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Winter 2011 Vol. IX, No. 2 MainGateAmerican University of Beirut Quarterly Magazine Departments: Letters 2 Inside the Gate Views from Campus Running Water: Is Lebanon ready to change water management and usage?; 4 School Work: assessing environmental health in public schools; Safeguarding Our Taps: reducing water consumption on an expanding campus; R+D: health, wealth, and water Reviews Islamic Law and Civil Code: The Law of Property in Egypt by Richard A. Debs; State of Exception and Resistance in the Arab World, Sari Hanafi, editor Beyond Bliss Street Legends and Legacies Daniel Bliss’s “Prof” – David Stuart Dodge (1836-1921) 43 Alumni Profile Band in Between: Mashrou’ Leila Makes the Music They Need to Hear 44 Reflections The Right Place at the Wrong Time: interview with Joseph Cicippio 48 Alumni Happenings WAAAUB Legacy Ceremony 52 Class Notes Burning Oil for Water: Q&A with Nizar Kammourie (BE ’86) on the future of 58 water desalination in Saudi Arabia; Calling all architects and media types In Memoriam 67 MainGate is published quarterly in Production American University of Beirut Beirut by the American University Office of Communications of Beirut for distribution to alumni, Office of Communications Randa Zaiter former faculty, friends, and PO Box 11–0236 supporters worldwide. Riad El Solh 1107 2020 Photography Beirut, Lebanon AUB Jafet Library Archives Editor Tel: 961-1-353228 Ahmad El Itani Ada H. Porter Fax: 961-1-363234 Hasan Nisr Director of Communications Nishan Simonian New York Office 3 Dag Hammarskjold Plaza Responsible Director 8th Floor Nabil Dajani Contributing Writers Maureen Ali New York, NY 10017–2303 Jean-Marie Cook Tel: 212-583-7600 Art Direction and Design Raghida Haddad (BS ’75) Fax: 212-583-7651 Office of Communications Susanne Lane Najib Attieh Sierra Millman Zeina Tawil Ralph K. Pedersen [email protected] Printing Tomoko Furukawa Barbara Rosica www.aub.edu.lb Lane Press making waves MainGate Winter 2011 Making a Splash How to beat the summer2 heat 5 Journey to the Arctic Harboring History There’s change... but is it How the Phoenicians tamed the sea and climate change?26 created an empire (Q&A) Water Worries Everything you didn't want to know about4 0 your water Sea Change Climate Change: A plea for marine reserves in Threat or Lebanon before it’s too late 30Opportunity? Managing Lebanon’s water resources Saving Water 6 Can safe drinking water save 3 communities? Secret Life —or Death— of Sea Urchins 34 Their demise is a disaster.35 President's view New Year, New Campus? This is the first in a series of Student Center, quickly come to be Construction has begun on the interviews with President Dorman. regarded as signature monuments Issam Fares Institute (at the site Email questions for the president to themselves. where the Gulbenkian Infimary [email protected]. used to be) on the Green Oval. A newly renovated cafeteria What are the environmental MainGate: There continues to opened in Ada Dodge Hall last implications? How will the new be lots of construction at AUB. fall, but there are also plans for a building impact the Green Oval’s What do you say to those who are new art gallery in the space once palm trees? worried that this will destroy the occupied by the Milk Bar. Why an PD: The building has been designed to classic character of campus? art gallery? maintain as much of the surrounding PD: The classic character and the PD: Where the Milk Bar used to be is greenery as possible. It’s a remarkable appearance of upper campus has now a collection of offices. The space design by Zaha Hadid. There are a changed very little since the 1960s. will be transformed into its original number of walkways that approach But new construction is inevitable, and open plan, featuring arches that hark the building from different directions I view the appearance of new buildings back to the typical vaulted first floor of that go between the existing trees, so as an expression of our aspirations many old Lebanese buildings. Within the building has been designed around and the new directions in which this space we have a chance to wed the greenery. The great ficus trees that we want to move. New facilities, traditional Lebanese architecture with stand just west of the building site will as they are accepted and used an open gallery that can be used to be preserved, as will the palm trees by the community, eventually display art in a variety of settings. The along the Green Oval. become classic additions intention is to put the arts very much to the campus and, like at the center of campus, in an easily Lower campus: what are AUB’s the Charles W. Hostler accessible, ground floor location, with plans for the site of the Durrafourd doors leading out to a terrace for Buildings that