The Second Fifty Years (1916-66)
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
7 40 50 OSB’s new dean wants to take learning A brief history of AUB’s relationship Habib Haddad on creating outside the classroom with Washington communities for change American University of Beirut Magazine. Spring/Summer 2016, Vol XIV, No. 3 The Second 19 Fifty 16 1916-1966 19 66 Aiducation. For Kamar Younes (BS ’16), an interest in nursing began with an unusual love story. “In high school, I read a story about a boy with cancer who falls in love with his nurse,” she says, clarifying that it wasn’t romantic love… “He was very young and he loved her.” After Younes herself spent time in the hospital, she became more determined to pursue the profession. When she returned to the Al Galilee High School in the Bir Hassan neighborhood of Beirut, she set her sights on a scholarship from NGO Unite Lebanon Youth Project (ULYP). Her strong academic performance and the support from ULYP brought AUB’s Rafic Hariri School of Nursing within reach. Recognizing her passion, the nursing school’s staff offered her the four-year Zahar Fansa Scholarship and, with it, a chance at her dream career. Now a senior, Youn es spends most of her time at AUBMC where she trains under the medical center’s renowned nursing staff. “I want to work at AUBMC when I graduate then get my master’s at AUB in adult care,” she says. She intends to focus on matters of the heart, that is, cardiac care. “I love helping others and nursing lets me do that.” To speak to someone about supporting financial aid, contact us at [email protected] or make a gift at https://give.aub.edu.lb The MainGate Spring/Summer 2016 Contents Vol. XIV, No. 3 Student life, the liberal arts, AUB personalities Inspiration 5 past and present Steve Harvey, the new dean of the Olayan School of 7 Business, is a management scholar who believes (like Einstein said) that thinking is doing. Discoveries 17 Research, the arts, and current events Gerontologist Abla Mehio-Sibai studies a growing 22 demographic, Lebanon’s aged and isolated Wellness 23 AUBMC 2020, health, and medicine AUBMC’s Special Kids Clinic, finding ways to provide 28 advanced medical care to those who need it most. AUB’s 150th 31 The Second 50 years Anniversary Impact 39 Regional impact, advocacy, and policy initiatives Filippo Grandi, the 12th United Nations High 46 Commissioner for Refugees, on the dimensions of the refugee crisis AUB Everywhere 49 Alumni profile, class notes, WAAAUB, and chapter news Habib Haddad (BEN ’02), an ingenious entrepreneur 50 with a knack for finding solutions Letter from the president Views from Campus My fellow alumni and friends of AUB, During the presidency of Bayard Dodge through the Task Force on the Lives (1923-48), AUB embraced and enabled and Careers of Women Faculty that I Greetings from this most magnificent cultural and political freedom for commissioned a few months ago. We and intellectually rich campus, now faculty and students. This remains a must continue to celebrate and expand decked in its 150th anniversary regalia, priority for AUB in its 150th year, as we our multitude of nationalities and and with festivities in full flow seek to protect and empower freedom ethnicities, and remain focused on the encompassing students, faculty, staff, and diversity of opinion, so essential equality of all, regardless of race, creed, alumni, and our many friends! This for the development of modern color, or other determinants. second special anniversary edition of societies but sadly lacking around our MainGate looks to AUB’s Second Fifty region. AUB must remain a champion The second half-century in AUB’s Years for its inspiration, and there is for the right to express one’s views history was also focused on developing much to be drawn from that time to constructively, in a civil and collegial excellence in research in service to the encourage and embolden us today. manner. increasingly global community. AUB began to educate, attract, and retain The years 1916-66 saw a period of Today, almost a quarter of AUB’s remarkable and sometimes accelerated evolution on multiple students are international, helping revolutionary scientists and thinkers levels. The University emerged as a make us, despite the current economic in its ranks, in the humanities, haven for free thought, a hotbed for and political challenges faced by natural sciences, medicine, nursing, Arab politics, and a cradle for different Lebanon, one of the world’s richest agriculture, engineering, and philosophies from Arab Nationalism universities from the perspective of architecture to name a few. We are to Communism. Planning began for cultural and socio-economic diversity. determined to continue that trend, the creation of a world class medical This is fundamental to our mission to through our increasingly focused and center—soon to provide