Virginia Tech's Middle East and North Africa graduate program for electrical engineering, computer engineering and computer science recently reopened its doors after being halted by the Egyptian government.
According to Sedki Riad, director of the VT-MENA program, when the Egyptian government shut down the country's Internet during protests that began on Jan. 25, contact between VT-MENA's Cairo campus and its Blacksburg colleagues was severed.
At that time, classes were canceled and students were forced to keep up with work from home. Some classes in the program are taught in person by faculty, but about half, according to VT-MENA's current timetable on its website, are taught by professors at Tech via video stream. Luckily, there was already a system in place to record all conference-style classes, allowing students to rewatch the footage at a later point.
However, the main concern for Riad and staff was the lack of communication between the program in Blacksburg and the one in Egypt. "We wanted to make sure that everyone was safe and sound," Riad said.It was nearly impossible to get that confirmation with cell phone service also unavailable.
"We were in constant communication with the students, and suddenly we were not," Riad said.
"It was stressful for students here, because they were unable to be in contact with friends and family over there," said Naren Ramakrishnan, associate head for graduate studies in computer science at Tech.
Ramakrishnan said that his department tried e-mailing students and staff in Egypt, but were unable to speak with anyone until the Internet was restored four or five days later. "There was a feeling of uncertainty," Ramakrishnan said. "There is still some uncertainty."
Another concern was a loss of class time for students approaching graduation. Some students had exams that were canceled, but they were able to make them up soon thereafter.
Ramakrishnan said he was asking himself, "How will they (graduate) if this lasts longer?"Hoping for a quick restoration of the Internet, Ramakrishnan and the department did not arrange for an alternative education plan.
The program lost no money during the down period. However, many banks in Egypt were closed and payments to professors and staff members were delayed.
"I was ready to extend cash loans if any of them were in real tight situations," Riad said.
Riad, born in Egypt, was excited to see the citizens taking a role in their government during the protests that began on January 25 and lasted through February into March.
"I was pleased to see that people were starting a peaceful movement."