bartlett, we became friends and we are still friends. Uh, and Bartlett was open minded, and he was a terrific president because he actually made AUC buy the Greek school, and so many other programs which he had.
[00:43:05]
So that—Crabs, unfortunately while he was a very hardworking man, an honest man, but he was too bureaucratic. And he would write a letter every day criticizing what you do, and I bet you he did that with every chairman of the department. Except that some chairmen wouldn’t answer him. But I answered every letter. And his system was so bad, even when he goes on a trip to the States, he leaves to his secretary a list of letters, “You send this one on the first of month, this one on the second, and so on.” And so we did not even have rest while he was away. And that made us very mad, however, we respected him and he certainly worked for AUC not for himself. That’s all what I can say about him, but the one who made AUC really a flourishing university was Tom Bartlett.
[00:44:14]
Interviewer Masha Kirasirova:
And what about Christopher Thoron and Cecil Byrd?
Interviewee Adli Bishay:
Ah, terrific. Christopher Thoron was—I mean at the beginning of course there was a quarrel whether he’d become president or not. He was young, he was the, uh, chairman of, the head of AUC office and so on, but he was very diplomatic, but at the same time a man of action. Um, Unfortunately, and I say that with great regret, he and I had differences of opinion at the last days.
[00:44:57]
And I’m sorry that I did not make up with him when he died. I was abroad, and he was in New York in hospital, and I was told that he said, “Adli did not come and see me.” Because we were very good friends. Uh, I’m even trying to remember what was the cause. It was, I think it was the cause of what he heard from people about other things, and he believed what he hears, and that did not, was not the case at all. Um, but I’m sorry that happened.
13
Interviewer Masha Kirasirova:
How has the department’s academic program changed over the years? Um, for example, in its practical versus theoretical orientation, the research demand, on students’ requirements, things like that.
[00:46:03]
Interviewee Adli Bishay:
Well, to start with while the department as a whole did not push into one direction or another, I pushed, but they certainly were the core of the program, and they had every right to, every facility to work on the program in the way they were, uh, they found fit. One aspect where it was very important for the sake of the department is when we had to get recognition of the Egyptian universities. You know AUC was never recognized before, and we had to work on our courses, very hard, and that was through working with my staff as well as staff from the Egyptian universities.
[00:47:03]
And that of course resulted in acceptance of our program. Um, when we got into materials engineering for example, I had to employ other people who would be able to conduct that program since there were not, they were all chemists you see and physicists, but they were not material engineers. [pause] We also had something which was very unique for AUC at that time, at that time. We had the so-called Distinguished Visiting Professors program, and I think the Science Department started this program. I used to go to a conference and meet a professor, let’s say Professor Quarrel [?]or Professor Kreidel [?] or so on, and I would sit with him and his wife for dinner for example, and give them an idea about how Egypt is wonderful, and what about spending a month at AUC?
[00:48:17]
And what I managed to do is to say, what we, we will pay your ticket and your wife to come to AUC, and we will give you an apartment, not a, an apartment in Maadi, and we may even give you a week in Luxor and Aswan. And you will give lectures during that period. And for most of the cases I was very successful. I heard unfortunately that this program where I had the authority to choose the person and to agree on the financial details, that suddenly bureaucratic efforts came in, and they said “Oh, no, no, no.”
[00:49:10]
The chairman of the department cannot do that. He has to submit the names of the people he wants to do, and then send him a letter, and, and, and— Of course that doesn’t work. Not if you are talking—I mean, surely if you are talking about a long term appointment and so on, but if you’re talking about someone you want to get just for one month, and convince him, you have to get the opportunity to talk to him when he is relaxed, to convince his wife that she will have a wonderful time and so on, and unintelligible], as long as it doesn’t cost AUC much, that was very successful and in my view it brought a lot from the Egyptian university to AUC. And we had very good people. This unfortunately died after that.
14
[00:50:00]
[pause]
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
Can you tell me, how did the department move from a general science degree program to one with degree offerings in the individual disciplines? For example the pure chemistry major was established in 1969. Can you say a bit about that?
