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GAPP Alumni Event

November 15, 2020

The School of Global Affairs and Public Policy(GAPP) prepares its graduates to take the lead in shaping the future of their nations and the world at large, with a strong belief in the interaction of international and public affairs, an unwavering commitment to ethics and the rule of law, and a recognition of the unique role that the media play in shaping public policy. 

 

We wanted to further build on this and create a platform to connect us with our outstanding Alumni all over the world. The GAPP Alumni Event took place on Sunday, October 25, 2020, in collaboration with the Office of Alumni, this was the first GAPP Alumni Event to take place and there will be definitely more coming up. The purpose of this event was to discuss the overall challenges and opportunities for global and public affairs in a changing environment. The panel consisted of two speakers from the GAPP Alumni Rawan Lasheen and Elena Habersky who joined Nabil Fahmy, the founding Dean of the School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the American University in Cairo and the former Foreign Minister of Egypt, to share with us their own journey and perspective. Elena is currently Project Leader at The Center for Migration and Refugee Studies, The American University in Cairo, Egypt, and completed her masters in Migrations and Refuges studies at the school of GAPP. Rawan did both her bachelor's and Masters at GAPP she graduated from JRMC in 2015 and completed her Masters of Arts, TV and Digital Journalism, Kamal Adham Center, at American University in Cairo (AUC) in 2017. She is currently working as a Business TV presenter at Al Ghad TV. Sherihan El Sawah, assistant to the Dean was moderating the entire discussion. 

 

Dean Nabil Fahmy started the discussion by talking about the achievements of the school of GAPP and the current challenges. Both Rawan and Elena shared their experience and discussed the current challenges in their fields offering possible solutions from their perspective. There was active participation from the audience who sent questions to the three panelists. 

 

According to Elena:

This was a fantastic opportunity to partake in the first online GAPP alumni event hosted by Dean Nabil Fahmy. The topic of how to take my academic background in Migration and Refugee Studies and apply it to global challenges and opportunities allowed me the chance to think through how I use my experience from GAPP in my daily work at the Center for Migration and Refugee Studies. It was also a pleasure to listen to my colleague, Rawan, on her experience in media, something seemingly disconnected, yet so important to speaking on the issue of migration for the general public. Finally, it was great to discuss my academic journey through CMRS with current and former students and to discuss how best to use your education from GAPP both for personal advantage, but also for the advantage of society.

 

Rawan also describes her experience as a speaker in the event :

Dean Nabil Fahmy was very generous to have me on such panel to share my experience in the media profession and how the GAPP School helped out shaping this career. Preparing for the talk and expecting questions that need definitive answers and learning how to be punctual by giving all the information you need in a certain time frame. This definitely gave me the chance to be in the speakers shoe and give out my best to be helpful for the audience. An experience that I would love to be involved more in and be engaged again in the future. Again, GAPP School succeeded in engaging alumni to be part of shaping the future of uprising generation by sharing experiences and giving advice.I have always believed that the discussion panels the GAPP School holds fequently are beneficial in a way of engaging students in what's going on in the community and the world in general and this puts them in the path of their future careers. Attending several panels in the past couple of years were eye opening to many things that made me understand politics, migration issues especially in the past decade, the roles of international institutions and many more. As a media person, this gave me a further push to understand where does every side stand and what was the historic angle of any topic; therefore, I find all those discussion panels with its various speakers and guests are very beneficial for all of us especially they are up to date and gives feedback on various issues going on.