Tutors Dana Ariss Nasser and Hala Daouk gave thorough step-by-step instructions to a room packed with attentive students. "Since most of the research papers at the university require this style, we realized it would be very beneficial to teach this seminar and refresh students' memories," says Nasser.

APA citation style refers to the rules and conventions established by the American Psychological Association for documenting sources used in a research paper.

Though this might not be the most exciting part of writing a paper it is essential to ensure success in academia where charges of plagiarism are a growing concern. "One of the reasons why we stress the correct application of APA style is to be respectful of copyright laws and the ethics of research," explains Daouk. "Being able to document all sources properly is a key ingredient for success in the research world," echoes Nasser.

The workshop is in step with what the Writing Center refers to as "a mission of creating a culture of writing at the university." Indeed, contributing greatly to that mission is Paula Abboud Habre, a senior instructor of English and the director of the Writing Center.

Habre recently received a certificate from TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages), for a ten-week online teacher-training course entitled: Building Teaching Skills Through the Interactive Web. Habre will soon share her experience and the lessons learned with her colleagues through a workshop she will conduct.

A strong believer in continuous learning, Habre consistently encourages her students to further hone their writing skills and it was unsurprising that many of them attended the event. "This workshop presented a great deal of information in a manner that was effective and not overwhelming," says TOFEL student Amal Tayyouni. "It was very helpful to attend, as it will make research writing so much easier in the future."

The Writing Center was inaugurated in Spring 2010 and is open Monday through Friday from 11a.m.-4 p.m.
 

"Today more than ever, capacity building is of utmost importance," said Dean of SOP Dr. Pierre Zalloua in his opening address. "It strengthens the school's ability to fulfill its mission and enhances the positive impact it has on the community accordingly."

In fact, this event is the first in a series of trainings the school is organizing as part of its continuous education and capacity building initiative.

During the first half of the workshop, Elie Samia, executive director of OCE, tackled the concept of educational leadership, focusing primarily on critical thinking approaches, various leadership and management styles, and how to incentivize students to be more proactive.

The second half of the workshop, moderated by Karam Abi Yazbeck, senior coordinator of leadership and civic engagement at OCE, consisted of a series of six sessions that emphasized the importance of establishing healthy communication in the workplace. These sessions also addressed successful interviewing techniques, effective participation in discussions, the stages of teamwork evolution, and structured approaches for brainstorming and creative problem solving.

Using a hands-on participatory approach, Abi Yazbeck linked theoretical concepts to concrete examples in the workplace, fostering critical thinking and cooperative learning among the participants, who were encouraged to share their own work experiences and success stories.

According to the participants' feedback, the workshop proved to be tremendously beneficial, which was reflected both in their spirited engagement in the training and written evaluations.

"The workshop's rich agenda offered participants the opportunity to engage with each other and achieve the training's set outcomes," said Dr. Aline Saad, chair of SOP's Department of Pharmaceutical Practice.
"Interacting creatively with the SOP faculty and staff has been an enlightening and refreshing experience for all of us," said Samia. "We worked together as a family to better serve -- and fulfill the mission of -- the university," he added.

Dr. Elise Salem, vice president for Student Development and Enrollment Management, wholeheartedly agrees. "I'm very happy to have witnessed the enthusiasm, creativity, teamwork and humor of our faculty and staff members," she said, before adding, "It's amazing what happens when we are taken out of our comfort zones, and compelled to look at situations from a completely different perspective."

The upcoming workshop dedicated to grant writing will be delivered by Zalloua, a renowned researcher acquainted with successfully submitting grant proposals.

One of the most important consequences of the book is the evidence it presents which concretely confirms the widespread perception that governmental television programs are out of synch with the needs of the population and represent an outdated approach to broadcasting.

The study focuses on eight countries, namely Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Morocco, the Palestinian Territories and Tunisia. Data was obtained as research teams explored the definition and the values represented by the PSB and came up with concrete recommendations to enhance PSB and to raise awareness about the importance of a transparent, open and liberalized media for a democratic society.

Television is by far the most prominent vehicle for both information and entertainment for the approximately 200 million who live in the countries featured. As a consequence, the project of nation building is closely intertwined with television, explained Dr. Dima Dabbous-Sensenig, who conducted the study. Director of IWSAW Dabbous-Sensenig is also  associate expert at the Panos Paris Institute (IPP), an NGO that supports media pluralism.

The book is the result of a project that began in 2010, prior to the dramatic events that sparked the Arab Spring in Tunisia. "This gave us an interesting opportunity to record before and after the Arab Spring and to see if new changes had been ushered in," Dabbous-Sensenig said.

Attorney Tony Mikhael, lawyer at the Maharat Foundation discussed the case of Tele Liban with respect to PSB standards and explained that there are early signs of awareness of the need for a mission of PSB across the MENA region. "Regulatory frameworks are lacking," he explained. "One of the goals of this project is to raise public awareness of the importance of a liberal media sector and the importance of regulatory mechanisms to monitor and supervise the media landscape," Mikhael said.

The book made use of both qualitative and quantitative analysis and provides a wealth of evidence that can be used to guide policy recommendations. The seminal importance of the book was markedly expressed by Dr. Naomi Sakr, director of the Arab Media Center at the University of Westminster and an Arab media specialist who presented a talk centered on the concept of PSB in the Arab context.

"This 160-page book should be required reading for anyone interested in communication or media studies in the Arab World," Sakr enthused.
"It is full of scientifically collected facts and figures--it is a gold mine for anyone interested in this topic."

The book is published in four languages (Arabic, Catalan, English and French) and was created in close partnership with the teams of the Panos Paris Institute (IPP), the Mediterranean Observatory of Communication (OMEC) and the project partners in the countries of the MENA region: the Algerian League for the Defence of Human Rights (LADDH Algeria), the Community Media Network (CMN, Jordan), Maharat Foundation (Lebanon), the Centre for Media Freedom Middle East North Africa (CMF MENA, Morocco) and the AMIN Media Network (Palestine).
 

"In this day and age, scientific research and findings are shaping our view of the world, and unearthing new realms and truths," said Nemat Kenaan, vice president of the President's Circle Executive Committee and moderator of the symposium. "We should always be at the forefront of these developments and expansions."

The 1960s marked the beginnings of genetic testing after geneticists and obstetricians established a correlation between a woman's age during pregnancy and the likelihood of her birthing an infant who has Down syndrome, also known as trisomy 21.

By performing amniocentesis, a medical procedure in which a small amount of amniotic fluid containing fetal tissues is examined for genetic abnormalities, physicians can determine whether the fetus has any chromosomal abnormalities, including trisomy 21. "But the real question is, 'What should we do with this newfound knowledge?'" said Dr. Adnan Mroueh, president of the Lebanese National Consultative Committee for Ethics for Health and Life Science (LNCCE) that co-organized the event. "If a fetus indeed has trisomy 21, should the pregnancy be terminated? And if the parents wish to do so, is that allowed in Lebanon?" Mroueh asked.

According to the Lebanese law, an abortion can only be performed legally if the pregnancy poses a danger on the expecting mother's health. Be that as it may, Mroueh stated that laymen and practitioners alike have found ways to bypass this law by performing medical, nonsurgical abortions.

Today, genetic testing can allow expecting parents to diagnose a wide array of hereditary diseases, including thalassemia, sickle cell anemia, and phenylketonuria, among others. In cancer patients, it can even determine the genetic defect that may have caused the proliferation of tumorous cells, thus helping to orchestrate a suitable treatment.

But genetic testing can be used beyond sheer diagnostics -- it can help to compute the risk of developing certain diseases on the long run, in which case, it is called "predictive testing."

"Predictive testing can allow us to determine where the chromosomal abnormality lies," said Dr. Pierre Zalloua, renowned genecist and dean of the LAU School of Pharmacy. "But we cannot always know what this chromosomal abnormality actually implies -- whether or not it will lead to disease, whether or not this disease can be prevented, and how it can be treated. In the end, our genes do not determine who we are. Environmental factors play a huge role, as well."

In some cases, neurodegenerative diseases that cause cognitive decline like Huntington's disease can also be diagnosed. "Again, the issue in question is 'How useful is this knowledge?'" said Professor of Pathology Dr. George Aftimos. "If a patient knows he or she will have Huntington's disease in old age, is that a good thing? Will this help them to plan their lives better, or will it just cause them to be melancholy and anxious?"

LNCCE's Vice President and President of the Lebanese Cancer Society Dr. Michel Daher discussed the use of genetic testing in both paternity tests and forensics, the latter of which can be of great significance in criminal investigations.

Doubtless, the symposium raised many questions that cannot always be answered straightforwardly for their answers remain a largely personal -- and often legal -- choice.

Delighted to have attended the event, Mounir Jabbour said, "I've never learned so much in so little time. It was an inspiring seminar. When you're a 72-year-old-man like me, you want to stay up-to-date."

"The inequality we see in the world is not predestined--it is simply a result of weak institutions," Robinson explained to a room brimming with eager students and faculty members. He and Why Nations Fail co-author, Dr. Daron Acemoglu of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology contend that the poverty of nations cannot be adequately explained by resorting to arguments of culture, geography, or harsh weather patterns.

Based on fifteen years of original research, Why Nations Fail is a thorough historical examination of the ever-widening gap between wealthy and impoverished countries.

The book has garnered enormous praise and has been deemed by Foreign Policy magazine as one of the most influential books of recent times and has been read by much of the world's top political elite. "This book is of utmost importance, particularly in light of the drastic changes that have occurred in the Arab world in recent years," enthused Dr. Sami Baroudi, assistant provost for faculty affairs, and a professor of political science.

Putting aside sweeping generalizations, Robinson explained that incentives are the key to generating sustainable and sound institutions which reward innovation and promote creative thinking. "Economic success is driven by inclusiveness--a broad distribution of power--and a powerful, centralized state," he explained.

The presentation was followed by a lively question-and-answer period whereby Robinson was prompted to offer something of a political forecast of the future of the Arab Spring.

