Lebanese American University: Building Fine Minds and Incredible Spirits
| WRMEA Archives 2006-2010 - 2008 January-February |
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, January-February 2008, pages 32, 37
Special Report
Lebanese American University: Building Fine Minds and Incredible Spirits
By Delinda C. Hanley
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IN THE DAYS BEFORE American private citizens took to erecting televangelist empires and megachurches at home and the U.S. government started constructing fortress embassies abroad, we Americans spent our wealth building a real legacy overseas. In the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s, when this writer was growing up in the Middle East, I played with the children of American professors, doctors, missionaries and diplomats, as well as kids whose fathers helped build the Arab world’s oil and gas industries, pipelines, and water treatment facilities. Our parents were sharing American dreams and know-how, educating and healing—and, as a result, making real friends for our nation. Even today one can find streets, buildings, companies, hospitals and schools throughout the Middle East named in honor of those Americans.
One educational legacy we can take pride in is the Lebanese American University (LAU) in Beirut, which dates back to 1835. It was founded as the American School for Girls by American Presbyterian missionaries. When I lived in Beirut it was called Beirut College for Women (BCW), then, when it began to accept men, Beirut University College (BUC). Today LAU has a coed student body of nearly 7,000, representing over 50 nationalities, on two campuses: one in Beirut, the other to the north in the historical port of Byblos.
On a recent trip to the U.S. to raise funds and meet with LAU alumni and parents, Dr. Joseph Jabbra, president of LAU, stopped by to visit the Washington Report. Born in Lebanon, Dr. Jabbra earned his Ph.D. in political science from the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC in 1970. He spent the next 38 years in North America as an administrator at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.
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LAU now offers respected programs in arts and sciences, business, engineering, and architecture, Dr. Jabbra told us, and boasts the region’s largest pharmacy school (the only ACPE-accredited school/college of pharmacy outside the U.S.). LAU’s medical school, developed in collaboration with Harvard Medical International, is expected to launch its M.D. program in 2009, the first pre-med class having begun studies in 2006. LAU’s board of trustees is planning to embed a school of nursing in the medical school, the educator said.
“As soon as our students graduate they are snapped up to work in the Gulf,” Dr. Jabbra told us proudly. “We have alumni chapters in Washington, DC, Michigan, Florida, Texas, and soon California.
“LAU is doing good things,” he continued. “For example, we’ve established a major center for conflict resolution in Byblos. Last year, thanks to a $50,000 grant from the Swiss government, 34 students from a variety of religions in the region came together for two weeks to discuss how to resolve conflicts. LAU wants to build on this success and continue to teach courses on civic education and conflict resolution,” Dr. Jabbra said. “Students are learning how to accept each other and solve problems without resorting to violence. We keep politics out of our institution and focus on graduating students who will be the leaders of tomorrow.
“This year we have 200 Saudi Arabian students, 100 from Kuwait, and others from U.A.E., Jordan, and other Arab countries. They love to come to Beirut,” he noted, “no matter what is happening in Lebanon. They become our ambassadors to the world.”
Without private donations to LAU’s scholarship fund, Dr. Jabbra said, he fears this American institution could become a school for the wealthy. Today LAU makes every effort to keep tuition low so that good students from low-income families can afford to attend. Ninety percent of LAU’s revenue comes from tuition, he explained, and the Presbyterian Church as a whole no longer helps the institution financially. In 2006 the university received $2 million, in federal grants and aid from ASHA (American Schools and Hospitals Abroad), which helped 155 Lebanese students from diverse regions of Lebanon attend LAU.
“In the aftermath of the turmoil in Lebanon,” Dr. Jabbra told us, “many of our students’ parents lost their jobs or businesses. We have to make sure students don’t drop out due to lack of funds.”
LAU also holds a popular summer program to teach Arabic. During Israel’s summer 2006 bombardment of Lebanon, as Dr. Jabbra completed plans to evacuate foreign students, 20 of them begged to stay in order to complete their Arabic course in Byblos.
At the risk of provoking the very apolitical Dr. Jabbra, this writer would like to argue that it’s time for Americans to return to using educational tools instead of weapons to bring democracy and hope to the Middle East. Lebanon needs American-made books, not cluster bombs.
Students graduate from LAU with “fine minds as well as incredible spirits,” Dr. Jabbra said, but his university is in need of many more benefactors in order for its success story to continue. “You can’t put a price tag on the gift of an education,” Dr. Jabbra pointed out.
For more information, or to make a U.S. tax-deductible donation via PayPal using your credit card, visit: <www.lau.edu.lb>, or mail a check to Lebanese American University, 475 Riverside Dr., New York, NY 10115.
Delinda C. Hanley is news editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.
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