In 1998, our Mid-East Jan Term’s most teachable moment was in Cairo. One of our most diligent students carried our major textbook with him everywhere—Arthur Goldschmidt’s A Concise History of the Middle East. I never saw him without it in his hands, and assumed he slept with it.
On the first floor of our hotel, a man came up to him and said: “I presume from the textbook you are carrying that you are here on an academic program?”
After the student affirmed his assumption, the man surprised him by saying: “I am Arthur Goldschmidt –the author!”
Professor Goldschmidt was then told, as other students joined the conversation, that their professor was Henry Bucher from Austin College in Sherman, Texas. Then the conversation got more interesting when Goldschmidt told them that he was at the American University of Beirut with Bucher in the late 1950s! He asked: Where is he?
I was upstairs with my wife Cat when the phone rang. One of my students said that I should come down and meet Arthur Goldschmidt. With great skepticism I replied that we would come instantly. Cat and I presumed that this was “bait” to have us come to a surprise party to celebrate our religious wedding ceremony yesterday at the base of Mount Sinai in Saint Catherine’s Monastery.*
What a surprise to actually meet the author of our major textbook who just happened to be in the same hotel at the same time as we were! Of course, our class had dinner with him and then met with our students to answer questions. Of course, he signed the book of the student who was the most thrilled(after me) by this coincidence!
Cairo’s population is 22 million (New York City’s is 7 million) and it has thousands of hotels. This surprise encounter with Dr. Goldschmidt was the most ‘teachable moment’ of our 1998 January Term. Always expect the unexpected!
*Our legal marriage ceremony was recent--in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where Cat’s sister was the only witness. Goldschmidt’s parents were attached to our USA’ s embassy in Teheran, Iran at the time he came to Beirut. His textbook has twelve editions. He was a professor at Penn State University. He has also published books on Egypt’s history.