Focusing on the case of Egypt, Robinson responded: "The experience of colonialism derailed much of Egyptian economic progress, and the consequences can still be felt today," before adding, "Unless the new Egyptian political elite establish an inclusive state which distributes rewards and incentives broadly, the Egyptian project will not be able to sustain itself."

Chair of the Department of Social Sciences Dr. Makram Ouaiss moderated the event and discussed the importance of LAU's global outlook: "It is important for our department to expose students to top-notch scholars from around the world, and allow avenues for exchange of knowledge," explained Ouaiss. "Here at LAU we make every effort to expand our global reach," he added.

And this effort did not go unnoticed among the students in attendance. "I am grateful to have been able to attend such a world-class event," said international SINARC student Camille Jagueneau.

James A. Robinson is a political scientist, economist, and David Florence Professor of Government at Harvard University. An expert on Latin America and Africa, Robinson is currently doing research in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sierra Leone, Haiti, and Columbia.
 

"This research project seeks to understand what role the Lebanese diaspora plays in the politics of their 'homeland' and what is the role of 'homeland' politics in the Lebanese diaspora," says Dr. Jennifer Skulte-Ouaiss, assistant professor of political science and international affairs and a faculty member of IMS.

The study found that political parties in Lebanon have discovered that the diaspora is and wants to be engaged in homeland affairs and have responded by institutionalizing diaspora participation.

In addition, many diaspora state-like activities, such as donating money to build schools and roads, have proven to have short-term positive effects. Instead, they have been contributing to perpetuating the weakness of the Lebanese state which is something that goes against what many in the diaspora say they want: a strong Lebanon.

The research was limited to what it defined as 'active diaspora;' in other words, citizens of Lebanese heritage who express an interest in participating in Lebanese public life. The ambitious undertaking spanned three years and included over 300 in-depth interviews with various political, religious and civil society leaders in Lebanon, Australia, Canada and the United States. Its presentation took place in the presence of dignitaries, policymakers and the LAU community.

"It is important for us to share our preliminary findings and include policymakers in the process," says Dr. Paul Tabar, IMS director and associate professor of sociology. "Receiving feedback is critical for us as we move forward with the publication of the findings," he added.

Speaking on behalf of the Canadian International Research Development Centre (IDRC) that funded the research project Ambassador of Canada Hilary Childs Adams said, "IDRC encourages sharing knowledge with policymakers, other researchers, and communities around the world." She added that the result is innovative, lasting local solutions that aim to bring choice and change to those who need it most.

"It was a very interesting workshop," says LAU exchange student Jean Kukko. "I was especially intrigued to find that the people of the diaspora expressed a desire not to 'import' bad politics from Lebanon but rather to 'export' its positive experiences back to their homeland."

As the workshop concluded, Tabar expressly acknowledged the efforts of the various student researchers and graduate assistants who were commissioned to work on this and other IMS research projects.

Indeed, IMS offers a variety of research opportunities where students may hone research skills and get an understanding of new concepts and methodologies that complement their studies.

IMS also receives graduate students from abroad (typically from England and France) who take advantage of its activities and the LAU experience while they are writing their Ph.D. theses. To this end, IMS works in close collaboration with the European Research Institute to organize training sessions on research methodologies.

Dalloul, today chair of Comium Group - a leading telecommunications company - has over two decades of solid achievement in business and the telecom sector. He established Lebanon's first mobile service operator, LibanCell, in 1994.

"Telecommunications is one of the fastest growing and changing sectors in the world as technology and innovation strive to keep up with people's growing needs and interests and their desire to always be connected," says Dalloul.

Hosted by the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and in the presence of the School of Engineering Dean Dr. George Nasr, the presentation was divided in two parts. The first half consisted of an exposition of trends in the computer engineering communication sector while in the second half Dalloul opened the floor for questions from the audience.

"It is not any lecture that we attended," says Associate Professor Dr. Iyad Ouaiss. "We were getting first hand experience from someone who, at the top, is dealing with various entities, including government institutions," he adds.

Indeed, the public was bursting with questions and before ending the lecture Dalloul challenged the students by announcing that his company is willing to sponsor the development of telecom software or an application, created through teamwork.

"Students were very excited by the news and went on their way to do more research on some of their unspoken ideas," said Associate Dean Dr. Samer Saab, who coordinated the event. "Dalloul's seminar was truly inspiring for students and faculty alike and suggested a completely different picture of the "real" world of telecommunications," he concluded.

Thanking LAU and the School of Engineering for the successful encounter, Dalloul says, "It has brought back good memories and reinforced my faith in future bright engineers in our profession."
 

The three-day event that took place earlier this month brought together 17 journalism students from LAU and other Lebanese universities.

According to Dr. Yasmine Dabbous, assistant professor of journalism and media studies, investigative reporting in the current social and political era is crucial. "With the advent of the Arab Spring, journalists have a lot to investigate - like corruption cases from the previous regimes - there is a genuine market for such reporting," she says.

In an era of 24/7 news, investigative reporting's value has increased, allowing those networks or publications who undertake it to distinguish themselves from the rest, says Dabbous.

As the workshop started, some of the students spoke about the relative ease of investigating. "I managed to get a full article published thanks to information I got from the ministry - they gave me everything I asked for," one of them said.

Marlene Khalife, a professional journalist and trainer challenged the student. "You got the information they wanted to give you. There is a difference between reporting and investigating," she said.

The students looked at Khalife with confounded faces. "It was the first time they heard about investigative journalism and they were really curious to know more," the trainer explains.

Indeed, none of the universities in Lebanon offer an investigative reporting course. "There is a real gap between the reality of journalism and the academic curricula offered in Lebanon and the region," says Khalife, reminding us that corruption and bribery on the one hand and the lack of press resources on the other have made it harder to carry out investigative journalism.

The workshop covered the essentials; from planning to reporting and writing to ethical and legal questions; combining lectures and discussions with hands-on exercises.

"This training was really crucial for us. It opened our eyes," says Hussein Kassab from the American University of Science and Technology. "As a future journalist I imagined I would edit interesting stories or relay a message. Now I have a totally new vision about what journalism can be; now I know that we, journalists, could change the society we live in," he added.

Both Khalife and Kassab said that the workshop was too short and participants expressed the need to include more practical exercises.

"We believe that by being exposed to sound journalism education students will have a different way of working and thinking - they will build their skills, be more ethical and professional," says George Awad, program officer at UNESCO-Beirut.

LAU is preparing to launch a course in investigative journalism for fall 2013.

The five-day visit that aimed at introducing Fernandes to the university kicked off with a lively discussion that gathered deans and senior administrators of prominent schools of business from Lebanon and the region.

The event centered on the importance of accreditation in today's interconnected, globalized world, as Fernandes offered valuable insights drawn from his countless years of experience in the field.

Established in 1916, AACSB International is a not-for-profit organization of more than 1,000 collegiate schools of business, corporations, and other organizations in more than 70 countries devoted to the advancement of higher education in business administration and management.

Fernandes began his tenure with AACSB International in 2000 and has been instrumental in transforming the organization into the most highly respected global accrediting body for management education.

The importance of seeking and getting accreditation is, according to Fernandes, twofold; it has an internal and external dimension. "When a school readies itself for accreditation, it either re-evaluates, re-confirms, or re-decides its mission; that's the most important thing, because mission tells the outside world, and the inside world what the school means," Fernandes explained.

From an external standpoint, AACSB accredited schools become part of a unique prestigious global network. "This accreditation is nearly 100 years old, and it was started by the top business schools of the day like Harvard, Wharton and Columbia... schools that are globally strong and still AACSB accredited today," he said. "So when you are accredited, you become one of us, one of that group, and this is a very important potential differentiator."

Pursuing accreditation through AACSB is a rigorous and intensive process. By hosting and attending the event, LAU and business school administrators have demonstrated the strength of their commitment to educational goals and quality management education.

LAU President Dr. Joseph G. Jabbra stressed that accreditation is "a journey, not a destination" and emphasized the university's mission of continuous excellence and continuous self-improvement.

"Earning accreditation is a voluntary process requiring significant commitment, self-assessment, peer review and dedication from a school's administration," explained Jabbra.

In recognition of Fernandes' extraordinary leadership, the Academy of Strategic and Entrepreneurial Leadership created an award in his honor. The John J. Fernandes Strategic Leadership Award is bestowed upon a dean, provost, president or other senior academic leader who demonstrates exceptional leadership abilities.

The first awardee of this international accolade was LAU Provost Dr. George K. Najjar last October.

"In today's globalized world we have to speak the same language, to ensure the same high quality and standards," explained Najjar.

"LAU will continue to facilitate the process of pursuing excellence in education management in the country and in the region," he added.

During the visit, LAU facilitated individual meetings between Fernandes and interested deans of schools of business.

The project's goal is to foster a culture of respect for human rights within the Lebanese detention system, with special emphasis on the needs and rights of women inmates.

At the opening ceremony on December 3, LAU President Dr. Joseph G. Jabbra reminded audience members how vital it is for LAU - which started as a school for girls in 1835 - to be a strong advocate for women's rights. Enumerating the various achievements of IWSAW in Lebanon and the region, he said "In order for us to continue being successful in this field, civil society, academic and state institutions need to work together."

The message was well received by the members of the Internal Security Forces (ISF) who attended the five-day training - the first in a series of six sessions involving 150 trainees in total.

"It is also crucial for us to participate in such trainings," said one ISF member, who preferred to remain anonymous. "My colleagues and I have taken part in a large number of specialized workshops and there is always something new to learn."

The 30 participants are in turn expected to train those they supervise. "The added-value of such training is that we don't walk out leaving behind what we were taught; it will eventually be shared with 23,000 ISF staff," he said.

The training program will cover international treaties, human rights standards, and rights of prisoners and detainees.

"This program is very important because international treaties supersede the national law that already carries human rights at its core," said Colonel Kaed Bey, who represented ISF Director Major General Ashraf Rifi. "Therefore, human rights are not an ISF personnel choice, but a must."

Thanking ISF for its continuous support, Dr. Dima Dabbous-Sensenig, director of IWSAW, reminded the audience that although prisoners are deprived of their freedom, they have the right to be treated with humanity and dignity."

