From the President

Dear Alumni and Friends:

If you ever happen to browse through the photographic archives at Jafet Library, you will come across an impressive number of photographs from the first half of the twentieth century that reveal AUB as a remarkably international and cosmopolitan university. Typed on thin, yellowed paper are accompanying stories: of the two young brothers who were sent to AUB from Iran, of the married couple from Egypt who enrolled together, of scholars from Ethiopia and India, and of the professor from Brazil. Even decades later, these photographs reflect the sheer dynamism of a university in its heyday, for it is in the meeting of minds from so many different places, with so many different stories and viewpoints to share, that the mission of a liberal arts education is truly fulfilled.

Today, thanks to you, we are ushering in a new heyday for AUB. This year was one of remarkable progress toward our goal of once again making AUB a premier international university offering the best liberal arts education available. Your generosity is bringing AUB’s Master Plan steadily to life, ensuring that our students and faculty will enjoy an unprecedented level of excellence in their research and teaching facilities, modern student housing, a campus that is preserved as a natural and architectural gem, and the financial resources that will provide it with sustenance. Your gifts to our Medical Center are allowing us to offer treatments to our patients that are available nowhere else in our region, and helped us to secure the honor of Best Medical College, Institute, or Center in the Arab World. Your support of one of our top priorities–scholarship aid–allowed us to admit and assist one of our brightest, most talented groups of students yet and to award over $10 million in aid to 2,949 individuals.

This year’s student body of over 6,600 was our largest yet, demonstrating that prospective students are truly responding to the revitalization they see at AUB. These young men and women hale from 67 different countries, constituting a unique international community on campus in which to mature and grow. The reopening and rededication of West Hall in February of this year was an important milestone in our quest to provide these students with the spaces and resources they need to nurture this growth. We remain dedicated to giving students classroom experiences that are thought-provoking and even transforming, with offerings like our new interdisciplinary program in literary studies, the Anis Khoury Makdisi Program in Literature. The Center for Arab and Middle Eastern Studies enjoyed its highest enrollment ever, with a total of 33 master’s students from around the world, and despite the political turbulence in the region, 251 applicants competed for a record 65 spots in our Summer Arabic Program.

This year was also one of outreach for AUB, in which a number of new initiatives connected our campus to a greater global community. Throughout the academic year AUB hosted gatherings of journalists, librarians, and mathematicians from around the world. A graduate student exchange program with George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs was instituted. We also began coordination of the Understanding Contemporary Islam Program, which sends academics from around the Islamic world to universities and colleges in the United States to lecture on contemporary Muslim society and life.

Seeing the leaps and bounds we’ve made this year, it’s easy to forget that we haven’t yet reached the goals that will allow us to fully carry out our Master Plan and usher in a new era for AUB. The next three years are a time that AUB will need you more than ever before, and I’d like to take this opportunity to ask you to make us your first philanthropic priority during this time. Every single gift, from $10 on up, makes a difference to our students. Your contributions are powering the decisions we make every day for our students, from decisions about which journal subscriptions our libraries can afford, to decisions about how many laboratories we are able to equip and maintain. Your continued support honors the potential of AUB, and allows us to fulfill it.

Thank you for your support.

Sincerely,

John Waterbury