Dubai under the patronage of Princess Haya, wife of Sheikh Mohamad bin Rashed Al-Maktoum, vice president and prime minister of the UAE and ruler of Dubai. Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al-Nahyan and Minister of Health Humaid Al Qutami joined more than 470 guests for an evening featuring an art auction of works donated by local artists and galleries. Inspired by TV personality—and skilled auctioneer—Neshan Der Haroutounian, those in attendance spent more than one million AED (US$ 277,000) at the auction that will benefit the Brave Heart Fund. The fund’s mission to help needy children with congenital heart disease (CHD) inspired Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al-Nahyan’s moving opening speech and the emotional testimonies that followed. The audience also enjoyed a comedy routine by Nemr Abou Nassar and musical entertainment from the duo Raja and Manal that lightened the mood. The Brave Heart Fund, which was established at the Children’s Heart Center at AUBMC in November 2003 by volunteers whose lives have been touched by congenital heart disease, has so far provided financial assistance to more than 500 children with CHD. Every dollar donated to the fund is used to pay for heart surgery for needy patients. Learn more at www.braveheartfund.org.

West Hall Common Room Dedicated to Mahmoud Malhas
The multi-purpose student common room in West Hall has been completely renovated with a $600,000 donation from Mahmoud Malhas (BA ’57). For Malhas, it is very much a gift in gratitude for something that took place more than 50 years ago. While a first year economics student, financial constraints nearly forced Malhas to leave university. When AUB President Archie Crawford heard his story, he sent Malhas to the Comptroller's Office where he was told that he had been awarded a full scholarship that covered his tuition and books, and included a small stipend. Many years later, Malhas discovered that Crawford had paid for his education out of his own pocket. In appreciation, Malhas has given generously to AUB for many years, including for the reconstruction of College Hall. The Mahmoud Malhas Common Room includes an exhibition area, a study room, discussion spaces, and an exam room, and has been furnished with modern, brightly-colored furniture and equipped with a sound system, two large TV screens, an overhead projector, and Internet access.

AUB Marks the Anniversary of the Death of AUB President Malcolm Kerr
The AUB community gathered on January 19 to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the assassination of the ninth president of AUB, Malcolm Kerr, who was shot by unknown assailants outside his College Hall office on January 18, 1984. AUB President Peter Dorman placed a bouquet of flowers on the Kerr Memorial Stone outside College Hall under the sheltering branches of the banyan tree.

During the memorial service in 1984, Ann Kerr read the following statement: "For his death to have any meaning at all, it must be to leave a legacy for this university and for Lebanon. . . It was his fervent wish that all students at AUB put their loyalty to their university before their loyalty to their political and religious backgrounds; that they work together for the common good of AUB; study hard, play hard, and leave the university well prepared to become mature, liberally educated, public minded citizens of their own countries. It is only such people who can help to bridge the deep cultural misunderstandings that led to my husband's death." In a glass encasement near the memorial plaque, there is a letter from Kerr’s children that reads: "Dear Dad, We are proud of you and glad you came to AUB."

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Featured Videos

IFI
30 years after Camp David: A memo to the Arab World, Israel, and the Quartet
Presented by Jimmy Carter, thirty-ninth President of the United States
http://wwwlb.aub.edu.lb/~acc/Services/Videos_IFI.htm

CASAR
The Middle East Policies of the Bush and Obama Administrations.
Presented by Rami Khouri and Michael Young
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9HQoC_E_tk

On Foreign Policy and Peace
Discussion with Rt. Hon. David Miliband, MP, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, United Kingdom http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f773SUK-DoQ

More News, Views And Videos From Campus:
To receive AUB’s e-newsletter delivering international media headlines and news from AUB to members of the university community worldwide, send an e-mail to aub-views-request@aub.edu.lb with the word subscribe in the body of the message.