Interviewee Adli Bishay:
Well, at the beginning it was simply chemistry. Then when I came I changed it gradually into chemistry, physics, and then introduced physics, math. And I’m still a believer that this is the best way to offer it for the undergraduate level, but here is where the professors also affect the situation and I think they pushed into having pure chemistry, pure physics, pure math.
[00:51:17]
Unfortunately I think this is a mistake. However, that’s how it [unintelligible]. I also skipped something here which is very important regarding something else, and that is when I resigned from AUC. Did you hear about that? Did you know about that? Yeah. When McLain was in charge his wife Beatrice was made Dean of Students, which was the first mistake McLain made. You don’t and appoint your wife as an administrator.
[00:51:58]
And while I was the chairman of the Science Department we had what we call the Science Club. And I was the advisor of the Science Club. And I don’t remember the details, but I remember that we did something, and she thought that we should have taken her permission or something like that, and so she said, “You are no longer the advisor of the Science Club.” As it happened it was just before my departure for consultantship at Argonne National Lab, you know because I used to go after that Argonne and Oak Ridge and Brookhaven, the three different places for atomic energy. I used to go in the summers. So it happened to be at one time when I was departing, so the next day I left, but then I uh, sent my resignation.
[00:53:05]
And a few days later Dr. Dirks [?], who was the deputy chairman of the board called me in Chicago and he said, “Please, please, please, would you accept an invitation from Mrs. Lloyd,” who was also a board of trustee member, “just to have tea with her,” or something like that. In Chicago, she is in Chicago. I said, “Alright.” I went there, she lived in Evanston in a huge mansion, swimming pool, forest and so on. And uh, she said—I don’t know is she still living?
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
I’m not sure.
15
[00:53:58]
Interviewee Adli Bishay:
Well anyway, I’m going to say it. Uh, she said, “Did you get your swimming suit?” I said, “No.” She said, “It’s alright, you go to this room, you find a swimming suit. Come, let’s swim.” And we swam and drank Tom Collins in the swimming pool, and after the second or the third one I told her all my feelings about the university, what’s happening to it, and how Beatrice McLain is going to get the university into trouble. “McLain is a very good man, but his wife is going to get us all in trouble. And that is why I resigned.” A day after my visit Dr. Dirks [?] said, “Would you consider withdrawing your resignation?” I said, “I can’t because if I withdraw my resignation, I mean, maybe I go back and McLain tells me “No, you don’t come back. You have already resigned.’”
[00:55:02]
He said, “Just a moment, things will happen. Just withdraw your resignation and go back.” So I went back. McLain had a meeting which had the senior people of the university—I don’t think there was a senate then—where I mentioned why I resigned, without offending McLain of course. And his way of doing it was to get a committee decision to let me withdraw my resignation and come back. Although, one Egyptian who died, unfortunately or fortunately [laughs] I don’t know, was against that. “You resigned, then you should not come back,” and so on. Well, they know that I was pushed by the board to come back.
[00:55:55]
And of course, my resignation was withdrawn, and I continued as usual, because that was during the summer. But this affected me very personally, because I felt that no one can have the decision to do something like that if it’s just because she is the wife of the president. And of course what happened after that? Two months later McLain had to leave. This is why Dirks [?] told me, “Go, I guarantee that you will not have any trouble,” because he knew that he was leaving, and this was when Bartlett came, right?
Interviewer Masha Kirasirova:
[Inaudible] performing science research in Egypt for you as a scientist, uh, for the department and for the research centers? For example, did you have difficulty getting government clearance, or acquiring equipment? Anything like that.
[00:56:53]
Interviewee Adli Bishay:
No, no. I think the government did not interfere at all in our research, even when we got Cobalt 60, which is a radiation source, they did not interfere. And luckily enough, as I mentioned earlier, the equipment we needed we bought from this USAID program, and at that time I had an excellent team of students who worked day and night—I mean it, day and night—to get their master’s and to get research. I mean, the way of getting research done is through degrees, master’s or PhD, and they were very, very good. So, however, later on
16
buying very fancy equipment for research was not encouraged. Although of course, what was encouraged a lot and very good equipment, for undergraduate research.
