The MFJS Reporter — Winter 2020 T-R

Today is a teaching day, while other days may be research days. His focus is solely on the students, classes, grading, and meetings. On days where there are no classes, he spends his time researching international intercultural communication.

“Over the past five years, I’ve been working mostly on the use of media by militant extremist groups[ND1] ,” El Damanhoury explained. “I’ve been focusing on ISIS and Al-Qaeda over the past five years, doing research and publishing on them.”

Being a professor is not just about teaching. Someone in the field is constantly expected to both educate the upcoming generations and invest in research. Working almost every single day of the week, a professor, on average, earns $78,470 a year. But for El Damanhoury, it’s worth it.

“Teaching is a very noble thing because your investing in the future,” El Damanhoury said. “If the education is not up to par, then you’re messing up the future.”

Most universities require a doctoral degree in the field the professor intends on teaching in, which, in turn requires at least a bachelor’s degree, and sometimes a master’s degree. For El Damanhoury, however, going through this process was a little different.

“In Egypt I was in a public university, Cairo University, and usually the hiring process for TAs and stuff, it’s very different from here,” El Damanhoury explained, “They choose the top students, and they offer them a job, and you can take it or leave it, but you cannot necessarily apply for it.”

El Damanhoury was one of six hired for the English section at his University. While a TA, he was working in advertising in the journalism field. He enjoyed it, then went on to receive his masters from Ohio University and his PhD from Georgia State University.

Working at the University of Denver is his first job as an assistant professor. Despite this, however, has already discovered the most important skills for the job. 

“I think being very open, there’s a lot of things that keep changing on so many levels,” El Damanhoury said. 

Originally believing that after a few years, his personally education would be coming to an end, El Damanhoury quickly realized he was wrong.

“The first thing that happened, in August actually, I went to a teaching workshop, and interestingly enough I met full professors who had been out there for twenty years, if not more, and they are still learning about teaching,” he continued.

He believes that, especially in the field of media, everything is constantly changing. Technology is always evolving.

“For example, yesterday, I had checked the drone camera and I was experimenting with it over the weekend,” El Damanhoury mentioned. “Even though I don’t have it in a class per say, as of now. Just to be ready to incorporate drones whenever I want to.”

Fortunately for those hoping to enter the career path, postsecondary education is growing at a rate of 11%,much higher than the average of five percent.

However, for those looking to follow postsecondary education as a job, it’s not all butterflies and rainbows. For El Damanhoury, grading is his least favorite part.

“Grading, if it’s a large class,” El Damanhoury said. “If it’s a large class I would say grading. It’s not something I dislike, but there are other aspects of being a professor that I like more than grading.”

Many moments outshine the negatives for him. For example, while a TA, El Damanhoury was forced to teach a class two days in a row without the professor. After already reviewing past topics, he had to find a way to present new information to the students.

“I put together a presentation on the state on advertising and how advertising works in Egypt, what is the hierarchy in there, what is the workflow, examples of the latest advertising trends, and stuff like that,” El Damanhoury recalled.

“They were very engaged, it was a huge class, maybe 100 students, if not more. At the end, I told them before they ask me how this is related to the actual reading or books, it’s not really closely related, but I thought that this would be interesting to hear. Then they all stood up and started clapping.”

El Damanhoury concluded by giving tips for prospective employees. Staying open continued to be very important to him and expecting to always learn more about education.

“There’s a lot going on in our lives as professors and in the lives of our students as well,” El Damanhoury mentioned. “Having that empathy and trying to take an extra step to make sure you’re bringing other students that are maybe falling behind for any reason. You don’t know what’s going on in their lives, so caring, I guess, is the thing I would say for myself and for future professors.”