Hampshire administrator answers call to Kabul: Brongers to give Afghan university a hand

By Kristin Palpini
Staff Writer

Published on February 16, 2007

In Afghanistan's capital of Kabul, a person can see evidence of a once-beautiful city, said Johannes G. Brongers, Hampshire College's vice president for finance and administration.

Streets that once hosted a bustling marketplace are now muddy, pothole-filled strips, he said. There are no trees in the city. Buildings blown apart by war are still crumbling. The once-marvelous Dar-ul-Aman Palace is a deteriorating, sand-colored cavern, riddled with bomb holes.

In his own small way, Brongers hopes to help bring Kabul back to its former glory by helping to develop a new university.

"These last decades of war basically destroyed the city. It's a war zone today," said Brongers, who visited Kabul with his wife, Janet, in mid-January. "It needs a hell of a lot of help."

In June, Brongers and his wife will leave the relative safety and comfort of the Pioneer Valley for Afghanistan, which is suffering from a sharp increase in attacks from insurgent groups. In Kabul, Brongers will serve as the vice president and chief finance and administrative officer of the American University of Afghanistan, which opened to students last fall.

"Rather than just joining an organization in a developed country, we decided to try to make a difference in a place that can really benefit," Brongers said.

"This is quite an adventure," he added. "It's exciting, but scary all at the same time."

The American University of Afghanistan is among the 16 institutions of higher education serving Afghanistan's population of about 31 million people, according to the online, user-edited encyclopedia Wikipedia. By comparison, Canada, which has a population of about 32 million people, has 70 colleges and universities.

Hampshire College has pledged to start looking for a replacement for Brongers soon. College President Ralph Hexter said he has mixed feelings about Brongers' departure.

"First, (I feel) regret, for I have come to rely on his judgment, experience and wisdom," Hexter said in a statement.

"But also pride and awe when I consider the work that (he) will take up in Afghanistan."

Brongers said it was a tough decision to leave Hampshire, calling it a "really neat place where I was very happy."

But he eventually decided that Hampshire College could succeed without him, while the American University of Afghanistan is more in need of his help.

Push for enrollment

In Afghanistan, Brongers will work to push enrollment at the university - now 58 students - to 2,000. He will also endeavor to recruit more faculty. The four-year liberal arts university has a focus on business and information technology education. It has seven professors, with a number of adjunct faculty.

"I'll have to beg and borrow for other people to give us the tools we will need to get the job done, but it's exciting and a big challenge," Brongers said. "This is a thrilling opportunity, really thrilling, to build something from scratch."

Helping start-up businesses succeed is a specialty of his. Before coming to Hampshire College in 1999, he worked extensively in the automobile manufacturing sector and was eventually named an executive with international operations at General Motors.

Janet Brongers, who has worked with the admissions office at Smith College, will also bring a level of expertise desirable to Kabul. Janet Brongers is an experienced teacher of English as a second language.

"She will have plenty to do, I'm sure," Brongers said of his spouse. All of the American University of Afghanistan classes will be taught in English.

Johannes Brongers will also be responsible for helping to plan the university's capital expansion. The university consists of a couple of buildings on 4 acres surrounded by a tall, thick wall.

However, the university owns 42 acres.

"The good thing is they already have a wall around the place. The first thing you do when building in Kabul is construct a wall," Brongers said.

In Afghanistan the number of suicide attacks increased from 27 in 2005 to 139 in 2006, according to a January Washington Post article that cited U.S. Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry.

Remotely detonated bombings have more than doubled from 783 to 1,677, and armed attacks have nearly tripled from 1,558 to 4,542, the article said.

The violence led to more than 4,000 deaths in Afghanistan last year, making it the most deadly year in the country since 2001, when the United States first went into Afghanistan and toppled the Taliban regime.

Brongers is concerned about his own safety and that of his wife, but going to Kabul is a risk the two are willing to take. The couple's three daughters who live in the area are also concerned about their parents' welfare.

"They are not so enthusiastic about it," Brongers said. "They are supportive, thank God, but it doesn't come easy for them and they are worried about us."

The Brongerses will live in an apartment provided by the university while they are in Kabul. The university is supported by the Afghani government, the U.S. Agency for International Development and members of the university's Board of Trustees.

This week, Brongers will return to Kabul to begin his work as vice president and chief finance officer. He will meet with the university's president, who was installed in January, and begin making plans for the university's future success. While working in Kabul, he will also treasure coming back to the United States for vacations.

"People essentially work day and night and take rests and escape for a weekend or so.

"Right now this feels like a very large load coming at me," Brongers said.

"I look forward to working with the people there and beginning to learn what Afghanistan is all about and how we can get this operation going.

"Life will be hard there," he said. "But they need the help."