Common abbreviations found in MainGate:

Faculties:
FAFS: Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences
FAS: Faculty of Arts and Sciences
FEA: Faculty of Engineering and Architecture
FHS: Faculty of Health Sciences
FM: Faculty of Medicine
SoN: School of Nursing
OSB: Suliman S. Olayan School of Business

Institutes, Centers, and Departments:
AUBMC: American University of Beirut Medical Center
CAMES: Center for Arab and Middle Eastern Studies
CAMS: Center for Advanced Mathematical Sciences
CASAR: Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud Center for American Studies and Research
IFI: The Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs
PSPA: Political Studies and Public and Administration

From the Faculties

FEA

Spaces of Faith and Fun
The Department of Architecture and Design’s 2008 City Debates focused on “Spaces of Faith and Fun.” The debates, which have been presented since 2001, once again attracted an international roster of students, sociologists, urban planners, and anthropologists from Europe, the Middle East, and South America who exchanged ideas on various topics related to urbanism such as the spatiality of the Islamic public sphere in the Muslim world and its socio-cultural impact on the built environment.

The lectures presented at the conference documented places in and out of the city that bring together faith and fun—diverse locales like cafes, amusement parks, and pilgrimage sites that accommodate religious concerns by offering halal meat and non-alcoholic beverages. One of the discussions that took place built on the research of Mona Harb, associate professor of urban design and politics, who has been studying two destinations: the Fantasy World amusement park and Al-Saha Traditional Village, a theme restaurant in the Dahiyeh, Beirut’s southern suburb. Participants explored how communities and social and spatial relationships are reshaped by the nature of the sites themselves. Does, for example, the presence of Fantasy World and the Al-Saha Traditional Village attract consumers from northern Beirut to the Dahiyeh? If so, how does this impact the residents of the Dahiyeh?

Sensing Fire from Afar
A team of AUB scientists led by Professor of electrical and computer engineering Imad El-Hajj has successfully developed a unique sensor system that can be used to help battle forest fires through early detection. With funding from the Association for Forest Development and Conservation (AFDC), a Lebanese association dedicated to improving environmental management, El-Hajj and his colleagues have been working for the past year to develop this new device that consists of cell-phone-sized sensors that can detect humidity and temperature levels as well as smoke and sunlight intensity. More than 2,000 hectares of forest were lost to fire in 2007, the worst year in a decade. AFDC estimates that forests covered 35 percent of Lebanon in 1965—and only 13 percent in 2007.

FAS

News in Media Communication
The Faculty of Arts and Sciences is planning to introduce a media communication diploma program within the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences (SBS). “This new program [will fill] an important need for both AUB students and graduate students working in media institutions in the region. It is structured to provide the diploma holder with a command of both the professional and theoretical areas of media communication, with a focus on media ethics and social responsibility," says Nabil Dajani, professor of communication in the SBS Department.

FAFS

New Agribusiness Program at FAFS
AUB’s Board of Trustees has approved a BS in agribusiness program at the Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences. The three-year undergraduate program will offer students a unique opportunity to choose from among a broad selection of courses to acquire a comprehensive knowledge of the decision-making processes of business and the technical aspects of modern agriculture and food systems. For more information on this new program, contact fafs@aub.edu.lb

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FHS

Showing Solidarity with the Children of Gaza
A group of researchers at the FHS Department of Health Behavior and Education is working with a coalition of NGOs, residents of all ages from the Burj Al-Barajneh Camp in Beirut, and UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency) for Palestine Refugees in the Near East on a year-long intervention with children, their families, and schools. The Qaderoon project focuses on building children’s social skills to improve their psychosocial health (see page 20). On January 11, more than 150 children from the camp participating in Qaderoon came to campus for “A Day of Solidarity with Gaza,” during which they participated in poetry, pictures, dancing, drawing, and songs to support children.

OSB

Harvard Business Dean Lectures at AUB on Marketing and Democracy
Harvard Business School Associate Dean and Lincoln Filene Professor of Business Administration at Harvard University John A. Quelch spoke on December 1, 2008, in West Hall’s Bathish Auditorium on “how good marketing makes for better democracy.” In his talk, organized by the Olayan School of Business as part of the Salim Kheireddine/Al Mawarid Bank Lecture Series, Quelch argued that marketing should be used as a tool for social change. He pointed to the Obama campaign as an excellent example of a successful marketing plan, noting that it included a compelling biography, a positive vision, a consistent core message, a complementary line extension, innovation in communication, and a multi-pronged aggressive outreach campaign.