are adjacent to the public events and receptions. new OSB on the Corniche? PD: We have a number of ideas for the 2 MainGate Winter 2011 | www.aub.edu.lb/maingate President's view Durrafourd lot, but we are leaning very it requires the decanting of those Abdul Aziz Street, replacing it with heavily toward the creation of a building facilities one into the other. a multipurpose structure that has that would house our multidisciplinary multiple parking levels underground, graduate centers of excellence, such as Is the Irani/Oxy Engineering an educational center, a conference the Center for Advanced Mathematical Complex designed to blend hall on the ground floor, and academic Sciences, the Center for Arab and with its surroundings or is it an offices on the upper levels. The Dale Middle Eastern Studies, and newer architectural statement? Home site and the open space around centers such as the Munib and Angela PD: It is a marvelous architectural it will eventually become the location Masri Institute of Energy and Natural statement that will look rather different of a new medical facility, connected to from the present engineering buildings. the original hospital building by bridges Access will be provided at two levels, over the street. with the lower entry connecting to the lower plaza outside the Suliman How will this affect the patient S. Olayan School of Business. The experience in the short term? Irani/Oxy Complex will be open in the PD: The Medical Center will do center, so that it maintains existing everything possible to ensure that the sightlines between upper and lower patient experience is unaffected by campus and does not block the view. the construction, but this presents real In fact, the design for the Irani/Oxy challenges for us, especially during Complex has already been nominated the initial excavation process. The for an architectural award. construction itself will not diminish the quality of care, although there are some With all this ongoing work, how facilities that may have to be relocated does the University ensure nearby. Other medical centers have that “middle campus”—a rare achieved this feat successfully, and we green space for Beirut—is not plan to follow their model. compromised? PD: The preservation of green space In your first interview with is a major tenet of the University’s MainGate as AUB president, you Resources. We are also considering Campus Master Plan, which was mentioned that you remember a special center to promote the study adopted in 2002. No new building is jumping over the campus terraces of humanities and the arts. In the next permitted in the middle campus, so as a child. Given all the changes several months we will have these new construction can only be planned that have taken place since then— plans further developed. where there is an existing structure or the new buildings, the landscaping, a parking lot. This way our precious etc., do you still recognize the What’s the status of the new green space can be maintained. campus of your childhood? Irani/Oxy Engineering Complex PD: It is remarkable how little the and the renovations to the The AUBMC 2020 vision approved campus has changed since I remember Dar Al-Handasah Architecture last year by the Board of Trustees it as a boy in the early 1960s. Apart Building? will mean big changes to the from the lower campus where you PD: Work on the Irani/Oxy Complex Medical Center. What physical have the Hostler Center, the Olayan is projected to begin in early summer. changes are underway? School, and the renovated Green Field, Renovations to the Architecture PD: During the preparatory phase of much of the campus looks the same. I Building will be started only after the construction we intend to remove the know many returning alumni share this Irani/Oxy Complex is finished, because Faculty One residence building on experience. www.aub.edu.lb/maingate | MainGate Winter 2011 3 from/to the editor For some, this has been a beautiful winter in Lebanon—relatively warm and dry. It’s a bittersweet treat, however, since without enough rain and snow, aquifers aren’t replenished and another dry summer looms ahead in 2011. The quality, quantity, and availability of water defines our quality of life and so perhaps it’s not surprising that in preparing this magazine we discovered professors and students from every faculty studying water issues. They are examining water contamination in the Mediterranean, in small villages, and in the taps in Hamra; they’re calling for a new focus on water quality; they’re discovering that maybe, just maybe, water isn’t distributed fairly. They’re also examining the role of climate change and proposing solutions. But, this is only the tip of the iceberg, so to speak… We always welcome comments, suggestions, and ideas for future issues.