IWSAW's work in female prisons dates back to 2001 and culminated in the publication, earlier this year, of the Guide for Working in Women Prisons in Lebanon, written by the institute's assistant director Anita Nassar.

Restart Center Director Suzanne Jabbour expressed the hope that the five-day session would offer real, interactive participation, calling on the participants to use their teachings in the field.

After the program concludes, IWSAW plans to work with other organizations to disseminate the training material to all governmental and non-governmental institutions working in Lebanese prisons. The most successful participants will be selected to become "Trainer of trainers."

Capacity Building for Law Enforcement Personnel in Lebanon is funded by the Open Society Institute-International Women's Program.

The two-day event took place at the Byblos campus under the high patronage of the President of the Republic of Lebanon General Michel Sleiman. It drew dignitaries, researchers, LAU faculty and students alike and saw 40 registered academicians hailing from all corners of the globe.

The conference opened with an address by LAU President Dr. Joseph G. Jabbra who reminded the audience that, "Today, more than at any other time in the history of the Arab and Muslim worlds there is a desperate need for a full understanding of what might be the proper link between religion and democracy, between politics and faith, between the state and God."

The Minister of Education and Higher Education Dr. Hassan Diab, who attended as the President's representative stressed that, "dialogue and understanding is one of the most important practices we should encourage and foster."

Dr. Fadi Daou, chairman and CEO of Adyan Foundation concurred: "Raising awareness on cultural and religious diversity and coexistence is of utmost importance in these changing times."

Though many consider the banishment of religion from politics to be the sine qua non of democracy, this assumption was readily challenged during the conference. "The questions raised in this event are important--we cannot take secularism for granted," said Manal Tayar, third-year political science student at LAU Beirut.

Over the period of two days, the scholars tackled various themes such as the concept of "civil state" in the current Arab political and religious discourse as well as the redefinition of religion in the public sphere in both the Middle East and Europe.

"This is my first visit to Lebanon, and I have been impressed by both the welcoming and intellectually stimulating environment provided by LAU," says Dr. Fatima Tofighi, an Iranian scholar from University of Glasgow in Scotland.

"Seldom does the occasion arise when academic musings are so timely and necessary as people take to the streets and engage in the same important conversations as we are doing in academia," she said. "This is why this conference is so exceptional and exciting."

"Of course, such questions are not just of theoretical interest--the stakes are high with serious consequences for the future," said Dr. Makram Ouaiss, chair of the Department of Social Sciences. "This is why it is so timely and important that LAU hosted such an event," he added.

The conclusion of the conference will see the publication of real-life recommendations and proposals that will be widely disseminated in Arabic and in English.

The conference was organized by Adyan foundation in partnership with LAU, Konrad Adenauer Foundation (Amman Office) and with the support of the Institute of Missiology Missio and the Bank of Beirut and Arab Countries.

It's a popular misconception about psychologists that Karam helped rectify on November 28 in her lecture on "Treating Anxiety Disorders and Depression Using Cognitive Behavioral Therapy."

The event, organized by the Psychology Program at the School of Arts and Sciences, drew students, faculty and staff from all schools and departments.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), is a psychotherapeutic approach that addresses dysfunctional emotions, maladaptive behaviors and cognitive processes and contents through a number of goal-oriented, systematic procedures.

Karam addressed depression and anxiety specifically, a suitable topic as research has shown Lebanon to be rampant with the disorders.

In 2006, as part of WHO's World Mental Health Survey Initiative, researchers at Beirut's Institute for Development, Research, Advocacy and Applied Care published an evaluation showing that a staggering 49% of the population had experienced war-related trauma of some kind and another 17% met the criteria for having a mental disorder.

While a very few get therapy - due to either its high cost or the stigma associated with it - the use of anti-depressants is widespread in Lebanon. The largest number of mental health medications sold in 2011 were tranquilizers, or anti-anxiety pills, according to the Lebanese Syndicate of Pharmacies.

"Cognitive therapy can be as helpful as, or superior to, medication when administered by competent and trained professionals," says Karam, who practices CBT.

One of the most important aspects of cognitive therapy is not to put the cart before the horse, as the saying goes. Identifying the problem and formulating a diagnosis are essential to the treatment process. It's only after that that a therapist can work on the next steps such as examining the person's belief system, setting goals for problem reduction, identifying NATs (negative automatic thoughts) and changing a patient's behavior.

Six to 17 percent of adults are at risk of depression in their lives, which affects women more than men by a ratio of 3:2.
Signs of depression are seeing one's self as pathetic, viewing the world as if nobody cares and perceiving the future as hopeless.

University students can be particularly vulnerable to such illnesses due to lack of sleep and unhealthy lifestyles.

"It's an epidemic at the moment - more and more people are getting depressed, more and more people are taking anti-depressants - and very few people really know how to get better," said psychology student Reem Assi. "So I think it's really important to increase the knowledge base about these disorders."

After the talk, the audience peppered Karam with questions, demonstrating just how curious many were about the topic.

LAU offers counseling on both campuses, where the therapists are experts trained to help students manage any difficulties they might be facing, whether academic, emotional, or social.

Overseeing major space voyages to a number of stars and planets, Elachi has spent the last four decades quite literally staring into space. Earlier this year he played an instrumental part in the groundbreaking landing of the high-tech rover, named Curiosity, on Mars. The landing is perhaps the most important breakthrough since Apollo touched down on the Moon and was witnessed live by 50 million people in the U.S. alone. But Elachi insists he shares the same responsibilities, like buying the groceries or mowing the lawn, as the rest of us earthlings.

On Friday, Elachi brought a little bit of ethereality to LAU, where he delivered the lecture "Curiosity: the challenge and excitement of landing on Mars." His talk was followed by LAU bestowing upon him an honorary doctorate in Humane Letters in recognition of his extraordinary contributions to science.

Welcoming a guest audience that included senior army officials and Education Minister Hassan Diab, LAU President Dr. Joseph G. Jabbra extended an enthusiastic welcome to a man he said "needed no introduction." With over 230 scholarly articles and three major books under his belt, the principal developer of "a roadmap for exploration of our solar system" was an enduring source of inspiration to citizens across the world, Jabbra said.

Born and raised in the quiet Bekaa village of Riyaq, Elachi left Lebanon for France aged 16. He received a Master's and Ph.D. in electrical sciences from the California Institute of Technology. An avid learner, he went on to earn a second Master's degree in geology and an M.B.A. Forty years later, he still calls California home but spends his days traveling the solar system. He might work long hours but remarked, "It doesn't feel like" work. "I learn something new everyday and I absolutely love what I do."

No dream is too big, Elachi said. The landing of Curiosity was the result of a decade of painstaking teamwork. "It's amazing what humans can accomplish when they use their vision and ambition to accomplish something together."

Speaking on behalf of the student body, Georges Ayoub, under-secretary general for Public Information at LAU's Model United Nations, said the work of space explorers like Elachi was proof that the sky was no limit to ambition. "It reminds us that deep inside each and every one of us resides the potential for greatness," he said. "A potential nourished though constant learning, both inside the classroom and outside of it, and a concept that is engraved in the foundations of this very institution (LAU) to which we all belong."

Elachi's accomplishments are as starry as the sky itself. In 2010, the LAU Board of Trustees member received France's coveted Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur award. In 2011, the Space Foundation decorated him with its highest honor, the General James E. Hill Lifetime Space Achievement Award. He is the recipient of the Royal Society of London's Massey Award, Lebanon's Order of Cedars, the American Task Force for Lebanon's Philip Habib Award for Distinguished Public Service, and several NASA awards. In 1989, 'Asteroid 1982 SU' was renamed '4116 Elachi' in recognition of his contribution to space and planetary exploration.

Earlier on Friday, Elachi, who is also a professor of electrical engineering and planetary science at Caltech, spoke to LAU's Astronomy Club about the exciting career opportunities in space. He himself began his career at JPL when he was still a student. But even for those whose passions don't lie in science, Elachi had this advice: "It doesn't matter what you are studying, what is important is that you do it with passion, do it well, and have a high degree of integrity... Everybody has something unique that they can contribute to society. Make sure you always remain curious. Anything is possible in this world."

Perhaps in other worlds, too.

The Q&A session was hosted by the Department of Industrial and Mechanical Engineering of the school on October 31 at LAU Byblos.

“The best advice I can give you is to capitalize on your academic knowledge and work experience,” said Sabounjian, convivially addressing his eager audience. “Ask questions when questions need to be asked, never be stubborn, and don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it.”

In 2009, unemployment rate in Lebanon reached a rather bold 10% — and the numbers may have speculatively increased since. While Lebanon is still ahead of various neighboring countries in that respect — Jordan’s and Egypt’s unemployment rates, for instance, presently stand at 11.9% and13.3% respectively — currently matriculated students are understandably anxious about finding a job upon graduating from university.

“Companies look for innovative ideas, and they want to hire those who can come up with these ideas,” said Abounjian. “Working hard is a given, but you have to be able to make use of your strengths — whether it’s your unique character, or your ardent motivation — in order to stand out.”

However, students reminded the minister that the country’s limited and saturated job market is prompting many fresh graduates to seek job opportunities studies abroad.

“Bearing in mind that Lebanon is a rather small country, and taking into account the size and needs of its market, I encourage those who are keen on starting their own businesses to think big,” he replied. “If you want to start even the smallest of industries, you have to take baby steps. You have to learn how to walk before you can run,” wisely noted Sabounjian reminding that many steps have been taken at the state level in collaboration with the private sector to boost youth employment.

Indeed, since the Ministry of Industry launched the Lebanese Industrial Research Achievements (LIRA) program, university students in Lebanon can take those baby steps more confidently. The LIRA program aims to bridge the gap between the industrial sector and academia by addressing the research and development needs of the Lebanese industry.

Through LIRA, a program LAU is part of, university students can seek industrial sponsorship for their research proposals, helping them to develop their projects into prototypes at minimal cost. According to Sabounjian, selected proposals are partially funded by the Lebanese government, covering up to 50% of the models’ production costs. Should the projects come to fruition and require further development, the Ministry of Industry helps the students find auxiliary sponsors.

