You may have become aware of this woman's college recently because Dar Al Hekma is the woman's college in Saudi Arabia where our Secretary of State Hillary Clinton held a Town Hall Meeting a few weeks ago. Dr. Salfeha Abdein is a Vice-Dean in charge of Institutional Development at Dar Al-Hekma and is the person who slated the college as Secretary Clinton's site for her Town Hall meeting while in Saudi Arabia. And I understand why! Like Secretary Clinton, these are a m a z i n g  women who run this university as brilliant scholars and thinkers in their own right; such as Dr. Abedin who earned her Ph.D. at Cambridge in Sociology. What an immense pleasure to meet Dr. Abedin and have the privilege of spending time with her.

My positive impressions didn't stop with Dr. Abedin however! The invitation to present my work and to teach Experimental Animation to the girls at Dar Al-Hekma came from an impressive Chair of the Design Department, Professor Dima Schneider. Professor Schneider came to Dar Al-Hekma from the American University in Beruit, Lebanon five years ago where she had taught for thirteen years and since taking the reins in Jeddah, she has led the Department of Design into a School of Design that is internationally accredited through the UK/London.  Yet another brilliant woman who's background prior to Dar Al-Hekma was as a 3-D computer animation artist.

Lastly, I presented the IIACI Institute alongside my paintings, drawings, scholarship, and film, PARIS IS A WOMAN, the final evening of the TAWASUL II Design Conference. (Translation of Arabic, TAWASUL: to connect, to communicate, to join together.) The two keynote speakers presented: myself and Monsieur Phillipe Jalladeau, a French filmmaker and Film Festival Director who was the first film scholar to bring a Middle Eastern Film Program to Europe many years ago. Jalladeau was educated in France and majored in Oceanography as an undergrad but found himself at Princeton for his graduate work in film with a post-grad stint at Stanford Film Institute where he produced award winning films world-wide. Every morning while there I delighted in his company while eating the absolutely delicious breakfasts at the Hotel Intercontinental ... yummy fresh figs, salmon, and hummus.