[00:58:05]
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
Did you meet any other kind of, any other kind of challenges in performing science research while at AUC?
Interviewee Adli Bishay:
No. I think it is a very, uh, encouraging atmosphere. No one interfered in what you say, whether from the administration or from government.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
Now I wonder if you can tell me about some of the other faculty members in the sciences during your time at AUC, and I’ll read out some names and perhaps you could make a comment on some of these people. Um, in no particular order, uh, except perhaps by discipline: Anwar Kinawy.
[00:58:59]
Interviewee Adli Bishay:
Uh, Anwar Kinawy was a difficulty, because when I sent him to the States he was one of the first ones to be sent by me to what— and you see one thing I started also at AUC was to send some of our graduates to the States through scholarships from the universities in the States, not from AUC. And he was given a scholarship at Brown University, uh, which, and the man there was Bray [?], he was a very good friend of mine and we worked together, so he accepted him. But I think the work in the physics department there of Bray was so demanding that Anwar could not manage to continue, so he transferred to RPI. Not only that, I found that I had to send his wife, Pakinam Askalani, to support him because he could not continue alone. Now they are back, and I hope they are doing alright.
[01:00:08]
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
Another is Daisy Fleita.
Interviewee Adli Bishay:
Uh, she was, uh, quiet, uh, hardworking woman, but I did not see any problem or any special excellence or anything like that.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
Um, a couple of others that you had mentioned, Farkhonda Hassan and Fadel Assabghy?
17
Interviewee Adli Bishay:
Well these were two of the top-notch people we had. I remember Farkhonda was working on the ESR, and there was no water and she had to get water from the garden because the Science Building was not finished yet, and she worked also very strongly, and she was the first one who had her master’s degree examination during that conference I mentioned to you at the beginning.
[01:01:05]
Where I arranged to have external examiners will be the US examiners coming, who came originally for the conference. So she had a terrific uh, examination, and of course she managed to go up and up and up, a very ambitious lady. I am not saying young lady now, but [laughs] ambitious lady. Fadel Assabghy of course you know. He was terrific, he’s still terrific, and he’s a very—a good gentleman and a very good scientist.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
And are there any individuals in the sciences, uh, that come to mind that you would have anything to comment on?
Interviewee Adli Bishay:
Well there were many, but of course a number of them left Egypt. So—
[01:01:57]
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
Well can you say something about how the uh, how the faculty changed over the years in your time at AUC? Perhaps in their backgrounds.
Interviewee Adli Bishay:
Um, I think it um, went up in terms of abilities and degrees and conditions and so on, until it reached a plateau, and I don’t think it’s going up any more. But uh, as you remember at the beginning when I went to the Science Department there was only one PhD. When I left the department there were twenty-six PhDs in the department, and that is terrific. Uh, what is happening now, I don’t know.
[01:02:57]
Interviewer Masha Kirasirova:
Uh, can you mention or talk about how the DDC has changed in the time since you’ve left it, the Desert Development Center, and if you think, you know, about its research focus or just about the Center as an institution.
Interviewee Adli Bishay:
[pause] I really don’t think that you—you see in the time I was there the AUC research focus was well known all over Egypt. Now it is not. Research—education yes. And this is unfortunate, and that is one of the reasons why I felt I should leave the Science Department
18
and start the Desert Development. There was no encouragement to get more research facilities, and, and, and, and [unintelligible], I’ll change that and go to the desert.
[01:04:04]
Uh, [pause] even the Desert Development Center, when I started I started on the basis that there has to be an integrated approach, other than agriculture there should be social science, there should be renewable energy, architecture, and so on. Now it’s only agriculture. Oh yes they sell on the campus so many things every day—lovely, and wonderful agriculture. I’m not arguing about that. Very good agriculture, but that’s not desert development. DDC was based on an integrated approach, and this is missing unfortunately. DDC also managed to get money from so many places; now it is not. So that is probably the excuse, but uh, this is one of the jobs which I had to do and managed to do it.
