we’ve had dinners and events with them. Since I’ve been home sixteen years now, I don’t have real contact with students—perhaps indirect contact through the Sutherland Awards my wife Jean established when I was in captivity.

MG: What were the biggest changes while you were at AUB?
The biggest tragedy of all was the assassination of Malcolm Kerr. Malcolm was such a popular president. The students all loved him. Even the students who had given him a lot of trouble. But he would stay with them, talk to them, and work with them, and eventually when the campus had the three-day grieving period after Malcolm was killed, it was these students who showed the most grief of all.

Another change was the money that poured into the farm. Abdul Hamid Hallab was responsible for getting a lot of that money. He was a fund-raiser par-excellence. He knew everybody in the whole Gulf area and the whole Middle East, and he was excellent at raising money.

MG: Of course, your memories of the war must have been completely overshadowed by your kidnapping, but what were your memories of the effect of the war on campus?
One of the results of the war was that the Christian students didn’t dare to come across the Green Line to the main campus at AUB, so I arranged with Malcolm to develop a program in the Christian area for the students trapped over there.

Whereupon at least one person said to me at the time, “You realize that you’ve just established a Faculty of Agriculture at the OCP (Off Campus Program)?” But I said, “Oh, no. When we are done we’ll just kill that program and get everyone back on the main campus.” He said, “No, you won’t ever be able to do that.”

And he was basically correct, I would say, because until the time I was kidnapped, we were never able to quell the program at the OCP. The OCP was a reasonably good program—we had good instructors over there—but it wasn’t at all the quality program that we had on the main campus, and I felt that the students who were in that OCP program were being short-changed; they were not getting the whole wealth of AUB’s instruction program. But at least it was better than nothing; they were at least doing something over there, since they couldn’t come to the main campus.

MG: But, of course, your biggest memory of the war must have been the kidnapping.
Yes. We were held in “cells,” and on occasion there were shells landing very, very close to us; frankly, it scared the liver out of me to have those shells exploding, essentially outside of our building. The guards would come in and say, “Don’t afraid, don’t afraid. It’s okay. No broblem.” But anybody who has had a 155 mm shell fall within a few hundred yards and says “Don’t afraid” is either stupid or not rational about what shells are. I tell you, I was afraid. (Sutherland’s book At Your Own Risk, written with his wife Jean, details his memories of the war years—editors.)

MG: What has been the impact of AUB on your life?
That is hard to separate from captivity. Frankly, I enjoyed being an administrator at AUB, for a number of reasons, perhaps the main one being that as dean, you were responsible for your own budget. You had to raise your money within the faculty, and then you could more or less spend it as you wished, within reason, of course.

I got good experience at AUB for the two years I was a free man, but of course, being taken hostage after that, being chained to a wall for 78 months, during which time, lots of things were happening in Lebanon, had a big impact. It became obvious that I would never be able to go back to AUB, for fear that I might be kidnapped again… Regaining my freedom, and then arriving back in the United States was totally euphoric for me, because after being chained to the wall for 78 months and not being able to do anything, anything at all, without the permission of the guards, who were really, in many respects— what should I say—underprivileged, was tough. Those guards had never had much of a chance in life, any of them. When I contrasted my life with what those young men, members of Hizbollah, were having to go through, I honestly felt sorry for them, which led some of the reviewers of our book to say that I was suffering from the Stockholm syndrome, which was ridiculous in the extreme.

MG: As a former dean, what would you say to your former faculty members of the Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences?
I chuckle when I think of an exchange I had with the late Dr. Raja Khuri, then dean of the Faculty of Medicine. I told him that Agriculture was the most important faculty in the University. He did not respond, but simply looked at me in disbelief. “You don’t believe me do you?” I suggested. “No,” he replied. “The Medical Faculty is of course the most important by far.” I challenged his belief by asking, “Then tell me, what has medicine been able to do for the starving masses all across the north African continent?” His jaw dropped, for he did not have a response to that challenge.

But I would like to say a special word of thanks to Nahla (Baba) Hwalla now dean of FAFS, and Adib Saad, associate dean when I was there, for all the help they gave me. I was there as a neophyte. I knew very, very little about the whole Middle East, but Nahla and Adib were the two who gave me a great deal of valuable advice.

In truth, the faculty members of FAFS in those days were enthusiastic about their work and accomplishments, and have survived many wars and uprisings. So I send to them all my best wishes for a satisfactory, successful, and ongoing contribution to the people of the Middle East and the world.

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Partnerships for AUB

My father, Dr. Samih Alami, passed away on March 5, 1997, fifty years after he first came to AUB to live on the AUB/ IC campus as a student. He came from Gaza in 1947, and years later, in 1968, he returned to work in the Department of Laboratory Medicine, where he was also the department chair. He later lived in Faculty
Apartment II.

A successful physician in Libya recently told my cousin, “I owe my life to Samih Alami.” I have often heard this in one way or another. My father was deeply committed to the Palestinian Student’s Fund but he eventually helped sponsor thousands of needy students of many different backgrounds.

My family’s relationship with AUB continues because of my father’s devotion to the University, and the emotional attachment his devotion fostered in us. He never left Beirut during the height of the civil war, and he was a relentless fundraiser for AUH.

When he passed away, we founded the Samih Alami Medical Student Scholarship Fund. It is our family’s meek attempt at filling my father’s shoes and maintaining his legacy.”

Ramzi Samih Alami (BS ’94, MD ’98)

For further information on establishing an endowed scholarship fund at AUB, please contact Imad Baalbaki (bimad@aub.edu.lb)
http://give.aub.edu