the finest help grow great citizen-leaders for excellent faculty and our outstanding health care in the Arab world; the tomorrow who recognize the common student body. The restoration of the pioneering schools of Arts and qualities and causes with friends, principle of tenure was the Board of Sciences, Nursing and Medicine were classmates and teachers whom they Trustees’ green light to another era of joined by new faculties which became might previously have filed under the expansive AUB influence in culture, the standard bearers for the region; mental category of “the Other.” Never pedagogy, and discovery; one we are AUB went co-educational—decades satisfied with where we are, we committed to stewarding in the best before many of its Western continue to work to expand diversity traditions of AUB’s second half-century counterparts—and became more on campus. With our near-even split as it enters its fourth. internationally welcoming, with between men and women students, 40-plus nationalities represented we are focused on reaching that goal With respect and admiration, in the 1930s. among our faculty and staff, initially Fadlo R. Khuri Inbox Dear MainGate readers, The fabric of university life, especially a campus community, permits immediate assimilation for those crossing its portals for whatever purpose: study, career, research, or a short visit. With Cover Acting President Constantine generations of students passing through, and an enduring phalanx of committed educators and Zurayk presents a diploma to staff, it’s by nature a welcoming place which doesn’t take long to feel like home. I write this a a female student at the few months into my job at the Office of Communications, and my senses already seem to be Unive rsity’s 86th Commencement Exercises telling me I have been here my whole life. As a non-alumnus, I can only guess how you view on June 27, 1955. AUB, its beauty and companionship, its transformative impact on your fortunes, and its awe- inspiring mission in a turbulent world. No wonder so many stay in touch and keep coming back. It’s been a fantastic introduction for this AUB neophyte, or call it being tossed in the deep-end! A presidential inauguration, myriad new initiatives, the 150th anniversary and, capping all, the rare responsibility of delivering a top-notch magazine to an audience of discerning AUBites around the world! I have a hard act to follow. Ada H. Porter has been an exceptional editor since 2005, relentlessly cultivating quality journalism and engag ing visuals. I owe her a great debt, and we are lucky she remains running the Debs Centre and serving the trustees as assistant secretary. Ada also has a hard act to follow—see page 8. I’m blessed with a terrific editorial team for continuity: in New York, alumni suprema Barbara Rosica, feature writer extraordinaire Eric Back Cover Eyges; in Beirut the creative hothouse of Communication Design, and the eagle-eye d Sally Kaya Map provided by a project led Najjar keeping the whole show on the road. by Maria Mansour on AUB’s impact on the streets of I hope you enjoy reading Vol. XIV, No.3 of MainGate half as much as we’ve enjoyed working on Beirut. it. The second of our sesquicentennial trilogy abounds with glimpses of unquestionably AUB’s Executive Editor Golden Age. But there is no shortage of inspiration in today’s stories, and promise of an even Martin Asser greater future. It would be invidious to pick out highlights: please dive in and connect—or Responsible Director reconnect—with the astounding AUB community in all its glory. Nabil Dajani Managing Editor Sally Kaya Najjar Features Editor Martin Asser, Executive Editor Eric Eyges Alumni Editor Barbara Rosica Contributing Writer Nicholas Boke Erratum: In Volume XIV, No.2, page 27 (Giving Old Pills a Second Chance), Walid Saad was incorrectly identified as professor at Copyeditor the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering; he is assistant professor at the Department of Chemical and Erratum Sierra Prasada Petroleum Engineering. Art Direction and Design Communication Design SAL www.cd-sal.com Photography Hasan Nisr AUB FAFS FHS IFI REP Jean Pierre Tarabay American University Faculty of Agricultural Faculty of Issam Fares Ins titute Regional University Li braries, Archives of Beirut and Food Sciences Health Sciences for Public Policy and External Programs and Special Collections Abbr. International Affairs AUBMC FAS FM SPC American University of Beirut American University of Faculty of Arts Faculty of Medicine LAU Syrian Protestant College Office of Communications Beirut Medical Center and Sciences Lebanese American HSON WAAAUB PO Box 11–0236 University Common CCECS FEA Rafic Hariri School Worldwide Alumni Riad El Solh 1107 2020 abbreviations Center for Civic Faculty of of Nursing OSB Association of AUB Beirut, Lebanon found in the Engagement and Engineering Suliman S.