Boston University College of General Studies Spring 2009 Colle gi an After flight from war, a second chance. CGS’s Distinguished Alumni Award winner tells his story. LEARNING TO KEEP BY PATRICK L. KENNEDY He had moved his armies into the Middle East. Now, Sami Nawas sat opposite his opponent, surveying the map unfolded between them. He ignored the thud…thud of far-off artillery fire. The eleven-year-old aimed to beat his aunt at Risk. Actual bombs bursting in the distance? That had become common background noise over the months since civil war broke out in Lebanon in 1975. As the boy and his aunt played the board game in the Nawas family’s Beirut apartment, one familiar thud was followed by an unexpected BAM! and the windows shattered as a misfired shell exploded just outside. Glass shards flew at them, landing about three feet short. It was not the first close call, or the last. Nawas’s (’85, SMG’87) introduction to the hostilities came at age ten when an angry, pounding mob surrounded the car he was riding in with his mother. The final straw for the family would be a bullet fired at young Sami, narrowly missing him, as he leaned on the rail of their apartment’s balcony. They were Christians in a Muslim neighborhood, and ever since religious tensions in the mixed city had boiled over, even old friends had begun to distance themselves. Growing up, Nawas and continued on page 2 ON THE INSIDE 3 How good karma became a 7 Style tips from the creative director good business at Lucky magazine 4 CGS’s newly renovated lobby— 8 Award-winning profs on books, through students’ eyes movies, and the power of words LEARNING TO KEEP FAITH continued from page 1 He’s a Connector A hyperactive personality helps Peter Shankman thrive in today’s hyperlinked world. his classmates were “just young kids play - University’s School of Management. In ret - training to become a Stephen minister, a ing,” he says. But after April 1975, when rospect, he says, “It was the best thing that nondenominational spiritual counselor pitched battles erupted between sectarian happened to me.” for those suffering through crises, such as BY BARI WALSH militias, “a shift happened—people started “One of the incredible things about divorce or illness. (Nawas is a generous noticing who’s what.” CGS,” he says, “is that they are able to take soul in general: he once donated a lottery It took a while for the world to catch something like, “Hey Peter, I’m doing a simply come up with something that The Lebanese army, itself composed people who normally wouldn’t make the windfall to charity.) up with Peter Shankman. story about Nigerian farming”—he decided people need.” of both Christians and Muslims, dissolved cut at, say, SMG or COM, and that allows Nawas also consistently participates Before Twitter, Facebook, and twenty- to set up a Facebook group so he could Shankman maintains a blog at amidst infighting, and militias took over the University to accept a wider, more in BU affairs. He is the president of the four-hour news cycles—before attention- funnel queries to his network. http://shankman.com and Twitters under the city. Long a prosperous port with diverse range of students than it would BU Bay Area Alumni Club and a member deficit disorder—Shankman (’92, The operation grew beyond Facebook’s the moniker “skydiver,” named for one of modern utilities and a high literacy of the BU Alumni Council, COM’94) was a self-described “hyper” kid size restrictions, so he launched his own his offline passions. Both sites reveal an rate, Beirut now saw its infrastruc - and for CGS he sits on the with boundless energy and a critically short site, and membership grew quickly. outsize personality and an all-over-the-map ture fall apart. “When people lose hope, they do crazy things. Dean’s Advisory Board. During attention span. He was creative but unfo - Shankman still owns his PR firm, called lifestyle. He’s parlayed his command of the Geek Factory, but he now focuses social media into an active public-speaking “We had no electricity, no Education gives people hope.” Reunion Weekend in fall 2008, cused, and he had trouble fitting in. refrigeration,” Nawas recalls. “You he received CGS’s Distinguished Today, those same qualities make him a exclusively on HARO, which is supported career, training PR types on how to use had to bring water up four flights Alumni Award. master social networker, the lynchpin of an by a simple advertising program that these new tools, which he believes are of stairs in those twenty-gallon jugs, otherwise.” Nawas was one of those