The American University of Beirut has been a regional leader in campus safety and crisis response for decades.  The health, safety and security of all AUB community members, whatever their role or nationality, is of the highest importance to the University.  Since the creation of its Office of Environmental Health, Safety and Risk Management (EHSRM) in 2000, AUB has practiced integrated campus safety for all faculty, staff & students, on matters ranging from advocating for smoking cessation to full-scale crisis response.

To learn more about the composition of the current Emergency Response Team (ERT)at AUB, or to register a student or staff member in the emergency alert notification system, please visit our Emergency Preparedness webpage.

Both degree-seeking and study abroad students at AUB are accounted for in AUB’s integrated emergency-response and risk-management approach; the latter are fully briefed on AUB policies and procedures via the pre-orientation materials and on-campus orientation delivered to them by Office of International Programs in accordance with internationally recognized best practice guidelines. In keeping with best practice in the educational and campus safety fields, AUB’s integrated campus crisis response plan includes, but is not limited to, the following features:

• A detailed evacuation plan with appointed check-in points and associated procedures;
• A "shelter-in-place" plan to allow students and faculty who ordinarily reside off-campus to retreat within campus walls if it is found to be necessary;
• Stockpiling of food, water and medical supplies; as well as backup power generators in the event of a cessation of municipal services;
• A  fully articulated emergency communications protocol which includes SMS text messaging, a ready-to-roll crisis response website and social media strategy, as well as provisions for “mirroring” of the AUB electronic communications network through our New York facilities and for non-electronic backup methods of communication for on and off-campus populations in Beirut.

About International Students at AUB

• 25% of AUB’s student body are citizens of a nation other than Lebanon;
• AUB students come from 66 nations and all five continents;
• 39 US universities and 34 European universities sent students for a semester or year abroad at AUB;
• 52 US high schools, from Pennsylvania to California, were represented among entering undergraduate students;
• The entering cohort of international graduate students represented 18 European universities, 29 universities from the Middle East/North Africa region (including Lebanon), and 47 US universities (plus assorted Canadian & Australian universities).

To our North American partners and prospective partners

As a member of the Forum on Education Abroad, which sets the ethical and professional standards of the international education abroad community, AUB understands and upholds the need to collect and convey accurate information about one’s education abroad partners to multiple stakeholders on your campus.  If you have not already done so, you may wish to review the list, above, of US universities who have permitted their students to study with us during the recent period of regional changes; most have been happily referring their students to us, formally or informally, for years. Over the past three years, and notwithstanding alarming events in neighboring countries, AUB has maintained a steady population of just under 600 North American students enrolled in undergraduate and graduate studies here.  Both visiting and continuing students of all nationalities continue to report that they feel safe in Beirut and in Lebanon. 

AUB has been formally reviewed and approved as an undergraduate education abroad destination by dozens of US colleges and universities, including several who are either founding or current members of the Interorganizational Advisory Committee on Health and Safety in Education Abroad and the NAFSA Subcommittee on Health And Safety in Education Abroad.  AUB has also, by virtue of its participation in the above-named professional bodies and activities, received students from and signed formal affiliation agreements with a number of additional US institutions without a need for formal review.  AUB understands that decisions about perceived safety of a given country or region are both individual and institution-specific; nevertheless, if academic quality is important to you and your students, we invite you to consider joining our growing list of US sending schools and affiliates.  At AUB, your American students will be fully integrated into the student body and the local community, and they will be supported to the best of our professional abilities.