Off the Wire . . .

That is how the White House press release of May 16, 2001, announced the ambassadorial appointment of Marcelle Wahba '69. Following the brief summary of her extensive career in the diplomatic service, there was further identification: "A resident of Sacramento, California, she is a graduate of the Western College for Women in Oxford, Ohio." 

Marcelle's appointment was duly confirmed by the Senate, and she was sworn in by Secretary of State Colin Powell on October 1, 2001. Shortly thereafter, she and her husband, Derek Farwagi, a marketing and human resource development consultant, took up residence in the UAE capital of Abu Dhabi. Their daughter, Morwenna O. Farwagi lives in Australia. 

Born in Cairo, Egypt, where her father was registrar and director of admissions at the American University, Marcelle is the first Egyptian-American -- as well as the first woman of Arab descent -- to be appointed ambassador to the United Arab Emirates. The family immigrated to the United States in 1967. 

Marcelle's career path might have been foretold at Western: She majored in political science and minored in international relations. After graduation, she worked for the Department of Human Resources in Seattle, Washington, and as Grants and Projects Officer back at American University in Cairo. But then her diplomatic service began in earnest. She was Deputy Policy Officer in the Near East Office of the U.S. Information Agency in 1987-88; Press Attaché and Embassy Spokesperson in Cairo, 1988-91; Public Affairs Officer at the U.S. Embassy in Nicosia, Cyprus, 1991-94; Counsellor for Press and Cultural Affairs in Amman, Jordan, 1995-99, and in Cairo, 1999-01. 

At her swearing-in ceremony so soon after the tragic events of September 11, Ambassador Wahba noted the heightened responsibility of those in diplomatic service: "... we will have to do more and do it better to serve as our nation’s first line of defense. I look forward to serving in the UAE and to working closely with its leadership in support of the global effort against terrorism."

On a return visit to Afghanistan, Professor Maliha Zulfacar is reunited with a Kabul shoemaker she knew in her childhood, in front of his cobbler's stand on the same street corner. (Photo by Maliha Zulfacar)

In March 2002, Maliha Zulfacar '70 very nearly became Afghanistan's Deputy Minister of Higher Education. Invited by the new government to return to the country of her birth to help restructure the educational system, she spent four weeks in her hometown of Kabul, touring and talking to people -- from students and professors to government officials to "the man -- and woman -- in the street." Ultimately, she decided to remain at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, where she has taught in the Social Sciences Department since 1992.

Noting that she had lived an equal number of years in Afghanistan and the United States, she considers herself a "global citizen" -- best able to serve her "two homes" from here.

Indeed, immediately after September 11, she was sought out by broadcast and print media as a spokesperson on Afghan history, ethnic groups and women -- and, of course, the Taliban. Since her return trip to Afghanistan, she has been touring U.S. college campuses, continuing to speak and act, in her words, as a "bridge between the most privileged country in the world ... and one of the poorest, most ravaged countries in the world."

As a teenager just graduated from high school, Maliha became the first Afghan woman to pursue a college education in the United States. With a B.A. in sociology and anthropology from Western, she went on to earn two master’s degrees at the University of Cincinnati and then taught sociology at Kabul University until 1979, when she moved to Germany to escape the Russian occupation. In the mid-'80s, she settled in California to raise her two children. After joining the Cal Poly faculty, she took a short leave in the mid-'90s to study at Paerborn University in Germany, where she received her Ph.D. in 1997.

A book, Afghan Immigrants in the USA and Germany, based on her dissertation, was published in 1998. Dr. Zulfacar made her first documentary film, Guftago: Dialog with an Afghan Village, while touring mountain country held by the Northern Alliance in the summer of 2000, and is at work on a second, shot during her recent trip to Kabul. No doubt it will feature the positive attitude of the female students she talked to: "They don’t just want an education. They want to be very important decision-makers. ... Their biggest desire is to rebuild their country."