New construction springs up like hope in Afghanistan's capital: rampant, haphazard, and, too often, quick to deteriorate in Kabul's harsh climate. But one closely watched building project has come to symbolize so much--the renovation of the bombed-out, abandoned women's dormitories at Kabul University. When completed, they will house two thousand of the first female university students in nearly a decade. Girls and women were barred from schools by the Taliban, the faction that ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001. Just east of the construction site, Sharif Fayez, the country's minister of higher education, arrives each day for work at a bunker-like building, passing Kalashnikov-wielding guards and a metal detector to get to his office. Fayez, a former Afghan expatriate with a PhD in English literature from the University of Arizona, has faced his share of challenges during his two-and-a half-year tenure as a cabinet minister in Afghanistan's interim government. In this interview, Fayez described serving in the interim government as a personal obligation to his birthplace. As the scheduled October national elections approach--postponed from June because of unrest in the country--Fayez said there are plenty of challenges: shortfalls in foreign aid, a lack of skilled faculty members and administrators, and shaky security outside of Kabul, but, he said, his faith has been buoyed in his third year by marks of tangible progress.