JRMC Department in Good Hands

It has been a year since Dr. Hussein Amin - who is among other things, Senior Editor at the Adham Center - was appointed chairman of AUC's Journalism and Mass Communications Department.

It would be tempting to call him a workaholic. Over the past few months he has published extensively, started work on a new book, organized and chaired an international seminar, and undertaken emergency recruitment of new faculty for the department, all while serving on a number of media-related committees.

Most recently, Dr. Amin published a paper about the status of media in Egypt in the Encyclopedia of International Media and Communications 2003. He has already contributed articles about media in Egypt and the region to other encyclopedias such as the Encyclopedia of Advertising and the Encyclopedia of Television that are in the process of being published.

Right now, he is putting together a collection of essays which deal with the concept of Global Mediation. Many media scholars throughout the world will contribute to it. Indeed the relationship of globalization to media is of critical importance to Dr. Amin, who is active in a group called GRAD which stands for globalization, regionalization, and democratization.

Last June, Dr. Amin organized and chaired the First International Seminar about Arab Media. The participants were the head of the EU delegation in Egypt, Tan Boag, and the chairman of the Arab Media Association, Khaled El Farm. It was a closed seminar which provided the participants with the opportunity to engage in self-criticism. The seminar touched on such issues as how Arab media is addressing issues to the West and how Arabs perceive Western culture and values.

Dr. Amin confesses, "We have certain biases against the West. We have to admit it and work on it if we would like to develop a relationship with the West." The most important result in this seminar is the creation of the Arab-European Media Forum, which plans to publish a newsletter that addresses the European and Arab media.

This past summer, Dr. Amin was largely preoccupied with administrative work. Some faculty members decided to leave at the last minute giving Dr. Amin late notice. However, he managed to handle this problem by hiring on short notice an outstanding teacher and professional in the field and recruited locally as well to fill in.

Over the past year Dr. Amin has been engaged in introducing new facilities for the department. Last semester the JRMC launched its own student photo gallery. It was quite successful. The Caravan, the AUC newspaper, had a wonderful year as well. Dr. Amin considers the JRMC's present understaffed status a challenge and a mission.

Dr. Amin is not only dedicated to academia: he has always been involved in the outside world as well. Working for professional organizations like ART, ERTU, Nilesat, and CNN has given him a taste for professional life, instead of being exclusively locked into work at AUC. But Dr. Amin believes that knowledge is power, and that knowledge is situated in AUC. He enjoys his work at AUC and acquires new information everyday from his colleagues. He says, "We always debate points, share thoughts, engage in discussions." It is a big responsibility being the head of the JRMC, the department with the highest enrollment at AUC. But one gets the impression it is just a piece of cake for Dr. Hussein Amin.

By Azza Enanie