October 16, 2003 | Read Time: 7 minutes
With his firm handshake, navy suit, hearty laugh, and accompanying entourage of staff members, Theodore Kattouf, the newly appointed president of America-Mideast Educational and Training Services, looks more like the U.S. ambassador he was for the past five years than a nonprofit leader. Mr. Kattouf has spent the past 31 years in the Foreign Service, culminating in his positions as ambassador to the United Arab Emirates from 1998 to 2001 and ambassador to Syria from 2001 until this past August. He has served as deputy chief of mission, a position that entails managing the operations of embassies, in the capitals of Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Syria, and as the chargé d’affaires of the embassy in Yemen.
Mr. Kattouf’s diplomatic skills may be important as Amideast, which offers English-language courses, runs study-abroad programs, and arranges student exchanges in the Middle East, deals with the charged relations between Americans and Arabs. Mr. Kattouf has no previous nonprofit-organization experience, but he believes his extensive experience with Middle Eastern countries has prepared him well.
“I believe that I know how the people in that region think,” he says. “I believe I know something about their aspirations. I think I know something about their frustrations and the systems that, unfortunately in some cases, hold them back.”
Mary W. Gray, chairwoman of Amideast’s board of directors, echoes Mr. Kattouf’s assertion that his past experience is transferable.
“He has considerable experience in the region,” Ms. Gray says. “That’s always helpful. It’s also helpful, though not required, to be a former ambassador, because they understand the issues that the president will have to address.”
Amideast offers programs in Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, the West Bank and Gaza, and Yemen. It was founded in 1951 as American Friends of the Middle East, and over the years has expanded its offerings to include English-language instruction, professional-development courses for companies whose employees work in the Middle East, and study-abroad and exchange programs for both Americans and Middle Easterners.
Most of the group’s revenue, which was more than $28.2-million in 2002, comes from grants and contracts to administer programs and testing services for students in the Middle East, awarded by the U.S. government, American foundations and corporations, and governments outside the United States.
The organization administers more than 70,000 educational tests to Middle Eastern students interested in studying in the United States, such as the Graduate Record Examinations, or GRE, the Test of English as a Foreign Language, or TOEFL, and the SAT.
After the United States placed new restrictions on student visas following the September 11, 2001, attacks, some Amideast offices abroad noticed waning interest in American study-abroad programs for Middle Eastern students. Mr. Kattouf said that in one country where Amideast has an office, student interest in studying in the United States had dropped by 40 percent, though he wouldn’t name the country.
“I’ve been on the wrong end of rockets and bombs in my career,” says Mr. Kattouf. “I understand, full well, the need to protect the American people. But we have to look at protecting [the U.S.] in a much broader definition than just monitoring our borders. A number of institutions are going to have to work with the U.S. government on a [visa] system that protects this country but also does not humiliate people.”
In an interview, The Chronicle spoke with Mr. Kattouf about his new job:
What made you want to work at Amideast?
I’ve been working in the Middle East for most of my professional career, so I became aware very early in my career of this organization. I came to realize, with the collapse of the peace process, and the wide gulf that separates the United States from many Middle Eastern countries, that we’re not going to solve this peace problem with diplomacy and government-to-government dialogue alone. What goes on on the ground is tremendously important, and, indeed, is going to determine where the Middle East is heading over the next generation. I saw this as a wonderful opportunity.
Why is foreign-language study important?
It’s crucially important in a region in which there is still considerable illiteracy, and in which English is penetrating more and more, but there are vast numbers of people who do not speak English. It’s very important to speak their language. They pride themselves on their language. It [Arabic] is a very rich, complex, and difficult language. And even if you don’t speak it fluently, there is a great appreciation for people who try to learn the language and try to use it.
Has your organization had any trouble being in the Middle East in times of war?
It’s something that you’re always concerned about. For instance, we’re going to set up an office in Iraq. Frankly, it’s going to require a large investment of resources. But we think it’s very important for the Iraqi people to have the kinds of services Amideast can provide. We’re going to be careful where we go and how we start it. We also work in the West Bank and Gaza. Of course, every American has to be concerned with the hostility in the region that has started to build against the United States. But that’s what we’re there to help deal with.
How do you deal with critics who say your group believes all foreigners should speak English and attend American universities?
When I was in Saudi Arabia for three years, we had two bombings. I sensed, before a lot of Americans, that things were not going in a good direction. Yet the country was being administered rather well in many areas, and frankly, the reason for that is that the technocratic class, by and large, had been educated in the United States because Saudi Arabia did not have indigenous universities at that time.
I’m not suggesting for a minute that Arabs should not have their own indigenous educational systems, but there is still a tendency in the Arab world to teach in a rather rote manner, expecting students to give back to the teacher what the teacher has imparted to them.
There is not enough emphasis put on student participation. There is often, therefore, a lack of critical thinking. Students come out without those values that allow them to question what an extremist might be telling them. And we’re not just trying to bring students to this country. Far from it. We’re working with institutions over there to help them get accreditation, to help them with partnerships with U.S. institutions, and indeed that’s the direction that most of the Middle East is taking.
Something important will be lost if we close our doors. We have to monitor what people are learning about the United States. And just like there is a hugely distorted image of the Middle East in this country, there’s the same thing existing in the urban Islamic world about the United States. They think that Arnold Schwarzenegger movies are what the U.S. is all about. It’s important that at least some segment of that society is getting their educations in this country, because only then can they see the duality for themselves.
ABOUT THEODORE KATTOUF, PRESIDENT OF AMERICAN-MIDEAST EDUCATIONAL AND TRAINING SERVICES
Education: Earned a bachelor’s degree in foreign service from Pennsylvania State University in 1968 and spent 1982-3 at Princeton University as a State Department mid-career fellow studying at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.
Previous jobs: Served three and a half years in the U.S. Army. Under the auspices of the U.S. State Department, served as a Middle East analyst and an economic and commercial officer in Kuwait, a political officer in Syria, and an international-relations officer in the State Department’s Near East Bureau, and was the deputy chief of mission or chargé d’affaires in embassies in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Yemen. Also served as the director of the State Department’s Office of Lebanon, Jordan and Syria Affairs. Was ambassador to Syria and the United Arab Emirates.
What he’s reading now: Corporate Governance: The McGraw-Hill Executive MBA Series, by John Colley, Wallace Stettinius, George Logan, and Jacqueline Doyle (McGraw-Hill, 2003).
