To the Editors of MainGate

On Exploring the History of AUB

I read with great interest the efforts of librarians Kamila Kassis and Asma Fathallah in establishing the archives of the American University of Beirut in “Exploring the History of AUB,” in the Summer/Fall 2003 MainGate. I highly commend you and your team.
I would like to mention that I am in the process of writing a manuscript detailing the history of medical research in the Faculty of Medicine from its origins to 1975. Whereas, the mission of AUB has been mainly emphasizing excellence in educating scores of graduates who have excelled in many walks of life all over the world, there is paucity of information on medical research done by AUB students and faculty. Dr. Farid Sami Haddad and his father, Dr. Sami Haddad, are among those who greatly contributed to the history of Arab medicine and I would like, in some small measure, to contribute the contents of my manuscript to the unpublicized work of medical researchers at the Faculty of Medicine.

On MainGate

I want to thank you for producing an outstanding MainGate. It is a pleasure to read and show to friends. I am an AUB graduate and a Houston resident. I am a founder and board member of the Arab American Educational Foundation (AAEF) and participate in various cultural activities, including being a founder of the AUB Chapter in Houston. MainGate gives a clear picture of AUB and its activities.

Congratulations on the first edition of MainGate. AUB was and will be the path of knowledge for the coming generations. I wish continuity for your magazine and please go on forward towards achievable unachieved goals, because we are the eyes that are watching.

I have a rather big request. Is it possible to have a special edition of MainGate that would publish the names and addresses of all AUB alumni with their classes and majors—or get a list of the class of 1998 engineering graduates?

Your request is being answered, Fady! AUB’s development office is making plans to publish an international alumni directory. As you can imagine, it is a very large undertaking, since AUB’s alumni are scattered across the globe. We expect a directory for North American alumni to be printed in fall 2004 and an international directory to be completed in the 2006-07 academic year. Meanwhile, alumni can contact alumni affairs directors Samir Kadi in Beirut (skadi@aub.edu.lb) or Miyada Musharbash in New York (miyada@aub.edu) if they want to reconnect with any former classmates.

I found great pleasure in reading MainGate, which revived my memories of AUB, campus activities, and news of old friends and colleagues. I always wondered what happened to the weekly student publication, Outlook, as I was its editor in 1954-55. It would be a good idea to choose interesting articles to publish, which will revive nostalgia for us “oldies.”

Omar Adra (BA ’55)
Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Outlook is as active as ever in bringing news written by AUB students for the AUB campus community. Look for a story on Outlook’s great tradition of student journalism in an upcoming issue of MainGate

MainGate Editors

Fay Andary (BA ’83) and Firas Halawani (BE ’81)
Thornleigh, Australia

MainGate, more than any previous AUB publication, has quenched the alumni’s thirst for information and kept us in touch with developments at our beloved alma mater.

On “Remembering the Milk Bar”

(MainGate, Spring 2003, Vol. 1, No. 3)
With reference to the article on the Milk Bar in the Spring 2003 MainGate, I would like to mention that the Ada Dodge Milk Bar was not the first on campus but the second.

The first Milk Bar, at least the first one we knew, was located on the first floor of West Hall, facing what was the Faculty Room and overlooking the steps that led down to the Post Office and the College Store on the Dodge Hall side, and the steps that led from the banyan tree to West Hall on the Marquand House side. I don’t know when the second Milk Bar was opened, but until I graduated from AUB in 1951, and as far back as I can remember since I was a child, Dodge Hall used to house the cafeteria for the boarding department, not the Milk Bar.

Our Milk Bar was small with maybe only ten tables, but it was every bit as much fun as any other larger or more fancy one. The waiters, whose names, I’m ashamed to admit, I do not remember, were more friends than employees, and everything the Milk Bar offered was the best quality. We spent many memorable hours there, studying, gabbing, laughing, discussing—boys and girls together trying to change the world, much like any other generation before and after ours.

I hope all the students who now frequent the existing facility are having as much fun as we had, and will enjoy as many great memories as we do until now.