FM/AUBMC

UB Inaugurates the P. Abou Khater Ambulatory Care Center
AUB inaugurated the first wound care center in Lebanon as well as a multi-specialty outpatient clinic on Monday, December 29, 2008. The Pierre Y. Abou Khater Ambulatory Care Center and the Graham and Meredith Rooke Wound Care Center will offer sophisticated patient care in a center that enrolls nearly 160 doctors. The center was made possible by a generous gift by the late Pierre Y. Abou Khater, the former chairman and CEO of the Globe Group of Companies, who passed away in 2001. During the inaugural ceremony, President Peter Dorman explained that Abou Khater's gift not only permitted AUB to renovate the old outpatient department but also to initiate “a new way of offering patient care" by pooling the expertise of different specialists into each medical case.

Abou Khater was inspired to found the center after his own inpatient experience at the Rochester, Minnesota based Mayo Clinic, where he was being treated by Dr. Thom Rooke—a renowned cardiovascular researcher who founded the Mayo Clinic Wound Care Center. Abou Khater decided to name the wound care center after Rooke's two young children, Graham and Meredith, who had both recently been killed in a terrible car crash. Rooke readily offered his training skills, medical and fundraising expertise to help start the center at AUB.

A self-taught, globally successful businessman, Abou Khater was known for his engaging personality and networking skills, said Dr. Nadim Cortas, vice-president of medical affairs and the Raja N. Khuri Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Medical Center. Abou Khater also supported educational institutions all over Lebanon, including scholarship funds at AUB, and built a school for girls in China. "I am honored to...pay tribute to the life of a man whose generosity was boundless," said Cortas. "He wanted others to have and enjoy the same medical opportunities he had.”

Closing the inauguration ceremony was Dr. Rooke, who explained the type of wounds that such a care center could treat, including those resulting from modern-day diseases such as diabetes and atherosclerosis. "A wound care center is a place bringing together the right people into the right place for the right purpose," he said.

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Save the Date

42nd Middle East Medical Assembly (MEMA)
April 23-26, 2009, at AUB.
Information at mema@aub.edu.lb

Student News

AUB Responds to Gaza Crisis
AUB students, faculty, staff, and doctors responded to the crisis in Gaza with a silent vigil at the hospital, a two-hour open mike sit-in at the Main Gate, and by raising and contributing money to help Palestinian civilians. Student groups and clubs on campus and at the Medical Center joined forces and coordinated activities to raise awareness about the Gaza crisis and mobilize support and raise funds for Palestinian civilians. The AUB community responded generously, contributing more than $16,000 for supplies and medical aid.

Fill-A-Bag Campaign Helps Orphans and the Displaced
AUB students, the Center for Civic Engagement and Community Service (CCECS), and the Office of Student Affairs organized a Fill-A-Bag campaign in December 2008 to collect donations of clothes and toys for the Amel Association, which handled distribution to Iraqi refugee families in Lebanon; the Home of Hope that cares for street children of all ages and backgrounds; and the Nahr El-Bared Relief Campaign that is helping the displaced residents from the Nahr El-Bared Camp.

Scholarship News
The international management consulting firm Booz & Company will donate $300,000 to an endowed scholarship fund for engineering students. Starting in the fall of 2009, the money generated from the Booz & Company Endowed Scholarship Award will provide partial tuition support for fourth-year engineering students chosen for their high academic performance, involvement in extracurricular activities, and financial need. Booz & Company also pledged to donate an additional $15,000 to provide scholarships for two fourth-year engineering students during the current academic year.

Student Representative Committee (SRC) Election

Photos of 2008 SRC elections by AUB student Alia Zahi Haju

Faculty News

French National Academy of Medicine Honors Dr. Ali Bazarbachi
Assistant Dean for Research and Professor of Hematology-Oncology in the Department of Internal Medicine and Bone Marrow Transplant Unit Director at AUBMC Ali Bazarbachi was named laureate of the French National Academy of Medicine 2008 and received the Prix Aimée et Raymond Mande for his work on targeted therapy on human leukemia. He and his team have been working to determine the deficiencies in cancer cell programs and on finding targeted therapies for those defects that will eliminate malignant cells without harming the normal cells in the body. His research has led to the discovery of successful treatments currently used to treat incurable types of leukemia and lymph node cancer.

Abu Fadil Appointed to Arab Journalist Award Board
Magda Abu Fadil, the director of AUB's Journalism Training Program, has been selected by the General Secretariat of the Arab Journalism Award to join the governing board for its media awards program. The board, which will oversee the award process for the next three years, includes top media personalities and academics from the Gulf, North Africa, and the Levant.

