Announcement Regarding Dean Ahmad Dallal

June 22, 2021

Dear Members of the Georgetown University Community:

It is with appreciation and gratitude for his leadership that I write to share that Ahmad Dallal, Ph.D., Dean of Georgetown University in Qatar (GU-Q), has been selected to serve as President of the American University in Cairo, effective this October.

When he began his service as Dean in 2017, he brought with him experience as a scholar and leader in higher education, having served as a Provost at American University in Beirut and as Professor and Chair of our Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies at Georgetown. Over these past four years, his leadership has helped to strengthen GU-Q—growing our faculty, deepening our research focus, and expanding our student body to be larger and more diverse.

He has led the launch of new academic programs in undergraduate, graduate, and executive education, including five new minors in Economics, Government, History, Philosophy, and Theology, a new post-doctoral fellowship, and an Ambassador in Residence program. He has developed deeper collaborations with peer institutions in Doha, with the Qatar Foundation, and with other international institutions, leading our engagement with the Education Above All Initiative, focused on access to education during conflict, and helping to organize a major joint conference in Doha with the Pontifical Academy for Life on End-of-Life Care.

His emphasis on research has supported the work of our faculty at GU-Q—who, collectively, have now published more than 100 books—and provided new direction for our Center for International and Regional Studies, which is now organized into three thematic areas: Regional Studies, Environmental Studies, and Race and Society.

Dean Dallal has provided extraordinary vision for what GU-Q can continue to contribute as the campus of a Catholic and Jesuit university located within the Middle East—creating opportunities for scholarship, collaboration, leadership, and dialogue at a moment when international engagement could not be more important.

As Dean Dallal prepares for his new role, I wish to offer him our sincere appreciation and very best wishes. We will provide an update on interim leadership and our search process in the time ahead.

I invite our community to join me in congratulating and thanking Dean Dallal for all of his contributions on behalf of our University community.

Sincerely,

John J. DeGioia