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Summer 2009 Vol. VII, No. 4
A Tradition in Transition
President Dorman’s 2009 inauguration had concerts, symposia, and ceremony, but sadly, no fireworks. Bayard Dodge’s 1923 inauguration featured rockets, fire balloons, and a “Cosmopolitan Night” where Egyptian students recreated the “tomb of King Toot-and-Come-in.”
“A university is the noblest and greatest institution invented by human society,” declared Board Chairman Calvin Plimpton at the inauguration of President Harold Hoelscher in 1977. A university is also the natural home of tradition—cultural continuity, “the handing down of information, beliefs, customs.”
Traditions at AUB range from inaugurations, student government, and the Speaker’s Corner to lighter events such as Outdoors, the election of Miss AUB, and graduation parties. In addition, each department has its own individual traditions such as trips, gala dinners, and student send-ups of faculty members.
In this Inauguration Year, we turn first to one of the more formal AUB traditions, the inauguration of the president of the University. In May, for the first time in 37 years, AUB held a formal ceremony for the inauguration of Peter F. Dorman as fifteenth president of the American University of Beirut.
Only eight other presidents have been given formal inaugurations, beginning with second President Howard Bliss and continuing through President Malcolm Kerr, the ninth president of the University. Following the assassination of President Kerr outside his office in College Hall on January 18, 1984, AUB presidents were for several years unable to travel to Lebanon, and no inauguration celebrations were held until this year. (When John Waterbury became president in 1998 he opted against an inauguration ceremony.)
Over the years, the installation ceremonies have been held in the Chapel (later to be known as the Assembly Hall), on the Green Field, and, in the case of President Stephen Penrose in 1948, on the Green Oval in front of Fisk Hall. Three installation ceremonies were held in conjunction with commencement exercises. The inauguration of President Samuel Kirkwood coincided not only with commencement exercises, but also with celebrations to mark the centennial year of the University in June 1966.
With inaugural lectures, concerts, and exhibitions continuing throughout the months of May and June, the inauguration of President Dorman ranks among the longest and most elaborate in AUB’s history. However, the events of the inauguration of President Bayard Dodge, lasting a full week in June 1923, were marked by equal, if not surpassing variety, innovation, and student participation.
Bayard Dodge’s personal report of the week’s events gives a vivid account of the “Cosmopolitan Night” held on the evening of June 27, 1923, “one of the most if not the most spectacular event that the campus has ever witnessed.” “Around the World” performances were held every half hour at various places on campus, and the college bell, rockets, and fire balloons gave warnings from the tower on the half hour. “Hundreds of Japanese lanterns adorned the campus.”
Students themselves created the entertainment. Armenian students presented the Royal conference at Ashdishad in the fifth century and St. Mesrop receiving the Armenian alphabet at the north side of College Hall. Egypt claimed the area between Post Hall and the then Chemistry Building with a ditch representing the Nile, two small pyramids, and “the tomb of King Toot-and-Come-in.” Greek students exhibited in front of Marquand House and |
