Director | Shibli, Rabih |
Administrative Assistant | Bou Fadel, Mireille |
Staff and Research Assistants | Abou Farraj, Lina | Basma, Ali | Fleihan, Hala |
Chahine, Karen | Hajaig, Rabih | Kouzi, Sarah |
Bou Matar, Sarah | Ziadeh, Raghida | Dabbous, Lin |
Nehme Ali | Massalkhi, Fatima | Shamma, Dina |
Maadarani, Omar | Rizkallah, Patricia | Zreik, Judi |
Youssef, Hani | Monzer, Shadi | |
Staff and Research Assistants:
AUB’s Center for Civic Engagement and Community Service (CCECS)
actively works towards instilling an ethos of transformative leadership
across campus, developing high impact multi-year interventions to
empower local communities, and bridging theory to practice for
experiential learning. This approach is embedded within the overall
mission statement of the university emphasizing the leading role of
students as change-agents equipped with skills needed to navigate the
context of uncertainty and humanitarian crisis. Accordingly, the
Center’s operational framework is rooted in solid university-community
partnerships and built on two cross- cutting tenets:
- Transformative Education:
Through extra-curricular activities and course offerings, CCECS guides
students along structured programs aimed at developing the skills,
mindsets, and values for active civic participation. Accordingly,
students are provided with extensive opportunities that equip them with
the tools needed to assess, analyze, and respond to the most pressing
challenges facing Lebanon, MENA, and beyond:
- Leadership Development (extra-curricular):
CCECS engages students in a 4-pillar sequenced journey beginning
with workshops, volunteering rotations, community-based internships,
gradually building up to the implementation of Community Service
Projects (CSP).
- Community Engaged Learning (course offerings):
CCECS liaisons with faculty members and community partners to develop
courses addressing challenges faced by marginalized communities,
ensuring balanced exchange of knowledge, and designating academically
relevant field work.
- Developmental Planning:
Through contextualized programs aimed at empowering the poor and
marginalized, CCECS plays an instrumental role in identifying themes,
setting schemes for impactful multi-year interventions, and establishing
partnerships with credible and like-minded universities, donor
agencies, local organizations, and stakeholders. Concurrently, these
programs serve as platforms for AUB students, faculty, and staff to
engage in the transformative process:
- Community Development Projects:
primarily includes marginalized local groups and focuses on enhancing
livelihoods and upgrading dilapidated infrastructure. Every intervention
incorporates local knowledge and resources throughout the design
process, implementations, and operations.
- Refugees’ Track:
aims at reinforcing the resilience of refugees and vulnerable groups
enduring a protracted stay by adopting an integrative approach that
conflates quality education, livelihoods and transferable-skills
development, and trauma-informed medical and mental health care
programs.
AUB’s civic engagement through
CCECS has earned international recognition. AUB has been designated as
the “most civically engaged campus” in the Middle East and North Africa,
won the MacJannet Prize for Global Citizenship, the MIT Enterprise
Forum ‘Innovate for Refugees’ Award, as well as the Fritz Redlich Human
Rights Award from Harvard University.