Current Research

Diabetics May Fast During Ramadan, with Care
Researchers including Dr. Abdallah Kobeissy, Department of Internal Medicine, have published a paper showing that with care, patients with type one diabetes can fast during the month of Ramadan with minimal complications. The report gives detailed recommendations on proper adjustments to the insulin regimen to coincide with the two main meals eaten during Ramadan—one before dawn (Suhur) and the other at sunset (Iftar). It also provides guidance for health care professionals in managing patients who wish to observe the fast. According to the researchers, patients who observe the fast should be advised to monitor their blood glucose regularly, avoid skipping meals or overeating, and maintain contact with their physician throughout the fast. “Fasting is contraindicated in patients with poorly controlled type one diabetes, those who are noncompliant with diet and medication, those who engage in intense physical activity, pregnant women, and the elderly,” wrote Kobeissy.

Seeking Help for Mental Illness
Mental health patients in Lebanon who suffer from post war mental illnesses are not seeking valuable psychiatric help for many reasons including financial constraints, lack of awareness, and the social stigma associated with mental illness. Dori Hachem, a psychiatrist at AUBMC and the Hôpital Psychiatrique de la Croix, says that many Lebanese mental patients do not want to be treated by a psychiatrist. One of the reasons is that psychotherapy is a more expensive treatment than mood stabilizers and anti-depressive drugs. Hachem notes that few insurance companies in Lebanon pay for psychiatric treatment. "Nobody covers psychotherapy in Lebanon. But the government offers the newest anti-psychotics for free," he said. Another reason that so few patients are receiving proper treatment for depression, according to Hachem, is that the profession is neither recognized nor controlled by any governmental institution.

New CNRS Collaboration
AUB and the Lebanese National Council for Scientific Research (CNRS) have launched a three-year collaboration to establish three Association Research Units (ARUs) to focus research in the areas of air quality, water quality, and nutrition. "This program represents an ideal way to move forward by encouraging and supporting the capabilities of academic research institutions in the country," said Dr. Mouin Hamze, secretary general of CNRS.

The three projects will pair AUB with other universities in Lebanon. Researchers from AUB and St. Joseph University will work together to study and monitor air quality and determine the percentage and nature of poisonous gases in greater Beirut. In the second ARU, AUB and the Lebanese American University will team up to address water resource issues with the goal of improving water quality and ensuring the sustainable management of Lebanon's water resources. AUB, St. Joseph University, and Saint-Esprit, Kaslik University will collaborate in the third ARU on research on malnutrition and obesity in Lebanon to enhance the nutritional health of children and adults in Lebanon.

Established in 1962, the National Council for Scientific Research is a public institution that formulates national science and technology policy, initiating, guiding, supporting, and conducting scientific research programs and activities in Lebanon.

Hot or not?
Mohammad Al-Othmani, who is working under the supervision of Professor Nesreen Ghaddar, is enrolled in AUB’s PhD program in mechanical engineering.

Mohammad Al-Othmani spends a lot of his time worrying about making you comfortable—is the room too hot, too cold? Or, to make an important distinction, do you feel that the room is too hot or too cold? This is a question of thermal comfort, which ASHRAE (the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers) defines as “the state of mind that expresses satisfaction with the surrounding environment.” How we feel about the surrounding environment is relevant not just to how comfortable we feel, but also to energy use. “One of the goals of those of us working in this field is to identify systems that use less energy to make people feel comfortable,” Al-Othmani says.

Al-Othmani, who earned a BE in mechanical engineering from the Lebanese University Branch III before transferring to AUB to do a master’s degree with Ghaddar, is one of two PhD students in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. He spent the first year of his PhD research in AUB’s environmental chamber lab testing a bioheat model that he developed as a master’s student to compare the effectiveness of radiative and convective heating systems for maintaining comfortable environments during transient periods. Ghaddar stresses that it is this aspect of al-Othmani’s research that is particularly interesting. “The response of sedentary clothed people in a steady environment is a well researched topic,” she says. “The focus of this research, however, is to develop a ventilation model for moving clothed humans in a changing environment.” To study this, al-Othmani had to develop a model that allowed him to compare the transient thermal sensation and comfort when entering a heated room from a cold outdoor environment with the thermal sensation and comfort when entering a cold room and then turning on the heat.

