Senior Samuel Elisha Gentle, awill serve as a Rotary Club Ambassador in Cairo, Egypt for the 2010-2011 school year.
Gentle is one of four students in Alabama awarded the Rotary Club ambassadorial scholarship. The $15,000 scholarship allows Gentle to study for one year at the American University in Cairo (AUC) while working toward a master’s degree.
According to a statement by the Rotary Club, “The purpose of the ambassadorial scholarships program is to further international understanding and friendly relations among people of different countries and geographical areas.”
Part of Gentle’s duties while abroad includes making presentations to the Rotary Club in Cairo about his life as a student at UAB and as an American and assisting the club with projects.
“I think the most important thing I want to share is that America is not a monolithic entity of people who think the same way,” said Gentle.  “I want to illustrate the diversity of opinions and people just from region to region or state to state.”
Gentle, originally from Oklahoma, is an economics major with a minor in Arabic. He is also in the UAB’s honors program.
“I chose to minor in Arabic because I wanted a foreign language that would be marketable but also unique — one that not a lot of people spoke and would be a distinctive feature as I looked for a career,” said Gentle.
Another reason Gentle decided to study economics and Arabic was because of his future goals.
“I ultimately want to work as a consultant for non-profit and joint-venture enterprises in the Middle East,” said Gentle.
Gentle believes a year of study at the American University in Cairo is a wonderful opportunity to further his career and personal goals while being immersed in another culture.
“The American University in Cairo is kind of the flagship American university in the Middle East and is very well known and respected. Also, Egypt is a very important country not only in U.S./Middle East relations, but also in the Arab world,” said Gentle.
“I think it is very important if you are going to be working in that part of the world to have spent time in Egypt and to know it and know what goes on there,” added Gentle.
Lamia Zayzafoon, Gentle’s Arabic professor at UAB who also helped him complete the application, agrees.
“I think it is a great university. They have some of the best teachers in the world and they also have a great publishing press, and they specialize in Middle Eastern literature.  It is a very good school for him,” said Zayzafoon.
“What is even more important than history is that you show empathy for the living, and I think Elisha understands not just the past, the history, but he understands the present and the living. I think that’s his triumph,” said Zayzafoon.
Gentle hopes to achieve many things during his year of study.
“I hope to be able to contribute to repairing the U.S. image that has been tarnished abroad,” Gentle said. “Although that goal sounds kind of lofty, I think it is really something that can only be done one person at a time.”
In order to achieve his goals, Gentle said he is going to keep an open mind and try to learn about the culture as much as he can.
“I think my best avenue is to be myself, be who I am, and find common interests with people I come in contact with,” he said.
The Rotary Club ambassadorial scholarship is highly competitive. According to Don Sweeney, chairperson of the Rotary Ambassadorial scholarship committee, this year the committee interviewed 12 finalists and awarded four scholarships.
“The most successful applicants are very well-rounded,” Sweeney said. “They are service oriented, which resonates with the ideals of Rotary International. They must have the qualities that will enable them to be ambassadors, as the scholarship signifies, in a foreign country.”
“The ambassadorial skills include having excellent communication skills with proficiency in the language of the country where they want to study and knowledge about and empathy for the cultural challenges that they will confront during their study abroad,” he said.
“His  scholarship, his range of talents from music to running marathons to master[ing] foreign languages were absolutely superb, and his enthusiasm and communication skills convinced the committee that he would be one of the best ambassadorial scholars that we have awarded in recent years,” he added.
Carol Garrison, UAB president, believes Gentle’s scholarship is an accomplishment not just for Gentle, but UAB as well.
“Elisha embodies the entrepreneurial spirit that makes UAB one of the country’s great places of higher learning,” Garrison said. “With the support of our faculty and staff, he has carved out a unique track of study that blends the economics curriculum from the UAB school of business with Arabic language studies from our department of foreign languages and literatures.”
After Gentle’s year of study at the American University in Cairo, he hopes to secure additional funding to stay for another year and complete his master’s degree in Middle Eastern studies.

Most people would expect UAB senior Cameron White to complete a two month study abroad program in London, Paris, Florence, or some other cliché, yet brilliant European city rich in history, gift shops and tourists.  However, Cameron chose to live in the Middle East, a place filled with just as much history but not nearly as susceptible to tourists.

At UAB, Cameron is majoring in Accounting and Financing with minors in Arabic and Economics and Quantitative Methods. In Egypt, Cameron spent his time at the Arabic Language Institute in the American University in Cairo (AUC) studying Modern Standard Arabic, Egyptian Dialect, and Arabic News Media. 

“I’m a student of the Arabic language, intent on being fluent eventually, so when an opportunity presents itself to help me increase my proficiency in the language and learn more about the cultures of the Middle East, I take it. 

Although Cameron once lived in Tunisia, another Arab country, he was, admittedly, ill prepared for his experience in Egypt. “The metropolis of Cairo and its massive crowds are a far cry from the laid-back streets of Tunis.  However, I was surprised that despite being a large cosmopolitan hub, the culture of Egypt is far more conservative than that of Tunisia.” 

White stands in front of King Tut's tomb in Egypt.

Many would expect nothing less than a culture shock for an American entering the Middle East. And although Cameron experienced several usual, yet unexpected, linguistic and cultural challenges, he did not consider the environment hostile- just different.  “I never felt unsafe in Egypt. There are plenty of tourist police, who are there to keep you from getting hassled by merchants. But they’re also pretty nice and give pretty good directions when you lose your way… You say ‘Good Morning,’ or Sabah al-kheir and they respond, ‘Morning of roses and may the blessings of God be upon you.’  That’s hard to beat. “

So, how did Cameron’s family react to their son spending two months in an area surrounded by political turmoil? “When I was in the planning phase of my study abroad, there was a terrorist attack in Cairo in which a bomb blast killed a tourist. They were naturally concerned that I might be going into a dangerous situation, but you try to put these things into perspective. Yes, the attack was terrible, but that’s not indicative of the entire country. I mean, when someone is murdered in California, I don’t panic and get on the next flight to Canada. So then I couldn’t write-off Egypt just because of one isolated incident… rampant violence and terrorism [is not] the status quo.”

In its entirety, White feels his studies at UAB and his experiences in Egypt have affected his life positively. Studying Arabic and experiencing the language and its culture abroad have not only opened new job opportunities for him, but have also allowed him to see parts of the world that many on the outside unnecessarily judge.  “Sure, studying in Spain, France, or Great Britain, would be nice, but there’s just something about living in the desert and being under constant ‘adventure conditions’ that appeals to me. That is to say, more risk leads to more return.”