stu - “I really feel a sense of compassion online community that connects reporters makes it profitable. He rounds up upending traditional public relations and you bathed with a lukewarm kettle of dents. “And they take these kids and train for the work of CGS,” he says. “I want to looking for sources with experts waiting reporters’ queries and sends them out to practices. water heated on a Bunsen burner.” them for two years in a very global, inte - help the College continue and expand its to be tapped. His website, Help a Reporter his members in up to three e-mails a day. He’s still hyper, in other words, but “Showers now are a luxury for me,” grated, interdisciplinary program. Then, role because I know firsthand there’s a Out (www.helpareporter.com), launched “If I’m late,” he says, “there are 200 now it’s his job. Shankman takes some glee he adds, laughing. “It’s just a different per - when you continue into your junior year need in the world for education. last March, now has 50,000 sources signed Twitter posts going, ‘Where’s the HARO? in his own personal revenge-of-the-nerds spective. I learned to appreciate what at SMG,” as he did, “you end up with the “In the Middle East, a lot of wars up—“everyone from public relations firms What’s going on?’ narrative. “The same stuff that got me I have.” Nawas says he wouldn’t change same BU degree, but you come out, could have been stopped with education,” to mom-and-pop grocery stores to mommy “I’m a connector,” he says, by way of beaten up in junior high school is what’s anything about his experience. He even in my opinion, more well-rounded.” Nawas reflects, perhaps recollecting his own bloggers to Wall Street guys who happen explaining how good karma became a good making me money today,” he says with jokes about the bullet that “missed me by Days after graduation, Sami Nawas’s brushes with death in Beirut. “When people to be experts at bass fishing,” Shankman business. “But there’s no secret here. I’ve a laugh. l that much, to quote Get Smart. ” brother, Soli, called him from the office of lose hope, they do crazy things. Education says. “My logic is, everyone is an expert on n After the balcony shooting, the Nawas the family business, Nawas International gives people hope. I want to invest in that something. You might not spend money a m k to promote it, but if it’s free”—as HARO n family at last emigrated. Sami’s brother Travel, based in Connecticut. “Do you to make sure people have that channel open a h S l is—“why the hell wouldn’t you?” r and sister were already in college in the have a passport?” Soli asked. Sami did. to them. That’s my passion.” e t e P Reporters from large media outlets (the United States, and his father had been “Is it valid?” It was. “Good, we need you f o y Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post ) s expanding and diversifying the travel to go to China for seventeen days.” e t r and small ones (Inventors Digest, Meetings u agency he founded in 1949. Sami was Due to strict Chinese rules, a tour group o c o & Conventions), as well as authors of books t sent to school in Switzerland, where needed to consist of exactly ten people, o h he learned Italian on top of his native and when someone dropped out, Nawas and blogs, rely on the site when they’re on P French and Arabic. was needed to fill the open spot. “I just deadline and need comment. They’ve At age fourteen, Nawas enrolled in went for the educational experience,” he come to trust that Shankman’s network a prep school in New Jersey. “I had a says, but it was the beginning of his career will lead them to good sources, no matter horrible hybrid accent freshman year,” in the travel industry. how esoteric the query. he says, and he took a ration of jeering Today, Sami Nawas is vice president “I didn’t start it for any other reason for it. “Kids can be brutal in high school.” of the family company. From its West than that it was beneficial to the reporters That stopped after a summer growth Coast branch in the San Francisco Bay area, I was friends with,” says Shankman, who spurt turned the “tiny” freshman into an he manages marketing, sales, and overall ran his own PR agency in Manhattan for imposing six-foot sophomore, he recounts tour operations for group travelers—usually ten years. “Every year I’d send out what with a laugh. from churches or universities. “Our number- I called a good karma e-mail to about Nawas’s course load, on the other one clientele is the Christian travel market,” 75,000 reporters, saying, ‘I’m not pitching hand, did not ease up.