Philip S. Khoury Named Chair of the Board of Trustees

Trustee Philip S. Khoury

On behalf of the American University of Beirut Board of Trustees, Dr. Thomas Q. Morris recently announced that vice chair Philip S. Khoury, PhD, will succeed him as chair of the Board of Trustees. “Philip’s experience in the Middle East and his demonstrated dedication to  AUB make him uniquely qualified to lead the University through its next stage of success,” said Dr. Morris. Philip Khoury will assume the new position July 1, 2009.

“Dr. Morris’s tenure has been defined by a series of major advancements at the University,” said Khoury. “AUB’s first university-wide fundraising campaign, the Campaign for Excellence, was the largest educational fundraising initiative in the Arab Middle East and surpassed its $140 million goal by more than $31 million. We’ve built and inaugurated several top-notch facilities on campus and at the AUB Medical Center, launched eight new PhD programs, and received full accreditation for AUBMC from the Joint Commission International. We have a great legacy to build upon, and I look forward to working with the board, the president, and the AUB community in the coming years.”

Philip S. Khoury, a political and social historian of the Middle East, is the associate provost and Ford International Professor of History at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He joined the MIT history department in 1981 and was appointed dean of the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences in 1991; the Kenan Sahin Dean in 2002; and associate provost in 2006. His academic career has focused on Middle Eastern affairs, particularly the modern history and politics of the Arab world.

He was born and raised in Washington, DC and educated at the Sidwell Friends School, Trinity College (BA ‘71), and Harvard University (PhD ‘80). In 1969-70, Khoury pursued undergraduate studies in history and political science at the American University of Beirut.

He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is also past president of the Middle East Studies Association, chair of the World Peace Foundation, vice chair of the Trinity College Board of Trustees, and trustee of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and the National Humanities Center.

Cochair Ray R. Irani, Chairperson, President, and Chief Executive Officer of Occidental Petroleum Corporation Los Angeles, California, who has served as vice chair of the Board of Trustees since 1994 and trustee since 1986, will continue to serve as cochair of the board.

Two new vice chairs have been appointed by the board. Trustee David Bickers, the Carl Truman Nelson professor and chair of the Department of Dermatology at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and director of dermatology at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/ Columbia University Medical Center, is the new vice chair for medicine and health. He attended Georgetown University (BA ‘63) and the University of Virginia School of Medicine (MD ‘67). Bickers, a leading researcher in environmental carcinogenesis and photobiology, has been an AUB board member since 1996. Alexander T. Ercklentz, a partner at Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. (BBH) in New York, New York, has been named vice chair for finance. A trustee since 1989, he will continue to serve as university treasurer. Ercklentz graduated from Yale University (BA ‘59) and attended New York University’s Graduate School of Business Administration.

At BBH, the country’s largest private banking partnership, Ercklentz supervised the firm’s international investment business and served as chair of Brown Brothers Harriman (Hong Kong) Limited as well as chair of Brown Brothers Harriman Limited, resident in London. In the mid 1970s he opened the bank’s representative office in Beirut. He is a member of the American Council on Germany and the Council on Foreign Relations, serves on the Advisory Council of the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University, and is on the board of the Stinnes Corporation and Union Investment Privatfonds GmbH.