All hands on the trowel: Chin Yeh, Ambassador Charles Hostler and President John Waterbury at groundbreaking.

A huge white globe hanging over a mammoth red and white backhoe proclaimed the groundbreaking ceremony for the Charles W. Hostler Student Center on the Green Field April 5.

Under a large white tent at the sea-end of the Green Field, renditions by the AUB choir, speeches, and student cheerleading and dance celebrated the inspiring and generous Charles W. Hostler (MA, 55), who is in the process of making many a student's dream of new athletic facilities at AUB come true with his donation of a new student center. And more. Not only will the new center house state-of-the-art athletic facilities (swimming pool, health and fitness center, and a multi-use gymnasium), but it will also contain student activity rooms, a 300-seat auditorium, and a café. The Green Field and stadium will be refurbished and underground parking will accommodate 200 cars.

After the AUB Choir's rendition of the Lebanese National Anthem, President Waterbury praised Ambassador Hostler with a quotation from founding father Daniel Bliss: "Except a man strive lawfully he is not crowned.”  This is a true saying that applies not only to the Olympic Games but to the whole course of human endeavor.

President Waterbury, saying that Charles Hostler had crowned AUB with recreational facilities that will revolutionize student life, hoped that students would remember what the name, Charles Hostler, stands for: hard work, curiosity, public service, friendship, respect for others, humor, and integrity.

Thanking him for making this day possible, the president presented Hostler with an engraved silver trowel decorated with the seal of the University and handed him a white worker's protective headpiece.  For this occasion, he said, your crown will be a construction worker's hard hat.

Speaking in response to the president's introduction, Charles Hostler was obviously moved as he spoke of his long association with AUB, Lebanon, and the region. “My love for Lebanon,” he said, “its people, and AUB has never wavered." He hoped that his new center would significantly enhance student life and assist AUB in the accomplishment of its important mission of providing a bridge between cultures. As he spoke of his hopes of returning to AUB for the official opening planned for 2006, Hostler urged his audience not to be a missing link, but to get involved, for life will be fuller and more meaningful, as his own life truly exemplifies.

Vincent James, a member of the winning design team of Vincent James Associates Architects of Boston, Massachusetts, against a background of giant photographic projections of the proposed center, spoke briefly of the challenges of designing an environmentally sensitive facility which would compliment the existing facilities of the upper campus, bring the landscaping down to the Corniche, and create a vibrant center for student life on the lower campus.

The students then took over. The vice president of the University Student Faculty Committee, Hassan Mohanna, spoke of the long-awaited emphasis on sports facilities, which the new center would provide. He thanked Ambassador Hostler, and then expressed his hope that today's AUBites would have enough commitment and sense of belonging to follow his example and come forward to support AUB as he had done, recognizing what the University had given him 50 years ago. Student entertainment followed. A group of red and white clad male and female cheerleaders demonstrated their ability to cheer AUB athletic teams to victory.

An authentic number by the Latino Dance Club was followed by an exuberant demonstration, with brightly colored ethnic costumes, of local dances performed by members of AUB’s Dabke Club.

Ambassador Hostler, his wife Chin Yeh, President Waterbury, and members of the Board of Trustees, then moved, followed by the audience, to the huge backhoe, which rumbled into action and gouged up a chunk of the Green Field.  To cheers, Ambassador Hostler spaded up a bit of the loosened turf in symbolic groundbreaking for the Charles W. Hostler Student Center.

Following the ceremony the guests enjoyed a short public reception around the tent and backhoe. The main guests, speakers, and major participants then adjourned to Marquand House for a more intimate reception.