The next step is to assess how the added variable of clothing influences the perception of thermal comfort. (Imagine the difference in how you feel if you are wearing shorts instead of a wool sweater while exercising in a 35° C windy environment.) This required that al-Othmani integrate a clothing ventilation model that had been developed previously by AUB master’s students Jihad Harathani, Ezzat Jaroudi, and Bassel Jreige, with the model that he has been working on that describes the air motion and temperature inside the trunk or torso. By integrating the trunk and arm models, al-Othmani will be able to create a complete clothing ventilation model. “My interest in the model I am developing,” explains Al-Othmani, “is that it is an integration of the space, bioheat, and clothing ventilation models. By combining the three, we will be able to get a lot of data—physiological data, clothing and fabric data, construction data—on how people feel in different environments, wearing different clothing, and at different activity levels.”

Al-Othmani’s PhD research builds on the work of the members of the FEA thermal comfort team, which studies bioheat modeling, thermal comfort, and energy efficiency; his advisers are Professor Nesreen Ghaddar, the Endowed Qatar Chair in Energy Studies, and Professor Kamel Ghali from Beirut Arab University. (Learn more about the thermal comfort team at AUB at http://webfea-lb.fea.aub.edu.lb/thermalcomfort/#)

From India's Gangetic Valley

Pandit Daya Shankar and the Samundar Khan Langa Groups from India's Gangetic Valley and Rajasthan Desert performed classical Indian music at Assembly Hall on October 21, 2008. The concert was organized by the Embassy of India, Beirut; the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, New Delhi; and AUB's Office of Information and Public Relations

Arts

2+2+1
The Department of Fine Arts and Art History’s fall student theatrical and musical performances included two short plays: Overtones and Then; two songs: “I'm Going Back” and “The Midas Touch”; and a monologue, “The Ultimate Actor.” Directed by Senior Lecturer David Kurani, the acclaimed production of “The Ultimate Actor” explored internal conflicts between emotion and logic, identity within society, and complications inevitably triggered by the ego.

Focus on...

AUB Music Abroad
Over the past year and a half AUB music has echoed abroad in England, in the cities of Erbil and Suleimaniyeh in Iraq, and in Salt Lake City in the United States—spurred on by Paul Meers, AUB choir director. Meers led AUB choir members in three successful concerts in England in June 2007, spent ten days in July 2008 teaching a conducting workshop in Kurdistan, and later that same summer coached two choirs on the intricacies of Arabic articulation in Salt Lake City.

The July 2006 Israeli attack on Lebanon torpedoed plans to receive the choir of Saint Catharine’s College, Cambridge for joint concerts at AUB and the University of Balamand (UOB). In the last week of June 2007, however, the invitation was reversed and members from both Lebanese choirs traveled to England for a week-long singing residency at Saint Catharine’s College, “a world center of choral music excellence.” The host choir and the singers from Lebanon performed music by Schutz and Buxtehude; Maronite, Greek Orthodox, and Gregorian chants that were part of a program entitled Qadduson (ecclesiastical chant); and songs by Lebanon’s Zaki Nassif. The various chants, said Meers, “glued everything together from all the church traditions.” The three concerts were performed in the Lady Chapel of the Ely Cathedral, Oxford’s Merton College Chapel, and the Georgian Chapel of Saint Catharine’s.

AUB choir members, who especially enjoyed getting to know their colleagues from UOB, were ecstatic about their experience in Cambridge. “Singing all day every day, surrounded by people who are passionate about music, is something exceptional. What marked me the most was singing in the magical Ely Cathedral where our voices were blending so well, giving us the feeling they were infinitely filling every corner of the gigantic cathedral,” said one choir member.

Director Meers’s workshops in Erbil and Suleimaniyeh in Iraq were funded by AUB’s Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud Center for American Studies and Research and sponsored by the American Voices Association, a nonprofit organization “devoted to increasing mutual understanding between the United States and the rest of the world.” The association’s “mission has been to further the appreciation and understanding of American music and culture, especially in developing countries, countries emerging from conflict or periods of isolation, and those lacking opportunities for cultural exchange and dialogue in the United States.” According to John Ferguson, a professional pianist and executive director of American Voices, the association’s programs have done a great deal to reverse negative perceptions of the United States. “During our programs,” he said, in countries like Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, and Syria, “one would never suspect that the United States is not admired.”