[01:05:04]
Interviewer Masha Kirasirova:
Can you speak a little bit about the Friends of the Environment Development Association, and um, your role there?
Interviewee Adli Bishay:
Okay. [pause] Uh, two years before I left AUC and DDC, the head of the UNDP department, and his assistant Nadia Makram Ebeid, who became later the Minister of Environment, called me saying that Mr. Mercader, the president of, or the head of the UNDP department, would like to visit the AUC Desert Development Center. So, we spent the whole day visiting both sites at Sadat City and South Tahrir, and then two days later he called me and he said he would like to come and see me in Midan al-Tahrir here, and not at uh, in the desert.
[01:06:07]
And I told him, “I’ll come to see you.” He said, “No, no, I will come to see you.” He came, and he told me, “I am very impressed by what you are doing. You are taking into consideration environmental aspects, whether in the case of energy or in the case of soil, and agriculture, and so on. And I would like to appoint you as adviser or consultant to the UNDP in the area of environment.” I said, “No, thank you.” He was astonished and Nadia Makram Ebeid nearly killed me. She knew me before. “Why?” I said, and that was 1990, “Because Egypt does not need just environment, it needs environment and development.” “Alright, you mean sustainable development.” I said, “Exactly.”
[01:06:59]
He said, “Alright, you are our consultant in the area of sustainable development.” So, we agreed that I form a committee of twenty Egyptian nationals in the different areas again, integrated approach, to study and write a report on strategies for sustainable development in Egypt. And after eighteen months we wrote the report—by the way some of the people are ministers and so on now—and submitted it to UNDP, who accepted it, and sent it, sent the
19
copies to different ministries. You know what happened? Only one ministry answered, the rest did not answer, and the ministry which answered was the Ministry of Planning, who said, “Why are these people doing that? We should the same, that thing. This is our job.”
[01:08:02]
So I realized if I depend on the government, I will never get any type of implementation of sustainable development, and at that time it was time for me to think seriously about retirement from AUC. As you know when I left AUC Egyptians had to leave at the maximum age of sixty-five, Americans continued until they are dead. It is not that case now, but it’s alright. So I realized I’m going to retire, so I formed an NGO, which I called Friends of Environment and Development Association, FEDA. And FEDA is a nice word in Arabic by the way, because FEDA means giving yourself or giving something for something. So you can say, “FEDA Egypt.”
[01:08:59]
And some of the people who worked with me in the Desert Development Center, especially students, actually, they were not students, but they were people who had land and so on, joined, and finally we got the NGO registered on the basis of one major mission, and that is implementation of sustainable development for Egypt. After we did that, we realized how naïve we are, because who are we? A small NGO would implement sustainable development strategies for Egypt as a whole. So we decided to move into what we call fragile ecosystems, and by fragile ecosystems we meant coastal areas, desert areas, historic areas.
[01:10:00]
Coastal areas because of the sea effect and so on, and we chose Rosetta, Rashid. Desert areas, again because of the soil and the wind and so on, and we chose Wadi Natrun. And historic areas because of the effect of the human being on the architecture and on the monuments, and we chose Gamaleya, which is here in Egypt near Khan al-Khalili. And we spent three years studying all the aspects of three places: historic, environmental, economic, social, architecture, and so on. Now of course implementing is a much more expensive situation, because in the first three years I had support from UNDP, from Ford Foundation, from the Near East Foundation, and small other foundations.
[01:10:55]
But to implement that mean millions, and so as it happened at that time, the Swiss—the Egyptian-Swiss Development Fund was formed, where Swiss—Egypt owed money to Switzerland, Egypt could not pay it in francs, so they paid it in Egyptian pounds, which would be put in a kind of um, a fund here to support environmental and development projects, especially with NGOs. And at that time again one of my ex-students was [laughs] the head of that fund at that time, and he suggested that we apply. We applied, it took a long time to get approval for Gamaleya. Uh, we could not apply for the three places, but we applied for Gamaleya, and we got it. Mind you, to get that project actually implemented, although we had the money, we had to get twelve government approvals.
