“This kind of connection that develops here between students, students and staff, is something that I have never seen in the world.”
In the story of Professor Amr Abdalla, UPEACE seems to be a very meaningful chapter. His bond with the university comes from long ago; he understands and knows it as very few do. He has experienced diverse historical moments of the institution and has seen it from varied perspectives. Maybe that is why he so fiercely believes it to be such a unique place. “There is no place in the world like UPEACE,” says Amr.
Amr was just awarded a Professor Emeritus status by UPEACE on 9 September 2019, “in recognition of his distinguished academic service to our university,” states the award certificate. He currently teaches face-to-face and online courses, in addition to advising students. He is one of the first faces that students see when taking their Foundation Course at the beginning of the academic year. From 2004-2013, this place was his home - physically, while it remains that way in spirit.
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It all began in 2003, when the then Washington-based American University professor and UPEACE visiting professor, Dr. Mohammed Abu Nimer, introduced Amr to Dr. Mary King – an active participant in the U.S. Civil Rights Movement and a professor at UPEACE herself. Dr. King sought Amr to help her and other colleagues design the first Gender Programme for UPEACE under the leadership of Professor Dina Rodriguez. UPEACE was going through expansion and growth, a time best known as the Revitalization, prompted by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. She knew Amr´s expertise in research methods with a gender perspective based on his work at George Mason University, where he was working at that time.
Amr knew little about Costa Rica and much less about UPEACE. However, when his help was requested, he did not hesitate to assume the task. Soon he was on campus working alongside professors from different countries designing the Gender Programme, and preparing the curriculum on the first UPEACE Research Methods course. By the end of that meeting in April 2003, he was offered a visiting teaching position.
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Amr came to teach his first course at UPEACE in November 2003. Three weeks was enough for him to charm his students through his unique way of teaching and incredible passion when standing in front of a class. By the time he was back on campus some months after to review thesis proposals, the word had spread and other UPEACE professors were asking Amr to teach some of their courses in the International Peace Studies and the International Law programs.
Yet, it was not only Faculty members who noticed his remarkable way of teaching; the news went all the way up to then-Rector, Martin Lees, who heard the roar of clapping on Amr’s last day of class and immediately sought out the man who had caused such an ovation.
Amr and Martin Lees met and rapidly connected professionally, personally, and even on a humorous level. As Amr recalls, “He was one of those people that can look through you.” Just a couple of meetings later, Rector Lees offered him the position of Dean. In August 2004 he assumed his new position as Professor and Dean of UPEACE. Two years later, he became the University’s Vice Rector for Academic Affairs, and a year later the Vice Rector.
“I stayed for 10 years, all I can say is that those 10 years of UPEACE were the best of my life, no question about it. I do not want to make it sound like everything was romantic and easy; at times it was very difficult, challenging, yet always rewarding. For the 10 years here, I felt like I had the entire UPEACE on my shoulders. I was responsible for everything, the administration, the money, the academic, the work overseas, I was working three jobs in one, and I was doing it with all my heart, I was so happy. I was lucky to be surrounded by equally committed colleagues and leadership.”
He is certain that the kind of learning that happens at UPEACE allows deeper connections with and among students - what he finds to be a unique characteristic of the place, and a big reason why he always feels at home.
“Maybe that is what I do in my class, I do not talk theory and academic stuff in an abstract way; I have to talk about them of course, but I do it by connecting them via relevant examples, real stories of life, humor, mixed with the explanation. I know that when I do this, the connection I develop with students becomes so deep. This kind of connection that develops here between students, students and staff, is something that I have never seen in the world.”
However, it is not all about teaching. For Amr, being in Costa Rica, on a campus immersed in nature and multiculturalism, mixes together to provide a magical scenario where unique human bonds happen – bonds that go beyond our campus and make UPEACErs remain connected no matter where they are.
“That UPEACEr connection is the most valuable thing I came out with, perhaps in my life.” – Amr Abdalla.
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UPEACE Alumni are his first choice when looking for someone to work with in other countries. In 2018 He was working on a project about Violent Extremism along with four universities in Somalia, Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda, where his counterparts were all UPEACE Alumni or have been trained by them. Amr is certain that their common experience and shared language creates an immediate bond even when they have never met before. “They are all UPEACErs,” he says – a term that he also attributes to himself – “Actually, I get the copyright for that. People know I started that one,” he says laughing. He remembers using it for the first time at a graduation ceremony, and since then it became THE word. Thanks for that one, Amr!
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But there is a story to Amr before UPEACE- the experiences that got him so passionate and committed to Peace and Conflict Studies in the first place. He is originally from Egypt, where he went to law school and worked as a public prosecutor for around 7 years. It was there that his life had a plot twist in 1981, when Islamic Jihad members killed Muhammad Anwar el-Sadat, the President of his country, and Amr was part of the team in charge of the investigation.
While conducting judicial interviews with the Islamic Jihad members, he understood the depth and complexity of religious violent extremism and terrorism: “This is not only about the criminal case, it is also about culture, religion, history, international relations. If you want to really address that issue from the root, you will have to understand all those dimensions of conflict, not only the criminal act.”
In the midst of this, by a stroke of luck, he believes, Amr went to the United States in 1984 to study social and cultural changes in societies as part of a Fellowship at George Mason University. During that year, the institution was promoting their new Master´s Degree in Conflict Resolution. Their marketing caught Amr´s attention: “The advertisement of the M.A. program declared that it was the first in the world of its kind, looking at conflict from the sociological, physiological, and cultural perspectives, not only the legal one.” He was hooked; he decided that this was what he wanted to do for the rest of his life. He returned to Egypt and to his prosecutor job in Egypt in 1985-1986, then emigrated to the US in 1987 where he went on to complete an M.A. in Sociology and Conflict Studies, followed by a Ph.D. in Conflict Analysis and Resolution, both from George Mason, and launched his new career in academia. A few years later, he would meet Mary King. And the rest is history…