“We want our students to know what to expect after they graduate, to know what joining the workforce is like,” said Dr. George E. Nasr, dean of the School of Engineering. “What they learn here is very important, but it’s even more crucial for them to know how to use it to contribute to the country’s development.”

Eddy Azar, a fourth year industrial engineering student, agrees. “What lies ahead is not easy; we all know how difficult it is to find a job,” said Azar. “But the Minister was candid and reassuring in many ways. It’s important for us get a glimpse of what the marketplace is like.”
 

“I contacted all the administrators at the universities in Lebanon and no one wanted to hear about it. They said, ‘it’s too sensitive, we don’t talk about these things here, we cannot allow you.’ There was too much red tape,” she says.

The study was eventually posted online through student groups. Containing 159 multiple choice questions, it encompassed respondents from four countries - Jordan, Egypt, UAE and Lebanon -and covered topics such as sex and the Internet, reproductive health and sexual education, virginity, sexual experiences, relationships and marriage. In the end, 330 were included in the study, most between the ages of 18-25 and many of whom were Lebanese.

The research revealed insight into a topic that is largely taboo in the Arab world. Khoury found that Arab youth are predominantly getting information about sexual conduct through their peers or from the Internet, that a surprising number of men (76%) reported they would marry a non-virgin, that nearly half of females (45%) reported being sexually active and that more than half of those surveyed (63%) said they were in an online relationship.

Other statistics, such as the fact that women have sex for love (50%) and men, for sexual pleasure (80%), were decidedly less astonishing.

“To me, what was interesting was the unimportance of virginity to women, more than 50% thought it wasn’t important anymore,” says Khoury. But still, she noted, “there was an association of negative feelings with sexuality when it comes to women, and that’s the influence of religion and family that condemns them.”

But some who attended the lecture, like psychology student Mira Moughnieh, thought those statistics were unrealistic. "I thought it was a bit peculiar that a large percentage of the women surveyed admitted being sexually active, and that most of the men stated that it was not important for them to marry a virgin. The Lebanese population on the whole is much more conservative than this when it comes to sex."

Still, all agreed the topic was an important and under discussed one.

“This kind of research is very much needed because sexuality is taboo in the Middle East,” says Dr. Ketty Sarouphim, associate professor of psychology and education at the Department of Social Sciences at LAU. “It’s very bold that she did this kind of research and hopefully it will open the door to this kind of topic.”

The study, which took about a year from start to finish, was funded by the Issam Fares Institute and UNESCO.
 

Dr. Christian Kuehner, a research associate from the University of Cambridge served as the keynote guest speaker and offered a stimulating overview of the complex dynamics governing the German multi-sectarian experience—namely the struggle between Catholics and Protestants of the early modern period between the years 1500-1650 AD.

“By examining past relationships between religion and politics we may be able to uncover insights of present-day relationships,” argues Kuehner.

“That is, after all, what the scholarship of history is supposed to do,” he adds poignantly.

The chief focus of Kuehner’s seminar was to provide a comprehensive analysis of how the relationship between state and religion was negotiated in Europe as well as a review of Germany’s unique and unlikely path to secularism.

Additionally, Kuehner outlined the underlying historical roots of the wars of religion that plagued Europe for many decades. He explained that as the two main religious denominations—Catholic and Protestant, began to diverge culturally and theologically it became virtually impossible to govern vis-à-vis a political system that pledged allegiance to one religion at the expense of the other.

“Secularism was a makeshift solution—it came about not because it was genuinely desired, but rather because there was no other choice,” Kuehner explains.

The seminar shifted gears as the fascinating case study of Germany was employed as a vehicle to initiate dialogue and to unpack the specificities of the contemporary and hotly contested Lebanese political landscape.

“Most of the time discussing such topics in Lebanon is considered taboo but here we proved we can discuss these pertinent topics in a healthy way that generates academic insights,” says the event’s organizer, Dr. Tamirace Fakhoury—assistant professor of political sciences and international affairs at LAU Byblos.

“We are not transplanting the German case on the Lebanese context but rather using it as a tool to explore various Lebanese dimensions, ” stressed Fakhoury.

As the moderator of the event, Fakhoury reflected on the similarities and differences between the German and Lebanese contexts and prompted attendees to suggest plausible explanations as to why attempts at reforming the Lebanese political system have failed in recent years.

“We examine these challenging questions first and foremost as researchers—as political scientists with the common endeavor of producing knowledge and breaking barriers,” Fakhoury says.

These important and difficult questions were reflected on with measured gravitas and sparked a lively, engaged and dynamic discussion centered on the Lebanese political context taking into consideration its specific nuances and unique historical trajectory.

“It was great to be able to debate such different points of view,” says third-year economics student Jamil Abou Eyoun El-Soud. “These are sensitive issues but were dealt with in a very scientific manner.”

The seminar was open to all in the LAU community and brought together students from various disciplines and departments. Indeed, even some faculty members joined the discussion such as Dr. Brigitte Wex, assistant professor of chemistry: “It was a very eye-opening and fascinating lecture.”
 

The ten-day workshop was hosted at LAU Beirut from September 17-26 and was attended by around 20 Iraqi academics and researchers from different fields. The program addressed critical, present-day issues such as feminism in the West, in the global South, and in the Arab world, feminist epistemologies and research methodologies, gender and literature, and gender and media studies.

“The Arab world is lagging behind every other part of the world when it comes to women and gender studies,” says Dr. Dima Dabbous-Sensenig, assistant professor of communication and director of IWSAW. “This is the perfect project for us to train academics, and pertinently introduce feminist and gender research as a discrete entity in academia.”

For the past 20 years, Iraq has been fairly isolated, notes Dabbous-Sensenig, and university-level academic programs have been falling behind when it comes to social sciences and literature, among other topics. True enough, various NGOs have been both organizing and funding institutional and coherent projects to alleviate the dire situation facing Iraqi women, but the fact remains that there is a crisis in higher education when it comes to women and gender studies – a pedagogical gap that this workshop hopes to fill.

The workshop helped the participants to develop proposal writing and research project development skills, while familiarizing them with regional and international debates and research on women and gender studies. It appealed to both Iraqi men and women, showing beyond doubt that women’s rights are first and foremost human rights.

Dr. Hoda El Sadda, co-founder and current chairperson of the Board of Trustees of WMF, mediated the lecture on gender and literature, using Egyptian writer Naguib Mahfouz’s lead characters to reflect on society’s view of gender roles in late 1950s Egypt.

In Mahfouz’s novel Palace Walk (Bayn al-Kasrayn), the male protagonist Al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad is portrayed as an oppressive husband, whose obedient and superstitious wife Amina is “trapped in a world of fables,” says El Sadda.

“Mahfouz’s depiction of Amina as the traditional, submissive Arab woman is remarkable in how it shows that this is the view of women that our society should overcome, because it simply doesn’t work,” she explains.

Dr. Irada Al-Jabbouri, lecturer in the College of Mass Communication in the University of Baghdad, says this workshop helped her to consider women and gender research from a fresh perspective.

“This workshop gave us new angles, new directions,” she says. “It taught us how to use the concept of feminism as an analysis tool, and how to incorporate it in our curricula. It’s important to be able to link all these issues not just in academia, but in real life, as well.”

After having their initial research proposals preapproved, the workshop’s participants are now going to conduct their proposed research in Iraq, under the guidance of the project’s organizers. Dabbous-Sensenig hopes to see the research findings published in a special edition of Al Raida, IWSAW’s quarterly published journal, next summer.

“This shows the participants’ commitment to promote gender studies in the Arab world,” says Dabbous-Sensenig. “We hope to publish their research both in English and Arabic so as to ensure maximum visibility – not only locally, but globally, as well.”

Reine Azzi, an instructor of English and moral reasoning at LAU Beirut and also the curator of the event encouraged participants to live their lives with passion, and do something that could change the world—even in a small way.

“TEDxLAU really showcases the best and brightest of the LAU community” enthuses Azzi. “The volunteers were all LAU students from various departments who dedicated countless hours to creating a unique social space where people can share ideas and inspire others,” says Azzi, whose own contagious enthusiasm set the tone as she moderated the event.

Also present was the curator of the acclaimed TEDxBeirut series, Patricia Zougheib, who is credited for cultivating awareness of the movement in Lebanon. She discussed the importance of sharing ideas and acknowledged the role LAU played in helping spread the TED movement in Lebanon: “Our first TEDxBeirut salon took place here at LAU on May 26, 2011.”

The youngest speaker, Ghida Ladki, a second-year LAU business and psychology student, spoke of the important social implications of raising children with unbridled imagination and freedom. “Even if I touch one person, that is my purpose in giving a talk, to make a difference,” she said.

“I feel very inspired by being part of the TEDxLAU group of volunteers,” says the event’s promotional and advertising manager Hassan Masri. “Creating an opportunity for thought-provoking dialogue and the sharing of ideas is something that should make everyone in the LAU community very proud,” he adds with palpable pride.

Masri was part of an army of volunteers who were dutifully stationed at booths, supervising interactive activities that were meant to inspire and stimulate discussion among the attendees.

Another speaker at the event was veteran LAU English instructor Samira Shami who gave a poignant talk entitled “writing your own life script” where she stressed the importance of daring to live your life pursuing your passions. “We only live one time—dare to be who you truly are and live your life on your own terms,” Shami said to a captivated audience.

“I arrived to Beirut a month ago from Germany and I was really impressed by this event,” says LAU exchange student Linda Hewitt who was grateful for the opportunity to meet such high caliber figures of the LAU community. “It has been a lot of fun,” she gushes.

Organizers made sure to infuse entertainment into the program by including live performances of song and dance as well as popular screenings from TED Talks worldwide such as the highly popular Iranian-American comedian Maz Jobrani.

“TEDxLAU was a great success!” said second-year engineering student Mohammad Absi. “If the mission was to inspire, my verdict would be: ‘mission accomplished!’”

Stay tuned as TEDxLAU promises to host more intellectually stimulating events in the upcoming months.

TED is a nonprofit organization that began in 1984 devoted to ‘Ideas Worth Spreading’ bringing together people from three worlds: technology, entertainment, and design. Since then its scope has become ever broader—local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event.

