A "groundbreaking ceremony" for the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs was held at AUB on December 14, 2004. This multi-million dollar project is being funded through a generous gift from Deputy Prime Minister Issam Fares and the Fares Foundation. The project includes a building that will go on the current site of the Gulbenkian Infirmary, as well as an endowed think tank devoted to public policy research. The institute will draw on the talents of the more than fifty faculty members at AUB who already work on issues related to public policy and international affairs and will bring them together with people from the public and private sectors that have experience in devising and implementing those policies. In attendance at the ceremony were several Lebanese ministers and other government officials, who joined AUB's top administrators, along with many faculty, staff, and students at Issam Fares Hall on the AUB campus. President Waterbury welcomed all the distinguished guests, especially Deputy Prime Minister Issam Fares, and said that this institute aspires to be "a credible think tank where academics interested in public policy can come together with people who have grappled with public policy issues in the real world." He went on to explain his understanding of the important work that this institute is being established to do: specifically, not just to come up with good policy ideas, but also to devise tenable strategies for dealing with the myriad obstacles to policy implementation. He ended by saluting Issam Fares and the Fares Foundation for its long-term vision in making this institute possible. On behalf of the AUB Board of Trustees, Trustee Ali Ghandour delivered a short statement from the board's chairman, Richard A. Debs, who was unable to attend. In it he said that the goal of the institute will be "to promote more informed policy-making and governance in Lebanon and the Arab world." This will involve a variety of activities, such as sponsoring conferences, workshops, lecture series, and seminars, as well as producing publications, offering fellowships, and creating a resource database on public policy that will benefit the entire region. Deputy Prime Minister Issam Fares, in officially announcing the establishment of the Issam Fares Institute, remarked, "In laying the foundation stone for this institute, we are symbolically laying the foundation for a new Lebanon in a new region, open to promising possibilities." He went on to say that Lebanon has paid dearly in the past for focusing on "the immediate, the personal, the profitable, and the provincial and for making many errors in public policy...This is why the institute will be so important to Lebanon and the region, as this new century will bring new challenges as well as new opportunities." After quoting a famous leader who once said, "War is too important to be left to the generals," Fares said that, in the same way, "Policy is too important to be left to the politicians, and higher learning is too important to be left in the corridors of academic institutions." He ended by pledging his commitment to making this institute "an effective catalyst for a better Lebanon and a more stable and prosperous Arab world." After the ceremony, a small group gathered near the future site of the institute's building where Deputy Prime Minister Fares and President Waterbury unveiled a plaque officially marking December 14, 2004, as the day ground was broken on this forward looking initiative.
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