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Supporting Excellence |
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AUB alumni and friends continue to support the University in record numbers. In fact, one of the ways in which AUB excels among academic institutions in the region is the breadth and depth of support that it attracts from its alumni and friends around the world. Their support especially in recent years has transformed the University. The new and renovated buildings on campus, endowed faculty chairs, and recently established research centers and institutes all testify to that. For all these initiatives and for some others as well, such as the eight new PhD programs that the University introduced in fall 2007, however, the need for financial support is ongoing. There is every indication that AUB alumni and friends understand this need as more and more of them develop the habit of becoming regular - even annual – contributors to the University.
While it is true that AUB is stronger today because it rests on the shoulders of thousands of donors, it has also benefited over the years from the enormous generosity of a small group of men and women. This was also the case in the fiscal year that ended on September 30, 2008 when His Excellency Mr. Saad Hariri made a $10 million gift to name and endow the Rafic Hariri School of Nursing. The late Rafic B. Hariri, former prime minister and AUB trustee, gave generously to AUB for many years by funding scholarships that enabled thousands of students to attend the University, supporting the construction of the Hussam-Eddine Hariri Faculty Apartments on lower campus, and providing critical financial assistance during the Lebanese civil war. This most recent gift both honors the memory of Rafic Hariri and will provide invaluable support for the School of Nursing. In addition to helping to defray the costs of renovating and equipping the new home of the nursing school, the gift will be split among three endowed funds that will provide scholarships for nursing students, support the directorship of the school, and endow the Rafic Hariri Professor of Nursing.
In July 2008, AUB announced an AED 18.3-million (almost $5 million) pledge from the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation to establish a center for entrepreneurship and innovation at the Suliman S. Olayan School of Business, which will be a regional hub for entrepreneurship research and knowledge dissemination in the Arab world. The Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation will play an important role in promoting entrepreneurship as a way of combating the serious and growing problem of unemployment not just in Lebanon, but in the entire Arab world. His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, vice president and prime minister of the United Arab Emirates and ruler of Dubai, established his foundation in June 2007 to encourage and support efforts in the region to develop effective and sustainable solutions to some of the challenges that confront the Arab world. The foundation supports projects in three areas: culture, entrepreneurship and employment, and knowledge and education.
Thanks to a generous gift from neuropathologist and neurologist Mamdouha Al-Ahdab Barmada, the AUB Medical Center is now home to the Muhieddine M. Ahdab Neuromuscular Diagnostic Laboratory, which she named for her father. Barmada, who is both director and benefactor of the first neuromuscular diagnostic lab in the Arab world, joined AUBMC in 2006 after a long career at the University of Pittsburgh. The presence of this lab at the AUB Medical Center is making it possible for doctors to diagnose diseases such as muscular dystrophy, peripheral neuropathy, and all genetic neuromuscular diseases that affect young children, and to confirm these diagnosis more quickly, as it is no longer necessary to send lab samples to Europe or the United States.
As this brief snapshot attests, AUB continues to attract significant and generous support from its alumni and friends for broad and diverse goals – to expand financial aid, which remains one of the University’s highest priorities; to equip laboratories; to establish endowed chairs; and to fund research centers that strengthen the University’s academic programs and its ability to respond to the needs of the region. AUB is justly proud of its alumni and friends who have demonstrated time and time again that they share the University’s commitment “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.” | |
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