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In Memoriam
AUB Remembers Shehadeh Abboud
On November 5, 2002 Assistant to the Vice President of Regional
External Programs (REP) and Director of the Continuing Education
Center at AUB Shehadeh Abboud died after a long illness. REP VP
George Najjar noted on his passing that “Mr. Abboud embodied
the finest values of dedication, selflessness, and commitment to
service.”
Abboud joined AUB in 1969. His positions
included director of the Orientation Program, associate registrar,
and director of the Special English Training Program for the Hariri
Foundation. He received a Service Quality Award in April 2002 for
his fine work and dedication to AUB. President Waterbury commented
at the ceremony, “Shehadeh has completed over three decades
of exemplary service to the University. Noted for his legendary
efficiency, obsessive punctuality, and ample courtesy, Shehadeh
has for many years set the tempo of daily work on campus by being
the first to show up in the morning and the last to leave. He embodies
the finest values of AUB and has served as an inspiring role model
for many generations. In his case, excellence has always been a
simple habit reflecting genuine pride in a job well done.”
Abboud is survived by his wife, Aida,
his two daughters, Paula and Lara, and his son, Robert.
Foud Bashour (BS ’44, MD ’49) died on January
1, two days before his 79th birthday, of a heart attack. For more
than 40 years Dr. Bashour enlightened students at the University
of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas with his eloquent,
gentle teaching style. A cardiologist, he was named professor emeritus
in 1995. Four years later, he was named Ashbel Smith Professor of
Medicine and Physiology, one of five such honors the University
of Texas allows at each of its campuses.
Dr. Bashour was born in Tripoli to
a family of physicians and dentists. After earning his degrees from
AUB, he began practicing medicine in the Gaza Strip as a UN officer.
He later completed his residency in internal medicine at the University
of Minnesota, where he earned a doctorate in medicine in 1957. Bashour
joined Southwestern Medical School in 1959 and was regarded as one
of its most brilliant diagnosticians and teachers by students and
faculty.
From 1967 to 1978, he was founder
and director of the Cardiovascular Institute at Methodist Medical
Center in Dallas. He was also on the staff of Parkland Memorial
Hospital and Zale Lipshy University Hospital. In 1992
he established the Foud A. and Val Imm Bashour Distinguished Chair
in Physiology at UT Southwestern to help young faculty members with
research. “His interest was always in encouraging and developing
young persons and giving them every help he could,” Mrs. Bashour
told The Dallas Morning News. The Lebanese government
honored Dr. Bashour with the Order of Cedars for his “outstanding
service to humanity in the field of medicine.”
He is survived by his wife, Val Imm
Bashour, who has been a columnist for The Dallas Morning News and
society editor and columnist for the Dallas Times Herald, and a
brother and sister who live in Beirut.
Yusuf Ibish
(BA ’50, MA ’51, Faculty 1952-85) passed away in London
on January 23. Professor Yusuf Ibish was internationally known as
an expert in Middle Eastern politics and Islamic
studies. Educated at AUB, like his father before him and his daughter,
Dr. Ibish served for 33 years in the Department
of Political Studies and Public Administration. Following his retirement,
Ibish continued his academic career at the American University in
Washington, DC, where he was a
distinguished professor from 1985 to 89, and at Cambridge University
in the UK as a visiting professor from 1991 to 92. Former students
remember Professor Ibish’s high expectations of his students
as well as his sense of humor. |
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Throughout his career, Ibish was a staunch supporter of Islamic
culture, and instrumental in bringing an understanding of Islam
to the non-Islamic world. In 1976 he played a key role in the
organizing the World of Islam Festival in London. Rich in art
exhibitions, lectures, conferences, concerts, films, books and
catalogues, the exhibition, which also sponsored smaller exhibitions
throughout Great Britain, was described as perhaps the most important
cultural event on Islam ever held in the West.
Ibish published 24 books and 70 articles throughout
his scholarly career. He served on the boards of the Islamic Culture
Center in Beirut, the Von Kremmer Foundation in Switzerland, and
the Imperial Academy of Philosophy in Tehran, and as member of the
Steering Committee of King Abdul Aziz University’s Hajj Research
Center in Jeddah. Until his death Ibish was director of the Al-Furqan
Islamic Heritage Foundation in London.
Hala Salaam Maksoud,
(BS ’64) a strong voice for Arab causes, Arab-American dialogue,
and Arab women, died in April 2002 in Washington, DC at the age
of 59. In the 1980s, during a highly visible education campaign
to focus the US government on Arab suffering, she emerged as the
founder and president of the Arab Women’s Council, becoming
a tireless advocate of Arab-American, feminist, and progressive
causes who attained the status of a nationally recognized figure
in civil and human rights.
She went on to earn her master’s degree in
government and her doctorate in political theory, both from Georgetown
University. She taught courses on Arab women’s issues at Georgetown
and on international relations at George Mason University.
From 1996 to 2001, Hala served as president of
the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, an organization
she helped found with Senator James Abourezk. She also had a long
history of charitable activities, concluding with her establishment
of the Hala Salaam Maksoud Foundation for Arab American Leadership
in the final months of her life. In 2001, Georgetown University
proposed to establish the Clovis and Hala Salaam Maksoud Chair in
Arab Studies. Her husband, Clovis (BA ’48) survives her.
Victor Najjar (MD
’35), former chairman of the Department of Microbiology at
Vanderbilt University and a highly regarded scientist, died on November
30, 2002 in Nashville. Born in Lebanon, Dr. Najjar trained at Johns
Hopkins University after graduating from AUB. He joined Vanderbilt
in 1957 to establish a microbiology department. During his career,
Najjar made several discoveries that advanced knowledge of certain
diseases. He and a colleague, Dr. John Crigler, reported their research
on an inherited liver disorder that causes lifelong jaundice known
as Crigler-Najjar syndrome. He was author of hundreds of articles
and discovered a small molecule named Tuftsin, which assists the
body’s immune system in fighting infection and removing abnormal
cancer cells. In 1967 Najjar became Professor of the American Cancer
Society and chairman of the molecular biology department at Tufts
University School of Medicine. He returned
to Vanderbilt in 1992 as a senior faculty member in the Department
of Pediatrics. He is survived by three children and seven grandchildren.
Majorie A.
Sa’adah (BA ’37) was born in 1914 in the Armenian
community of Konya, Turkey. Majorie, her mother, and two brothers
became refugees after her father was killed by the Turks. The family
moved to Beirut where Majorie went on to study at AUB and met her
husband Mounir Sa’adah. They married in 1937. Majorie was
fluent in four languages and worked at the Near East Supply Center
and the American Embassy. The Sa’adahs moved to Woodstock,
Vermont in 1946, where Mounir was a teacher and minister. In 1964
they moved to Connecticut where Majorie became the administrator
at Yale University’s Southeast Asia Studies Program. The Sa’adahs
moved back to Vermont for their retirement in 1991. She is
survived by her husband, two sons, and a daughter. A memorial service
is planned in Hanover, New Hampshire in May.
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