“It was a remarkable talk that brought insight to a lot of different issues related to journalism, especially in times of crisis,” he says.
 

Under the title “Middle East Politics and World Affairs,” the course focuses on the current rise of popular protest movements and collapse of several autocratic regimes in the MENA region, as well as the underlying context.

The intensive course lasted from June 11 to June 22, and was jointly delivered by Dr. Imad Salamey, associate professor of political science and international affairs, and Dr. Tamirace Fakhoury, assistant professor of political sciences and international affairs.

“The Egyptian revolution happened very quickly and very suddenly, but the causes of it had been building up for decades,” said Tawfik.

Corruption, nepotism, and concentration of political power in the country had grown ever more deeply entrenched, Tawfik explained. President Hosni Mubarak’s rule had lasted 30 years, and on the eve of revolution he was grooming his son to succeed him.

“This became an unbearable situation for most Egyptians, especially the young, who felt that they could not see any light at the end of the tunnel,” he added.

On the economic front, endemic poverty and unemployment — the majority of Cairo’s population was now living in slums — exacerbated the situation. Poverty on this massive scale was unheard of in the Egypt of 40 years ago.

The situation culminated in the social-media-mediated revolution, noted Tawfik.
As a result, thousands of people marched toward Tahrir Square, which became an iconic spectacle, a synecdoche for citizen revolution worldwide, with activists engaged in everything from distributing free food to sweeping the sidewalk and maintaining order.

“This is what the future of Egypt should look like; this is how the Egyptians want it to be,” said Tawfik.

Tawfik’s speech also tackled Egypt’s current presidential elections, the results of which had yet to be announced.

Khalil Fayad, an International Affairs Master’s student at LAU, was grateful for the lecture’s multifaceted overview and critical analysis of the Egyptian revolution.

“We tend to underestimate the role of democracy, but the Egyptian people have a different level of appreciation for it,” Fayad says. “They care deeply about maintaining stability and achieving economic growth without jeopardizing their newfound freedoms.”

The Egyptian revolution appears to many to be unraveling, but it isn’t over, Salamey stressed. Its dénouement will shape the future of Egypt and have huge implications for the entire region.
“It’s important for us — from an academic perspective — to examine Egypt’s revolution, as well as others taking place in the MENA region, in order to get a clearer understanding of their causes and consequences,” he says.

Other prominent guest speakers who have lectured as part of the course include Chief of Political Affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon Danielle Garbe, Deputy Director of the Institute of U.S. and Canadian Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences Dr. Victor Kremenyuk, and Dr. Mark Farha, assistant professor of political science at Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service in Doha.

Another international affairs student Manar Fleifel who has attended previous similar workshops says: "These workshops give us a different perspective - whether it's from a political, social, gender-related, religious, or even technological standpoint - about the current issues in the region."
 

The seven-day workshop, funded by USAID, allowed participants to enhance their reporting, writing and production skills as well as prompting them to reflect ethical principles relevant to journalistic practice.

“In the long run, the workshop is part of an effort to improve media in Iraq as a whole. We’re getting there, one workshop at a time,” says Dr. Yasmine Dabbous, assistant professor of journalism and media studies and director of IMTR.

The workshop comprised daily lectures tackling four main topics: storytelling through images, the importance of research and preproduction, the challenges of working on a visual story if it is picture-poor, and the importance of neutrality and objectivity.

Amal Hamdan, a part-time instructor in the Communication Arts department who helped organize the workshop, said the issue of objectivity is particularly important to Iraqi journalists in light of generations of press stiflement under the rule of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

“The problem is now compounded by sectarianism,” Hamdan added. “When you’re reporting from a warzone in this context, your identity gets pigeonholed according to your sect.” .

“We want to help these journalists open their mind and their eyes, and tackle issues they weren’t able to before,” she maintains.

The participants came from various prominent Iraqi television stations — including the U.S.-Defense-Department-funded Alhurra, and state-owned Al-Iraqiya — and brought with them a diversity of skills, experience, and views.

Yasser Sabih Rasheed, director at Salaheddin TV, says the workshop has helped him to understand the importance of proper elocution.

“We learned that news delivery is not just about what you have to say, it’s also about the way you say it,” says Rasheed. “You shouldn’t, for instance, be monotonous or repetitive. The more concise your news report is, the better.”

Among the workshop’s trainers were former Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent Abbas Nasr, Docudays “Beirut International Documentary Festival” Managing Director Abir Hachem, and Al Arabiya Senior Correspondent Alia Ibrahim.

During her seminar on documentary filmmaking and feature-story writing, Ibrahim warned against the temptation to fudge details or loosen fact-checking in order to attract a larger audience.

“You have to make sure the information you’re providing is accurate and factual — even little things can jeopardize your credibility,” says Ibrahim.

During the last two days of the workshop, the participants were asked to produce an 80-second feature report on Iraqi director and playwright Jawad Al-Assadi.

In teams of three, the participants had to script, film, and edit the entire report, thus putting their reporting skills to the test.

“Interviewing Jawad Al-Assadi was a remarkable experience,” says Alhurra reporter Nour Hussein.

“We got to know this man who is very familiar with what we’re going through in Iraq, who is in a very similar position to ours. He speaks our reality,” she explains.

The IMTR event was one in a series of three weeklong workshops addressed to various journalistic audiences. The next two, focused on advanced broadcast and newsroom management, will start on June 25 and July 9 respectively.
 

The symposium brought together Lebanese as well as international leaders in nursing: deans and faculty in schools of nursing, directors of nursing at hospitals, nurses in charge of quality improvement programs, and nurses from the community, working as consultants in health care. It provided a platform for all parties to explore the concepts of spirituality and community in nursing curricula, in addition to interprofessional education, and their application in Lebanon.

Among the speakers were Dr. Joyce Fitzpatrick, endowed professor of nursing at Case Western Reserve University’s Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing, and Dr. Marilyn Lotas, Fulbright scholar and visiting faculty at LAU.

Dr. Nancy Hoffart, dean of the Alice Ramez Chagoury School of Nursing, also spoke at the event.
The symposium, she noted, goes hand-in-hand with both LAU and the School of Nursing’s mission statement to "improve the health of the people of Lebanon and the Middle East region by educating professional nurses through innovative research, scholarship and service.”

Crucial Conversations aimed to facilitate the ongoing dialogue among international and Lebanese nursing leaders on various issues, and share information about innovations in nursing education both at LAU and in Lebanon.

The symposium zeroed in on three main topics: the role of spirituality in health care, the importance of community outreach in nursing education and practice, and the implementation of interprofessional education in healthcare.

According to Fitzpatrick, one’s spiritual-religious background is an important factor when dealing with patients and their families, particularly for terminally ill patients. Such issue, of great value in a religiously diverse country like Lebanon, is key in determining management strategies.

“Health care providers must be aware of their own spiritual, cultural and religious beliefs, and consider their impact during interactions with patients with different backgrounds,” maintains Fitzpatrick.

Lotas, on the other hand, tackled a topic that is often overlooked in nursing curricula: community health education.

The numbers speak for themselves. 90% of nursing curricula is currently acute care focused, with community health courses being introduced in the very last semester.

According to the U.S. Institute of Medicine, however, the healthcare system must undergo a fundamental shift to deliver more care in the community, rather than focus solely on providing specialty care in an acute setting.

The need to transform nursing education is thus essential to enable nursing to make this shift, says Lotas.

“In order to accomplish this, we need more education in the community, as well as increased focus on the development of cultural competence,” she explains.

But nurses, no matter how integral to the provision of healthcare, can’t do everything by themselves, maintained Hoffart – hence the importance of interprofessional education and collaborative practice.

Interprofessional education occurs when two or more professions learn about, from and with each other in order to enable effective collaboration between various disciplines, and improve the physical, mental, and social wellbeing of patients.

“Healthcare should always be about teamwork, regardless of the patient’s medical condition. But we haven’t always been good at teamwork,” says Hoffart.

If implemented properly, adds Hoffart, interprofessional education can go beyond its initial goal of treating patients, by also helping to promote disease prevention.

Crucial Conversations was the first conference held by the young School of Nursing.

Over the course of the daylong event, participants shared their work and received feedback from the facilitators, Dr. Jenine Abboushi, assistant professor of comparative literature, and Dr. Lina Abyad, playwright and assistant professor of communication arts at LAU Beirut.

“It was a delight to work with writers who really wanted to be there, to experiment —who were willing to take risks, be caught off-guard and inspired by others’ creations,” said Abboushi.

Samira Shami, a veteran LAU English instructor who coordinated the workshop, cited the complexities of cultivating creative writing in an age of social media and instant communication.

“Technology has both opened up new possibilities for creative writing as well as posed challenges,” she added.

Acknowledging that social media can expose writers to a broader audience, Shami has noticed a concomitant decline in serious critical attention allotted to the work of creative writers.

Furthermore, the simplicity of online writing and the prevalence of shorthand communication (sometimes restricted to 140 characters or less) often results in what Shami calls “intellectual laziness,” a tendency to sacrifice nuance for brevity.

“People in the digital age tend to be more inclined to ‘summing things up’ — instead of evoking feeling through ambiguity and contradiction,” she mused.

The annual workshop is funded by the Haas H. Mroue Memorial Fund, and held in memory of Haas Mroue, a Lebanese poet and travel writer who died of a heart attack at the age of 41 in 2007.

Mroue is remembered as a poet for his embrace of paradox, and as a person for accepting the strengths and weaknesses of others. Both qualities are actively cultivated by the workshop as creative strengths in budding writers.

“This is a great commemoration of Haas’s memory,” commented LAU student Nisreen Jaafar. “He is an inspiring individual,” she added.

Demand for the workshop was high this year, with many more applicants than open spaces. 

The three-day event showcased a wide range of scholarly research — from disciplines in the humanities as well as the social sciences — on the legal, moral, military, historical and humanitarian dimensions of occupation.

"This event has a special meaning for us,” said Dr. Philippe Frossard, dean of the School of Arts and Sciences, during the opening ceremony. “It tackles key concepts — communication in its many shapes and forms, conflict transformation, diversity and tolerance — that are dear to LAU."