In mid-July 2008 Meers spent two days directing a choral conducting workshop for professionals and pre-professionals from the National Institute of Fine Arts in Erbil. According to Meers, the students were well-grounded in the basics of music, but had never done much with vocal music. After daily classes in conducting, the students attended an accreditation ceremony in the presence of the regional minister of culture.

Meers next moved to Suleimaniyeh in northeast Kurdistan near the Iranian border where he worked with “a really fine” girls’ choir being trained for an international competition in Vienna. The uninhibited girls took enthusiastically to structured improvisation exercises. “There was some pent up energy that just had to be let out in that room. It was almost scary.” Meers also instructed Suleimaniyeh musicians in reading musical notation and “performing music with the voice.”

Paul Meers then returned to Erbil for a four day musicianship workshop, which included conducting, that he described as “a choral experience.” The participants were instrumental players, most of whom had very little experience with choral music. Meers believes instrument musicians need choral skills because they require “reading an entire score and not just a single instrumental line. It’s a basic musician’s skill.”

John Ferguson said, “The impact of Paul Meers’s teaching in Erbil and Suleimaniyeh has been great, and we hope to build on the momentum that Dr. Meers brought to our students and partner institutions. . . There is much temperament, passion, and feeling in Iraqi performances, but a sound music education in rhythm, solfège (a technique for teaching sight reading), and choral singing is sorely lacking.” Meers helped fill the gap.

From Iraq, Meers moved on to the American west. Every summer the Salt Lake Choral Artists (SLCA), a community-based choral ensemble directed by Brady Allred, director of musical activities at the University of Utah, runs a series of choral sessions open to all applicants. In summer 2008, Meers, supported by an AUB Faculty Development Grant, helped participants sing in Arabic in an SLCA session dedicated to folk and multi-cultural music for choir. “The singers had to do a lot of work to pronounce the Arabic sounds. I was trying to get them to do the articulation not shown in the notation, but what the musical style and language demand. Since transliteration necessarily distorts the truth of the language, if anyone besides a native speaker is going to sing, there has to be a system.”

With limited Arabic himself, Meers enlisted the help of AUB students. Amir Haidar, “a really good actor and singer . . . recorded the text, which I sent to Utah in advance so they could have it in hand and get used to some of the sounds.” Meers worked with both an adult and a children’s choir. The adult choir sang Eddy Toriguian’s El Helwa Di, “a theater song,” said Meers, “popular, but not really folk music—a bit like Zaki Nassif,” while the children’s choir rehearsed an actual Lebanese mountain folk song arranged by Toufic Succar, 3ar Rozana. As the singers were very well-trained musically (“They could do it in their sleep”), most rehearsal time was spent on the sounds and the articulation. “We worked on the idea of the language. Singing in Arabic is very different from [singing in] any European language.”

Summer Institute Director Kerrin Gates said, "What a wonderful experience it was to have Paul Meers come to the Summer Choral Institute. The children's choir loved learning to pronounce the Arabic language, especially from someone who lives where the language is spoken and could tell them about life there. The adult choir was also grateful for the new experience and challenge of pronouncing Arabic and singing the beautiful melodic lines of eastern music. Altogether, Paul's contribution to our Summer Choral Institute helped to broaden our world view, to see the beauty in differences, and embrace them through music. . . We now see possibilities where there was perhaps misunderstanding and apprehension. We are grateful he was able to come and participate."

Meers reflected, “If music is truly a universal language, what better way for AUB to build bridges to the Arab world and the world at large, than to offer its music.”

Philip Saleh Photography
Philip Saleh (BArch ’98) held a photo exhibition of his work titled “Mountains of Lebanon: Unveiling Hidden Beauties of Lebanon” in West Hall December 16-20.



