When Birzeit University launched its new academic year on 4 October, 792 new first-year students from all areas of the West Bank and Gaza joined returning students on the University's handsome
hilltop campus to make up a student body of 2906, the highest student enrollment in University
history. Enrollment in the last academic year numbered 2412.
If the 1993-94 academic year has been marked by high student enrollment, it has also been characterized by rich variety of academic lectures, public events, and exhibits. one and a half years since the University re-opened after a lengthy military-ordered closure, campus life is not only returning to normal, but developing in new directions.
In the first month of the new semester alone, the campus hosted such activities as the "Days of Architecture," which brought noted local and guest architects to lecture and attend an impressive student exhibit and the opening of the University's Sheikh Abdul Rahman Bin Ali Jarisi Commerce building (pictured left). The latter event was accompanied by a stimulating forum chaired by Birzeit University Vice-President Dr. Ibrahim Abu Lughod, to discuss the future of the University. Public lectures and faculty seminars by scholars and public figures such as Dr. Hisham Sharabi of Georgetown University and Dr. Haidar Abdul Shafi, head of the Palestinian delegation, also opened the new academic year and enlivened the atmosphere.
A number of academic departments held guest and public lecture series during the first semester. The Department of Biology and Biochemistry hosted a series which included guest lecturers Dr. Ata Abdel Latif of the Medical College of Georgia and Dr. Mahmoud Abu Hadid of the Roswell Cancer Institute in Buffalo, New York. The Department of Arab Language and Literature launched a year-long cultural program of monthly seminars and round tables. Among the public activities of the Department of English was a 21 October poetry reading by two distinguished poets and lecturers at Concordia College in Montreal, Dr. John Asfour and Dr Garry Geddes. At the event, Birzeit lecturer Izzat Ghazzawi also read from his writings. Pictured above is a guest mathematics lecture.
New initiatives at the University brought new topics to be examined and debated. The University's new Law Center held a day-long seminar on the state of the legal profession in Palestine, attended by many local lawyers and jurists. The Committee for Women's Studies held a 15 January seminar entitled "What Do we Know About Palestinian Women?" where the data on women included in a recent household survey on living conditions in Gaza, the West Bank and Arab Jerusalem was analyzed by participating researchers Rima Hamami and Salim Tamari.
The Registrar reports that, of the 792 new first-year students, the largest number, comprising 258, are enrollment in the Faculty of Engineering, with 176 in Arts, 168 in Commerce and 150 in Science. Forty other students are admitted to the University but not yet to a specific faculty. Yearly guidelines for student admission are set by the Admissions Committee, in conjunction with the University Council, which sets the minimum academic qualification for each Faculty based on the physical and personnel facilities of the University and University needs.
Left: Women students' basketball team.
The new students come from all areas of the West Bank and Gaza. one hundred and twelve new students come from Gaza, 14% of the total new students, an increase from last year. The University is particularly concerned that Gaza students continue to have access to the University, despite the many restrictions on movement which they currently face from the Israeli authorities. Students comes from all areas of the West Bank from Hebron in the south to Jerusalem to Jenin and Tulkarem in the north. Two hundred and ninety new students are female or 36.6%. In the over-all student body, 978 students are female, or 34%. At present, the Registrar's office is engaged in a program of visiting girls' schools to encourage students to consider University education.
During the second semester, total enrollment increased to 2931. "With each increase in the student body," remarked University President Dr. Hanna Nasir, "we take on a new challenge to develop our human and physical resources to improve our University and our society."