20
[01:12:04]
And you see, if you want to work in NGOs, you have to leave everything else—your family, your personal desires and so on, and concentrate on that. We got them. We got the governorate of Cairo to give us two million pounds to support this, and we got the Ministry of Waqf, which is the most difficult ministry, to give us the buildings on, for fifteen years. And we started since 1999, and the project was supposed to finish last October, but thank God, [coughs] Fayza Abul Naga, who is our Minister of International Relations signed the contract for extending that project til December 2006, and that was only last week in the newspapers.
[01:13:15]
What I think is we are doing wonderful things in architecture, in environment, in planning, urban, health, library. We have just opened a new building which we call FEDA Center for Community Development. It has a health unit, it has a computer center, it has a women’s cultural club, children’s club, and so on. We are building now another building which we call Training and Cultural and Technological Upgrading Center.
[01:13:55]
But we first started by renovating one building, which was luckily enough empty, and put in it places so that the people or the workshops which were in the two buildings would move there, so that we can demolish these buildings. I’m wondering however, and my dream is, if we can have a relationship with AUC, so that there will be a.) an aspect of AUC which goes down to the roots in a place like Gamaleya, b.) it will give us sustainability—not Adli Bishay, I plan to retire very soon—and have that kind of connection. To apply it for students, for professors, for research, and so on. So that is my last kind of comment to you regarding the future, which I hope will happen. I don’t know where to start it, whom to talk. I did not talk to anybody about this idea, but I would like to see some kind of a cooperative effort with AUC and FEDA.
[01:15:13]
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
And can you please talk about some of your administrative or governance roles at AUC after you were the chair, or in addition to your time as chair of Science? Work with committees for example.
Interviewee Adli Bishay:
Well I was once the Chairman of the Triple P Committee, and uh, that committee was tough. And it was one of the committees which had to decide a lot about the policies of AUC and so on. And also I was once the Chairman of the Budget Committee. [laughs] As you realize that was very critical also. Uh, I don’t remember other committees. Of course there are committees which are undergraduate and so on, but these are the major two committees I was chairman of.
21
[01:16:07]
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
And can you tell me a bit about how the students changed from when you first came to AUC until your later years with the institution? Um, in terms of science—did they change in their background, their attitudes, their professional goals?
Interviewee Adli Bishay:
Well during the period where I actually taught, uh, it was quite a change, because when I went to AUC the size of course was [laughs] very, very small, but also the students had a very, large percentage of Greeks and Armenians, which is not there at all now. Um, but also the Egyptian students did not come from the, with the best grades. It was only later that AUC found itself in a position to demand higher grades and excellent students.
[01:17:08]
I don’t know the situation now, but I also, I am sorry to say, that what I hear is that AUC is demanding so much tuition that it makes a good student not able to go unless of course he gets a scholarship and the scholarship is not always full scholarship and so on. I mean, AUC is getting more involved in making money rather than in spending it. Although I understand its spending it on the new campus, so that’s something else.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
Are there any other major changes, events, or individuals at AUC that we haven’t discussed that you would like to bring up?
Interviewee Adli Bishay:
I think you must have read so much about the story, the history of AUC that you knew where to push me into talking about, I hope I did not, uh, say anything wrong about anybody, uh, but I was frank, honest, and I hope again that my relationship with AUC would, uh, continue in a way that it will help FEDA and it will help AUC—and not to help Bishay. Bishay is not looking for any support from AUC as a person, but I am looking for support for FEDA in conjunction with programs which AUC already has.
Interviewer Stephen Urgola:
Alright, thank you so much for your time.
Interviewee Adli Bishay:
Thank you very much, it’s two o’clock exactly. You must be looking at your clock.
[01:18:51]
[End of interview]