On Philanthropy
Since we look extensively at AUB activities in Palestinian communities in this issue, we also wanted to acknowledge a few of our many alumni and friends with Palestinian roots whose generosity has influenced the physical face of the campus and made an AUB education accessible to so many students through scholarship aid. Among our many generous contributors, we remember Kamal Shair, who passed away in 2008. He founded the Kamal A. Shair Central Research Science Laboratory, named the Dar Al-Handasah Shair & Partners Architecture Building, and supported academic programs throughout the University. Said T. Khoury (former student) and Consolidated Contractors Co. (CCC) named the CCC Scientific Research Building on lower campus, which was completed in 2007. They expanded their extensive support of student programs and laboratory equipment at the Faculty of Engineering to fund many initiatives at AUBMC, including the Pulmonary Function Lab and the Atrial Fibrillation Program. Consolidated Contractors Co. was a leading contributor to the College Hall Fund in the 1990s. CCC cofounder Hasib Sabbagh (BE ’41) has also retained a long-lasting relationship with AUB. Sabbagh has been a generous donor to both academic programs and AUB’s hospital, particularly the Cardiac Catherization Program. After the death of his wife Diana in 1978, Sabbagh set up the Diana Tamari Sabbagh (DTS) Foundation in her honor to fund the basic sciences in the region and at AUB. Through Dr. Joseph W. Tamari, the brother of Diana Tamari Sabbagh, the DTS Foundation has worked closely with AUB to maintain and equip the DTS Building on campus and fund faculty development, graduate students, training in the basic sciences, and Middle East Medical Association (MEMA) lectureships. Petro-Geology expert Munib R. Masri and his wife Angela Masri have expanded AUB studies in the areas of geology and engineering by funding the Munib and Angela Masri Institute of Energy and Natural Resources at AUB and have been strong supporters of the Center for Advanced Mathematical Sciences at AUB. They were also generous benefactors of the College Hall Fund in the early 1990s. Abdul-Muhsen Al-Qattan (BBA ’51) and Leila Al-Qattan’s support of endowed chairs and scholarships, including the Abdul-Muhsen Al-Qattan Endowed Scholarship and the Edward W. Said Endowed Chair, will ensure generations of groundbreaking scholarship by AUB students and faculty. Riad (BE ’64) and Hassana Sadik are dedicated scholarship supporters who founded the Riad and Hassana Sadik Endowed Scholarship and supported the John Waterbury Endowed Fellowship Fund among many other initiatives. In 2003, the newly renovated Suhail R. Bathish Auditorium opened in West Hall, made possible by a gift by Etaf Farah-Bathish in memory of her husband, a 1959 engineering graduate of AUB. It’s the generosity of our community that enables AUB to fulfill its mission: to provide excellence in education, to participate in the advancement of knowledge through research, and to serve the peoples of the Middle East and beyond.

Thanks to the generosity of the AUB community, 40 percent of AUB students received scholarship aid last year from nearly 400 scholarships. The following scholarships support Palestinian and Lebanese students at the University.

Abu Dhabi Alumni Endowed Scholarship
Samih Alami Memorial Endowed Scholarship
Ahmad S. Al-Khalidy Endowed Scholarship
Faisal Al-Mutawwa Endowed Scholarship
Abdul Mohsen Al-Qattan Endowed Scholarship
Fahd Al-Rajaan Scholarship
Haidar and Sirin Ataya Scholarship
George Awad Memorial Scholarship
Barakat-Sawabini Endowed Scholarship Fund
Nabil and Reem Barakat Scholarship
Eisa A. Bateh and Bros. Endowed Scholarship
Anis Abdul Hamid Bibi Memorial Scholarship
Kamel Dajani Memorial Endowed Scholarship
Serene Dajani Memorial Endowed Scholarship
Fuad Es-Said Endowed Scholarship
Salwa Es-Said Endowed Scholarship
Samira Fadli Scholarship
The Dorothy Fahs-Beck Endowed Scholarship Fund
Issa I. Farah Scholarship
Gaza Endowed Scholarship
Ahmad Abu Ghazaleh Scholarship
Oussama Abou Ghazaleh Scholarship
George Issa Hazboun Memorial Endowed Scholarship
Hassan and Kulthum al-Husseini Scholarship
Mohieddine Jishi Memorial Scholarship
Yusef Abu Khadra Endowed Scholarship
Peter Hanna Malak Scholarship
Yusuf Mansour Scholarship
Anis Mouasher Memorial Scholarship
Fuad Nakhleh Endowed Scholarship
Palestinian Cultural Club Scholarship
Hani Qaddumi Foundation Scholarship
Adnan Qiblawi Scholarship
Riad and Hassanah Sadik Endowed Scholarship
Fouad M. Saleh Scholarship
Joseph Sanbar Scholarship
Nabila and Nadia Sawabini Scholarship
Youssef Shammas Scholarship

