A press release issued today from the American University in Cairo reports that Lisa Anderson, Columbia’s Shotwell Professor of International Relations, former chair of the CU political science department, and former dean of SIPA has been named the next provost of the American University in Cairo.  Anderson, a specialist in politics of the Middle East and former director of Columbia’s Middle East Institute, will succeed Dr. Earl Sullivan who has been the provost of the American University of Cairo since 1973.   Anderson will be serving as chief academic officer of the famed Egyptian university at a time of great change for the school, as the school’s more than 5000 students and full-time faculty of 400 move over the next year to a brand new, $400 million campus in the New Cairo neighborhood. 

According to the press release, the selection of a professor of Anderson’s caliber to head up academics at the university “is a reflection of AUC’s increasing prestige internationally as an institution of higher education,” and Anderson, a former president of the Middle East Studies Association, chair of the board of directors of the Social Science Research Council, and CFR member said that she is “privileged to be a part of this venture.”  Bwog wishes this giant of political science scholarship the best of luck as she moves East and on to the pursuit of new academic challenges!