First day of session two went great. Mr. Wood Herren and Dr. Jason Kirby had just arrived for about a day, but next day was “teaching” as usual. The university administration was rather welcoming, and facilitated their teaching needs. It is a busy daily schedule, but hopefully they could enjoy Cairo’s evenings.

To my left is Mr. Herren and next to him is my dear friend Kirby.

This is my first blog regarding UAB’s CEM certificate program being taught in Egypt. The Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering (CCEE) Department at UAB took the collaborative initiative with Misr University of Science and Technology (MUST), in Cairo Egypt, to begin teaching the graduate level courses this July 2008. I arrived in Egypt on July 10, and started teaching two days later. Jetlag was only an issue for a day or two. The program is 4 weeks long, split in two two-week sessions, with two three-hour long courses per session. The course I taught was CE 601 Construction Methods, which was well received by the students.

Oh, to let you know something about the students, they are all working practitioners at some of the biggest construction companies in Egypt. Many of them are really liked the program so much that they are planning to keep on going for their Master’s degree.

Here is a picture of me during one of lectures.

And here is a group photo of the Dean Linda Lucas, Dr. Fouad Fouad (Chairman of CCEE Dept), Dr. Rafaat Mahmoud (President of MUST), and Dr. Baher Aboustait (Chairman of the Construction Engineering Department at MUST), and me there at the extreme left.