Dialogue Under Occupation (DUO) began as an idea and evolved into a sort of movement, according to founder Dr. Lawrence Berlin, chair of the Department of Anthropology at Northeastern Illinois University. “We are part of a growing trend in academia, looking outward rather than inward, engaging in research that aims to be useful and applicable rather than esoteric,” said Berlin in his introduction.

“We’re working to foster a generation of educated individuals committed to dialogue and social justice, in the hope that we will have made a first step in the future betterment of life for all peoples everywhere,” he added.

Since 2006, the annual conference has been held in cities all over the world, from Chicago to the Palestinian Territories, Bogotá to Okinawa.

Dr. Ibrahim El-Hussari, lecturer of English and cultural studies at LAU Beirut, began organizing DUO VI with Berlin after participating in DUO V in Okinawa.

“The central theme of DUO VI was enhancement of dialogue focused on the moral, legal and human repercussions of occupation on those suffering the daily brunt of it,” El-Hussari says.

Over the three days, 36 academics participated in 25 sessions in various capacities, from presenting papers and conducting roundtables to serving on panels. More than 60 students and guests also attended the event and took part in discussions.

Berlin’s session, “Shifting Sands, Shifting Policy: The U.S.’s Stated Policy toward Israel and Palestine,” compared documents and statements from Presidents Harry Truman and Barack Obama and explored the nuances of language and their impact on policy. “We are constantly manipulating language so we can project on other people what we want them to perceive — something politicians are keenly aware of,” he told attendees.

Dr. Makram Ouaiss, assistant professor of political science and international affairs and chair of the Department of Social Sciences at LAU Byblos, delivered a keynote speech about different forms of occupation and the evolution, over time, of its definition in international affairs and under international law. His presentation also “discussed ways of resisting occupation — with an emphasis on peaceful resistance,” said Ouaiss.

“The arguments found in mainstream academic literature to justify or defend occupation are with few exceptions morally ambiguous and tend to perpetuate the logic of war. Yet we continue to bend morality or trample on human rights to fit states interests,” he concluded by lamenting.

LAU’s Department of Humanities, in collaboration with the Rotaract Club in Byblos, hosted the event, which screened four online talks selected for their portrayal of creative initiatives from around the world.

“These events are popular because people in Lebanon are starting to realize the power of independently-held TED-like (TEDx) events,” says Reine Azzi, organizer of TEDxLAU and instructor of English and moral reasoning at LAU Beirut. “Attendees get to experience an inspirational atmosphere where they learn about creative ideas and realize that they have a lot to contribute,” she adds.

First-time TEDx attendee Joanna Khoury, an instructor at Notre Dame University, found the talks and subsequent debates unique in the sense that they push students to voice their opinions and concerns about a variety of topics.

While half of the audience consisted of LAU students, the other half was composed of young professionals and students from Notre Dame University and Saint Joseph University.

The first ever TEDxLAU Salon, organized on the Beirut campus last February, brought together around 70 participants.

TEDx events are organized under the general guidance of the world-renowned Technology Entertainment and Design (TED) conference series.
 

Sponsored by the School of Business’s Institute of Family and Entrepreneurial Business, the forum drew together family business owners, leaders and members, as well as their senior executives and close advisors, to discuss common experiences and learn from peers who have already established constitutions.

A constitution, according to keynote speaker Raphael Debbane, chairman of Desco Holding SAL-Debbane-Sakaily Group, outlines and clarifies the rights and responsibilities of family shareholders to the business and to each other. It provides “long term guidance and balance to family shareholders, creating a cohesive group that speaks with one voice, thereby ensuring the competitive advantage of a family-run business,” he told the audience.

After 55 years in business together, Debbane and his five brothers decided to create a constitution to “prepare the new generation to take our place.” With 18 children between them, it was no easy task.

With the help of an experienced consultant, the family met multiple times to design a document that would withstand the test of time. They put their shared values, family vision and key principles down on paper, tackling the often-sensitive issues of bloodlines, inheritance, and exits from ownership.

Nothing was left off the table during the two-year process. “There can be no hidden agenda in a family business,” he said. “Either the business is for the family or the family is for the business, and we decided on the latter. This means that entry into it is an opportunity, not a birthright,” said Debbane. Family members must perform to the same high standards as non-family members, work within a defined role, never report directly to an immediate family member, and have the appropriate education and experience for the post, he clarified.

“This is the finished product,” he added, holding up a thick book. “Fifty-one pages long, and all of us have signed it — after discussing every article, line by line.”

IFEB Director and Associate Professor of Management Dr. Josiane Fahed-Sreih gave further insight into the process and theoretical framework behind forming constitutions. They should deal with three main phases of business life, she said — entry to business, life together, and exit policies.

“No one size fits all,” Sreih said, “and you must look at the culture of a family when trying to set up the right governance structure, for example, or the right composition for the board of directors, in order to succeed in the long term.”

Carl Bistany, board member of SABIS and president of SABIS Educational Systems and Services, said his family also grappled with the corporate governance structure of their business. “Should we allow non-family members on our board? (We did, in the end.) It sounds easy but when you get down to discussing it and signing a document that will live on for generations to come, it’s a daunting task,” he said.

Other guest speakers included Wafa Saab, CEO of Tinol Paints International Co. SAL, who touched upon her personal experiences as a liaison between the first and second generations of her family business; Georges Mallat, partner at Hyam G. Mallat Law Firm, who discussed the legal aspects of drafting a family constitution and a shareholders’ agreement; Nicos Sarris, visiting from Cyprus, who talked about the need and use of a family business constitution from his experience as general manager of Eureka Group; and Georges Azar, managing director of GA Consult, who highlighted family business valuations.

Youssef Abillama, board member of Abillama Group and CEO of MMG Overseas Ltd., served as the forum’s moderator.

“Family businesses are the fabric of business anywhere in the world, and Lebanon is no exception,” SOB Dean Dr. Said El Fakhani told the audience, adding that Lebanese are known entrepreneurs.

LAU Provost Dr. Abdallah Sfeir thanked the IFEB for systematically addressing “all of the problems these families face as their businesses grow and succession looms on the horizon.”

Slovic, himself a seminal figure in the field, offered several definitions of ecocriticism (short for environmental literary criticism) in the first part of his lecture, beginning broadly with “the study of the relationship between literature and the physical world.”

A literary movement that emerged in the mid-1990s and rose to some prominence since, ecocriticism takes an interdisciplinary approach to literary texts, often combining traditional aesthetic interpretation with philosophy and formal training in the natural sciences. It is typically characterized by a strong ethical stance regarding the intrinsic value of the natural world.

Slovic stressed that the domain of ecocriticism is not limited to “explicitly environmental texts.” Crucially, he said, it includes “the scrutiny of ecological implications and human-nature relations in any literary text — even texts that seem, at first glance, oblivious of the nonhuman world.”

Indeed, while the field’s pioneers tended to be scholars of the British Romantic poets or American transcendentalists — 19th-century writers whose central subject was in fact nature — major ecocritical studies have since been published on literature ranging from Shakespeare to modern urban poetry.

In opening remarks introducing Slovic, Dr. Philippe Frossard, dean of the School of Arts and Sciences, described the rise of ecocriticism as representative of a broader intellectual shift he heartily welcomed, away from “over-specialization” and toward interdisciplinarity and holistic thinking.

“This shift is the legacy of the end of the twentieth century, and ecocriticism is a perfect example of it,” Frossard said, going on to cite genomics as an example from his own field, medicine. Practitioners in these new fields “are in the position of classical or medieval scholars, navigating several disciplines at once.”

Describing ecocriticism as representing a “challenge to the humanities to become more empirical,” Slovic turned to “Spring Pools,” by the American poet Robert Frost, to demonstrate how the approach can alter our experience of even a well-known work of literature. Addressed to snow-fed seasonal ponds — a familiar feature of the New England landscape, they appear and disappear rapidly — Frost’s poem is traditionally read as a lament about the ephemerality of experience.

Pointing out that such pools merely reflect fluctuations of the underlying water table, Slovic argued that the poem’s emotional tone of regret is balanced by an aesthetic understanding of nature’s cyclicality.

“If you know ecology, you know the water is there, but you just can’t see it,” Slovic said.

Slovic maintained that approaching literature in this way encourages “thinking beyond the text,” driving readers to seek out and cultivate “visceral, experiential knowledge.”

The lecture and the roundtable seminar the following day were heavily attended by faculty and graduate students, and discussion was lively and involved at both events.

Dr. Vahid Behmardi, associate professor of Arabic and Persian literature and chair of the humanities department, expressed appreciation for insights made possible by ecocriticism, but wondered if the approach — especially when brought to bear on classical texts — carried the risk of anachronism.

“Is this faithful to the concepts that were in the mind of the poet when the poem was in fact composed?”

Dr. Samira Aghacy, professor of English and comparative literature, approached the question of anachronism from a different angle, suggesting that someone like William Wordsworth, a 19th-century British poet who wrote extensively about “the mind of man vis-à-vis external nature,” might be regarded not merely as a subject for ecocritics but an ecocritic himself.

Slovic concluded his talk by urging fellow academics to not talk merely “to ourselves and with each other” — to move, that is not only between disciplines but also beyond them.

“It’s not just people in the university — in literature, in the sciences — who ‘own’ the knowledge,” he concluded. “People who live in close, daily contact with the natural world often have a deep wisdom that we need to learn from.”

LAU’s Career Guidance Office held a workshop for a group of Iraqi university professors and administrators as part of a larger project sponsored by the International Research & Exchanges Board (IREX) to promote higher education reform in Iraq.

IREX, a nonprofit organization that aims to improve the quality of education and foster pluralistic civil society development, is currently overseeing the Iraq University Linkage Program (ULP), which works with Iraqi faculty and administrators to strengthen university curricula and improve career services for students.

In January, ULP Project Director Lori Mason contacted Aya El-Mir, senior career guidance officer at LAU Beirut, asking her to host a team of Iraqi career support administrators for the purpose of observation, information gathering and networking.

