The following, an e-mail from John Agresto, is a progress report on the American University of Iraq. Agresto, the former president of St. John’s College in New Mexico, has played a vital role in opening up the universities of Iraq once again to the outside world. It is particulary heartening to learn of the Iraqi campus’ strong core curriculum, which would appear to provide better academic fare than many a U.S. campus:

The American University of Iraq in Sulaimani is progressing faster and better than I had ever imagined. We now have over 250 undergraduates and about four dozen MBA graduate students. Joshua Mitchell, from Georgetown (who took over from me as Provost and
Acting Chancellor) has done an extraordinary job of growing the university and keeping up standards. In addition to the MBA, AUIS offers a Bachelor in Business, a BS in Computer Science, and a four year liberal arts degree we’ve called International Leadership. Soon we hope to add separate majors in economics, political science, and English, as well as programs in petroleum engineering and in botany/biology/ecology.
As always, all students are taught to speak, read, and write English at an advanced level before they enter the academic program. Once accepted into the program, all students take almost two years of a core curriculum that includes American and European history, mathematics, political science, moral philosophy, English composition and literature, science, and computer
science. There’s a soccer team, a debate club, a women’s volleyball team, and even a Shakespeare drama club. Most students are on scholarships and all classes are co-ed. Honestly, it’s a better program of studies that you’ll find at almost any American college or university.

Note too that AUIS is hiring, in case any PBC followers are up for a change of scenery and, no doubt, adventure:

Since we’re growing fast yet still insistent on keeping classes small
(virtually all classes are seminars, not lecture classes), we will need to
hire as many as another fifteen faculty for next year.
So, Josh and I are looking to recruit faculty … We are looking for people in English,
economics, business administration, computer science, history, music, math,
general science, and a few other fields. We will also need instructors in
English as a Second Language (there a bachelors degree plus teaching
experience are the minimum qualifications.)
We’re also looking for people to head administrative offices, especially in
the area of finance and accounting, as well as help in public relations and
community outreach.
Our salaries are highly competitive. We also offer free housing, health
insurance, on-call medical services, and airfare there and back … And the chance to work with students who are excited about learning, happy to be in an environment where they’re expected to think and talk rather than just memorize and repeat, and ever so respectful of their
professors… well, that’s worth even more.
The university is in the town of Sulaimani, which is as open, safe, secular, and welcoming to Americans as you could imagine.
Josh and I will be looking over cv’s and inquiries over the next two weeks, and interviewing candidates in D.C. at the end of the month. Interested parties should contact Josh right away. It’s a chance to do something extraordinarily rewarding, good for higher education, good for Iraq and these students, and good for our country as well.