Reviews

The Legacy of the Kitab: Sibawayhi’s Analytical Methods within the Context of the Arabic Grammatical Theory
(Brill, 2008) by Ramzi Baalbaki
he Legacy of the Kitab is a comprehensive study of the first and most impressive treatise on Arabic grammar: the Kitab of Sibawayhi. In his new book, Baalbaki argues that grammar's central position within the wider Arab culture promotes our understanding of the various disciplines with which it has interacted throughout its long history of development. Baalbaki also explores the enormous influence that the Kitab has had on overall grammatical tradition and points out that most of Sibawayhi's terms, notions, categories, arguments and analytical tools were adopted by subsequent grammarians. Students of Arabic may be interested to find that according to Baalbaki, the difficulties they face mastering Arabic grammar is an old phenomenon that goes back to the time of the earliest grammarians.

Professor Ramzi Baalbaki holds the Margaret Weyerhaeuser Jewett Chair of Arabic at AUB.

Off the Wall—Political Posters of the Lebanese Civil War
(I.B.Tauris & Co. Ltd.: January 2009) by Zeina Masri
In Off the Wall, Zeina Masri relates the story of the 15-year Lebanese civil war through a rich collection of political posters, which were part of a widely acclaimed exhibit (Signs of Conflict) that she curated as part of Home Works IV: A Forum on Cultural Practices, held in Beirut in the spring of 2008. This profoundly interesting volume, which includes a foreword by Professor Fawwaz Traboulsi, contains beautiful and haunting images that are sure to provoke powerful memories among some readers and be new and illuminating to others.

Maasri’s insightful text analyzes the posters, which she has organized in four typologies (leadership, commemoration, martyrdom, and belonging), and links the changing iconography to the transformation of political identities and national imaginaries during wartime. She argues against the conventional propaganda framework and reductive model of “mass persuasion” to propose instead a rethink of political posters in civil war contexts as “symbolic sites of struggle, every bit as fiercely contested as the streets they adorn.”

Zeina Maasri is an associate professor of Graphic Design at AUB.

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My American Bride
(Quartet Books, 2008) by Elie Salem
The title of Elie Salem’s latest book, My American Bride, suggests a biography of his wife, Phyllis, but the preface concludes, “As I loved that American girl, I must relate my story through her.” The book is a rich combination of autobiography and biography, with elements of history and serious anthropological exploration of cultural collision between the Arab world and the West, specifically between Lebanon and the United States. In this story, as Elie absorbs American culture and ideas, Phyllis gradually becomes Lebanese.

About the book, Salem, former Faculty of Arts and Sciences dean (1974-82) and deputy prime minister and minister of foreign affairs (1982-84), currently president of the University of Balamand, wrote, “This is not a good time for Arabs and Americans. Indeed, a wave of hatred and abject misunderstanding permeates the sphere between them. I write in the hope that it is useful to tell our story, essentially a love story, at such a time.”

The story recounts with engaging humor, Salem’s own “social trial and error” in the United States as a young graduate student and later as a university professor at Johns Hopkins, but also provides specific details of his growing up in the Koura under the patriarchal rule of his father Adib. Mixed in are details of Phyllis’s sometimes painful introduction to “village life,” and specific accounts of her introduction of her own family to Lebanon.

Blending Lebanese and American culture, the couple moved together toward new careers. Salem recounts war difficulties as FAS dean and Phyllis’s role as director of AMIDEAST, where she counseled students to go to the United States for education, but always urged them to return to Lebanon. Phyllis’s calm, humanistic approach is always apparent as Elie deals with the deanship at AUB, counsels radical students, and then gives impromptu “seminars” to presidential hopeful Bashir Gemayel, before assuming his position as foreign minister.

Throughout My American Bride, Salem shows how the warmth and strength of his wife, Phyllis, continued to animate his academic, administrative, and governmental achievements. He says she continues to inspire him today.

Salem is the author of numerous articles and papers and four other books, among them two on Lebanon: Modernization without Revolution—Lebanon 1943-1970 (1973), an account of the growth of Lebanon since independence, and Violence and Diplomacy in Lebanon, 1982-1988 (1995), an account of his years as deputy prime minister and minister of foreign affairs (1982-84) and as adviser on foreign affairs to the president of the republic (1984-88). –JMC

Elie Salem is a former PSPA professor and dean of FAS (1974-82.)