“Lori [Mason] asked me to provide my input on how to successfully create and manage career support services for students, and how certain approaches can be tailored to various universities in Iraq,” says El-Mir.

El-Mir subsequently organized “Creating and Managing Career Guidance Services in Iraq,” a workshop which drew seven administrators from the University of Duhok, University of Baghdad, and University of Technology, Iraq, to the Beirut campus in February.

The workshop covered various topics, highlighting the Iraqi educational sector before and after the 1991 uprisings, the different roles of traditional and modern career centers, and the advantages of career guidance services.

At the core of the workshop was the career development process, which helps to identify the students’ interests, and pairs them with a career path that is compatible with their character while also keeping market needs in mind.

“We need to be focused on improving the image of public universities in Iraq on a smaller scale,” says Dr. Heja Sindi, a participant from the University of Duhok in Iraqi Kurdistan, adding that the training was very valuable.

“We want to be able to create career services for Iraqi students, while making sure we are using a model that is tailored to the needs of Iraqi universities and the Iraqi market,” says Mason.

“Our Iraqi colleagues have begun developing their work plans based upon information gleaned during this visit, and it has been most helpful,” she adds.

The training workshop, and the nod from IREX, adds to LAU’s growing reputation as a regional hub for professional development. Since its inception, the Career Guidance Office has provided the university’s students with the pertinent means to ensure successful and effective career planning, both during and after their matriculation.

In fact, the four-year career plan that starts the day students join the university and draws on their solid understanding of their interests and hands-on experience, has helped LAU remain on the cutting edge in terms of career guidance.
 

“Women’s roles in fighting for justice in times of revolution is not a new concept,” said Dr. Dima Dabbous-Sensenig, director of IWSAW and assistant professor of communication at LAU Beirut.

“Many popular revolutions throughout history wouldn’t have succeeded without the presence of women among the revolutionaries, often at the very vanguard of the movement,” she added.

The discussion was organized to coincide with International Women’s Day, marked each year around the world on March 8.

LAU President Dr. Joseph G. Jabbra, who took part in the event, underscored the centrality of social media to the recent uprisings, and noted that 36 percent of the 36 million Facebook and Twitter users in the Arab world are women.

“Women realized that information and knowledge epitomize power, and they seized this power very effectively by employing social media to foster the uprisings in the Arab world,” says Jabbra.

A brief documentary film on the role of Arab women in regional revolutions was presented by Al Arabiya journalist Alia Ibrahim. Following the screening, journalist and author Diana Moukalled moderated a discussion with three women activists who related their experiences of the Arab Spring.

Asmaa Mahfouz, an Egyptian activist who came to prominence when a video she posted on Facebook and Youtube — calling for the Egyptian people to amass in Tahrir Square to demand their rights — went viral, spoke about the heady days of January 2011.

“There was so much anger within me. I was calling out for our rights and people were looking at me like I was crazy,” she recalls.

Mona El-Tahawy, an award-winning Egyptian-American columnist who was beaten and sexually assaulted by the Egyptian riot police, also spoke about her experiences. The assault had left her with broken bones in her left arm and right hand, and treatment involved the surgical insertion of titanium plates.

El-Tahawy — who was detained for 12 hours by the Interior Ministry and Military Intelligence following her abuse at the hands of riot police — described the physical pain she endured as banal compared to its emotional reverberations.

“I could show you where the titanium plates were placed in my hand, but I can’t pinpoint those that became part of my soul,” she says.

El-Tahawy appeared regularly on major international media outlets during the 18-day revolution that toppled Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak.

Hanaa Al-Sayaghi, a Yemeni activist known for facilitating passage of relief convoys to demonstrators, spoke about the precautions taken by women protestors in Yemen.

“The majority of protestors were men, and we couldn’t tell our families that we were at the demonstration, she recalled. “We told our families we were at work, while we were actually on the field protesting.”

Anita Nassar, assistant director of IWSAW, concluded the ceremony by reminding the audience that gender equality is a sine qua non of social and political idealism.

“The watchwords of freedom, democracy and social justice — which are at the heart of human values — will always be incomplete and futile without women’s rights at their core,” she said.

Dr. Marwan Rowayheb, assistant professor of political science and international affairs at the Department of Social Sciences at LAU Byblos, and NSU master’s student Christina Wyler hatched up the meeting during an event in Byblos last November. Galvanized by seminars on the vital role of dialogue in conflict resolution, the pair resolved to put theory into practice.

After settling technical logistics, social sciences faculty entrusted students with the bulk of organization. Wyler collaborated closely with Tania Bougebrayel, a master’s student in Byblos, to determine the form and content of the two-hour videoconference exchange.

Prior to the event, a Facebook group entitled "Intercultural Dialogue: Road to Peace" facilitated initial contact between students in Lebanon and the United States. Graduate and undergraduate participants hailed from a wide range of disciplines, from biology and business to social sciences.

"In order to have correct perception, we must have a direct encounter," Wyler said at the opening of the videoconference. In the ensuing discussion, students leapfrogged theory and cursory accounts to delve deep into human experience. By sharing subjective insights, they personified issues dehumanized by media coverage and transcended divisive preconceptions.

Having chosen to address multicultural diversity in the Arab world, NSU speakers inquired about the role of second languages in Lebanon. One student suggested that the comparative lack of foreign language education in the United States curbs cross-cultural understanding. American participants also questioned the possibility of a productive pan-Arab identity.

LAU students assumed the interrogative role for the latter half of the discussion. Questions centered on Western perceptions of Arab culture, prompting a lively discussion about the media's role in perpetuating unfavorable stereotypes. NSU students candidly addressed and criticized the misguided conflation of the Arab world with Islamic extremism and terrorism in American media discourse.

Students from both universities proposed potential means of countering detrimental prejudices. Suggestions included peace education, cross-cultural approaches to discriminatory propaganda, and active political engagement. One student said that engaging the political elite is crucial in implementing progressive change.

"Everyone was very open and enthusiastic," says Rowayheb. "There was no tension, purely constructive dialogue."

The LAU professor was pleased that students broached deep-rooted misperceptions, which he believes stem from insufficient cross-cultural interaction and narrow media portrayals. "This first session broke the ice and established trust between groups," he says, hinting that future discussions could further probe sensitive issues.

Social Sciences chair and assistant professor of political science and international affairs Dr. Makram Ouaiss was enthralled by the conversation. "It was a positive experience that really got students to think about and understand the 'other,'" he says, adding, "We hope to build on this and engage students in more activities that could help with their studies."

Ouaiss anticipates three more Intercultural Dialogue Sessions this semester. In the meantime, participants in the U.S. and Lebanon are strengthening newfound friendships via Facebook.
 

Last October, LAU joined the WELCOME (Widening Egyptian and Lebanese Cooperation and Mobility with Europe) consortium, which comprises 19 universities from the EU, Lebanon and Egypt, and is coordinated by Politecnico di Torino, Italy.

The grant is worth €4 million (roughly $6.7 million), $600,000 of which was awarded to LAU, spanning a four year timeframe – from October 2011 to October 2015.

Six universities from Egypt, five from Lebanon, and up to 10 from the EU will benefit from the exchange program. Accepted candidates will spend between 6-36 months in a European partner university studying, training, teaching and/or researching. The scholarships are open to undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral students as well as post-doctoral faculty and staff. They will cover various expenses, including travel costs, living allowances, tuition/registration fees and insurance.

"The study abroad office at LAU works extensively to provide international exchange opportunities to our students with the main purpose of widening their horizons and expanding their perspectives on many academic, social, and humanitarian aspects," says Elie Samia, executive director of the Outreach and Civic Engagement unit. "Also, we strive to promote LAU as an academic institution of high standards that thrives on international exchange."

The MEDASTAR (Mediterranean Area for Science Technology And Research) project is similar to WELCOME in its objectives, details, and budget, according to Dr. Fouad Hashwa, professor of microbiology and biotechnology at the Byblos campus and LAU’s liaison to the Erasmus Mundus headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.

Run by the University of Oviedo in Spain, MEDASTAR is a consortium of 18 universities, again from Lebanon, Egypt and Europe.

“LAU's share from each grant will be about $400,000, solely to facilitate and cover the two-way exchange expenses for our students and staff,” says Hashwa. “Both grants will be effective in early 2012, thus doubling the number of scholarships for LAU’s students at the undergraduate, graduate and doctoral levels.”

A total of 400 exchanges will be made possible by the grants, according to Hashwa, who represented LAU at WELCOME’s inauguration in Turin, Italy in December and organized MEDASTAR’s kickoff meeting at LAU Byblos on January 19-20. Along with a host of LAU officials, the Spanish Ambassador to Lebanon Juan Carlos Gafo, and Erasmus Mundus representative Anila Troshani attended the meeting, which was opened by Provost Dr. Abdallah Sfeir.

Participation in the programs will not be limited to Lebanese and Egyptian students. Students from European institutions are expected to constitute around 30 percent of the total exchange, says Hashwa.

Other Lebanese universities participating in the two projects include the American University of Beirut, Notre Dame University, Lebanese University and Saint Joseph University. Students in most majors are eligible.

"As the executive director of OCE, I believe that offering opportunities for LAU students to enrich their intellectual and cultural experiences through Erasmus Mundus is an integral part of LAU’s mission statement — totally committed to academic excellence, civic engagement and leadership," says Samia.

Dr. Tamirace Fakhoury, assistant professor in the Department of Social Sciences at LAU Byblos, moderated the intercampus videoconference. "The idea behind the discussion was to rethink how the Arab uprisings have changed our lines of inquiry vis-a-vis the Middle East and the Arab world, in academia, pedagogy, and policy-making," she says.

The panel also included Dr. Habib Malik, associate professor of history and cultural studies; Dr. Walid Mubarak, associate professor of political science and director of LAU's Institute of Diplomacy and Conflict Transformation; Dr. Makram Ouaiss, assistant professor of political science and international affairs and chair of the Department of Social Sciences; Dr. Marwan Rowayheb, assistant professor of political science and international affairs; and Dr. Jennifer Skulte-Ouaiss, assistant professor of political science and international affairs.

Fakhoury invited Dr. Rosita Di Peri, from the University of Turin, to address potential European involvement. "I wanted to look at how neighboring EU members states could help us to sustain bottom-up democratization movements without interfering or dictating norms or behaviors," Fakhoury says.

Di Peri problematized the European tendency to apply restricted, Western-centric historical models that obscure regional specificities. The Italian professor referenced dubious media rhetoric, which correlated unfolding uprisings with instability and denied the constructive potential of popular resistance in the Middle East. "It is necessary to rethink paradigms," she urged.

Fakhoury says recent upheavals surprised scholars by overturning the prevailing paradigm of authoritarian endurance. "For decades, the Arab world was considered a zone of exceptionalism in terms of democratization, so there was a reluctance to discuss the democratic transition paradigm," she explains.

Recent academic discourse advances alternative analytic tools, including studies of contentious politics, revolutions, and social movements. "This could enable us to really understand the confluence of factors that made [the uprisings] happen, remaining at a descriptive level before lapsing into judgments or paradigms," says Fakhoury.

Faculty members probed Lebanon's current stability, agreeing that conscious insight into local social and political dynamics is crucial in anticipating potential reverberations of upheaval. "We need to be very aware as academics right now," said Fakhoury. "We really need to read between the lines."

The bulk of participants concurred that Lebanon should be more involved in surrounding democratic transitions. "We have a role to play here," said Mubarak, noting Lebanon's distinguishing degree of freedom, pluralism and consensus politics. "While influenced by the outside, the mechanics of future transitions will ultimately be led from inside the region," he added.

Mubarak pointed to a misguided emphasis on democratic forms, namely campaigns, elections, and majority rule, in assessments of new developments. He advocated renewed focus on the "substance of democracy," embodied in freedom, human rights, rule of law, and minority rights.

"Revolution is not only about politics, but also about social change," agreed Skulte-Ouaiss.

Makram Ouaiss encouraged external actors to invest in civil society and regional human rights organizations, as financial support could preempt democratic disenchantment and backtracking to authoritarianism. Poor global economic conditions and continued Western support for non-democratic, oil-rich states compound the shortfall in regional "self-confidence, democratic experience and know-how," he said.

The fruitful debate may set a precedent for exchanging ideas between Byblos and Beirut. "I hope this can spearhead such high-level discussion, and that we can have future cross-campus discussions on various themes," said Skulte-Ouaiss.

Twenty-four academic papers, two keynote lectures and a roundtable discussion explored the impact of diasporas on international and domestic politics, economics, and society.

An International Development Research Centre (IDRC) grant, awarded to LAU scholars Dr. Jennifer Skulte-Ouaiss and Dr. Paul Tabar, made the groundbreaking colloquium possible.

"Together with hospitality and good organization, we have seen an incredible breadth and depth of contributions," said keynote speaker Dr. Alan Gamlen, of Oxford University's International Migration Institute.

The interdisciplinary event united political scientists, geographers, economists, sociologists, psychologists, and anthropologists. Case studies analyzed and illuminated the emigrant experience of Vietnamese, Palestinian, Filipino, East Timorese, Indian, Turkish, and Kurdish communities, to name a few.

A striking variety of empirical approaches further diversified the discussion. Projects based on personal interviews provided rich ethnographies, while large data sets furnished a fertile basis for comparative work on diasporic mobilization, dissipation, and transnational identification.

"It's really fantastic to be in a room with people looking at migration, diaspora and transnationalism from so many different theoretical and methodological perspectives," says social anthropologist Dr. Annika Rabo, who presented a paper on Syrian, Lebanese and Turkish Orthodox communities in Sweden.

Retaining a regional focus, conference organizers devoted a panel to the Lebanese diaspora. Cynthia Salloum presented a comparative study of Lebanese expatriates' political incorporation into host societies in the United States, France and Mexico.

"It was really exciting to see four people presenting on the topic," said Salloum. "There is not a lot of work on the Lebanese diaspora in particular, even though it is bigger than the homeland population and has a lot at stake."

Salloum lauded the IMS’s efforts. "It is important for me, as a Lebanese, to see that there is a push to enhance political and human sciences in Lebanon," she said.

At LAU, Skulte-Ouaiss and Tabar are scrutinizing the Lebanese diaspora's impact on public affairs inside Lebanon, with particular respect to peace building and conflict perpetuation.

The two have conducted 330 in-depth interviews with active Lebanese diaspora members in Australia, Canada, and the United States, as well as local actors in Lebanon. Preliminary data suggests overseas replications of local political structures and thorough transnational integration.

"The conference gave us many more tools and ways to interpret the huge amount of data we are collecting, so that we can analyze and publish it," says Skulte-Ouaiss, an assistant professor of political science and international affairs. "The papers gave us a lot of examples, so we can hopefully construct further theories."

Tabar, associate professor of sociology and anthropology at LAU Beirut and the director of IMS, indicated that discussions helped to clarify his research approach. "The concept of diaspora as a process, rather than a reified entity, emerged as much more important in our understanding of what we are doing," he says.

Conference papers will be published in a forthcoming book, which is bound to stimulate future collaborative investigations into diaspora studies. "I was very excited that we laid the groundwork for future thought," says Skulte-Ouaiss.

“The aim of the evening was to create room for a more positive perspective on the world around us,” says the event’s coordinator Reine Azzi, an instructor of English and moral reasoning at LAU Beirut.

Speakers addressed topics ranging from large-scale conflict resolution to personal hurdles.

Attendees found William Ury’s talk, “The Path from No to Yes,” particularly engaging. “The spark in the speaker’s eyes was enough to keep the audience glued,” says Samira Shami, an English instructor and coordinator of the Department of Humanities’ Lectures Committee.

Ury, a best-selling author and international negotiation expert, advocated finding a middle ground in times of conflict. Encouraged by his optimism, the audience applied his conflict resolution method to problems in Lebanon.

In the midst of the ensuing discussion, the LAU Drama Club launched a flash mob, shocking the crowd with a dancing and singing extravaganza. Inspired by "Gotta Share," a video on TED’s website, the performance highlighted society’s addiction to mobile phones.

Next, Google engineer Matt Cutt explained how he enlivened his life by trying something new for 30 days. The audience said they felt motivated to write positive e-mails, compliment their family members, and even, jokingly, change their hair color every day for 30 days.

Alisa Miller, head of Public Radio International, elucidated the distorted worldview propagated by American media. Miller’s talk stirred the LAU audience to discuss local media outlets and the need to stay self-informed.

Amy Purdy’s personal story was a perfect finale. Purdy, a professional snowboarder who lost both of her legs below the knee at the age of 19, described overcoming physical barriers and literally transcending boundaries. Her passion and determinism left everyone in awe.

TEDxLAU drew a crowd of around 72 students, alumni, and professionals.

Dr. Vahid Behmardi, chair of LAU Beirut's Department of Humanities, is glad that such events are organized in the spirit of collective service.

"At the Department of Humanities we try to maintain a forward-looking vision of a milieu of student-oriented learning," he says. "This should be a global vision transcending cultural and national divisions. We need to highlight Humanism in our department. Through events like TEDxLAU’s first salon, we move away from nationality and closer to universality. Humanism and universality are at the very root of Humanities and University."

On his blog post “I’m AddicTED and I know it,” student organizer Selim Njeim called the TEDxLAU event an “inspirational light.”

“What made [this] an experience like no other was the fact that it all happened at LAU, my university – the place that continues to provide me with an environment to study and grow as a person,” he wrote.

Amanda Youssef, the smallest team member, will pilot the car at the Sepang Formula One racetrack in Kuala Lumpur next July.

The first prize will go to the most fuel-efficient vehicle. Last year’s winner achieved 1,522 kilometers/liter (or 3,580 miles/gallon).

With its emphasis on environment-friendly innovation, the event is an ideal venue for students from LAU’s Industrial and Mechanical Engineering department, a keen advocate of green technologies.

“As mechanical engineers, we need to provide solutions to the global problem of energy consumption,” says fourth-year mechanical engineering major Michel Abi Akl. “In 20 or 30 years it will be too late,” he added.

Seasoned Eco-marathon technical leader Norman Koch discussed event technicalities during a workshop on January 20 at LAU Beirut. Students listened attentively, garnering expert tips for success. It emerged that contestants must comply with oft-overlooked safety regulations to qualify for competition. Front and rear brake systems must separately immobilize the vehicle on a 20 percent incline, for instance.

The logistics and technical requirements of the competition pose quite a challenge for the nine Byblos-based students, who must take care of designing and manufacturing the car, observing safety regulations, shipping parts and even raising funds to cover the costs of the project.

“The students have to apply everything they have learned on the curriculum,” says co-adviser Wassim Habchi. “They also have to interact with the outside world seeking funds, conducting meetings, and presenting their work, which is important for personal development,” adds co-adviser Michel Khoury.

Following techniques taught in an elective course on racecar aerodynamics, “we draw the car on the computer and simulate tests using Computational Fluid Dynamics software,” says Abi Akl. “We calculate the drag coefficient, then change the height, length and shape of the car accordingly, to optimize our design.”

“We do not have as much experience with motor engineering, so the challenge has been researching steering systems and how to make a chassis,” says Youssef.

“We are not sure how well the values we calculated on the software will correspond to the actual construction, so we might face some difficulties in the manufacturing stage,” she adds.

Habchi points to other hurdles: “The tough part is coordinating shipping, logistics, and communication. We just learned that we cannot ship flammable parts to Malaysia, so we are going to have to find a way to get batteries there.”

The project is likely to cost over $40,000, which the team will have to secure before it starts building the vehicle this month.

The tournament has been a tradition at Shell since 1939, when scientists at a research lab wagered to see who could build the most fuel-efficient vehicle.

“We will be participating every year from now on, so future teams will improve on the original design,” says Dr. Pierrette Zouein, associate professor of industrial engineering at LAU Byblos and chair of the IME department.

“The Lebanese are not a fuel-efficient people,” says Khoury, who envisions a vehicle half the size of a Smart that could one day dominate the streets of Beirut. “It would have solar cells to prevent energy loss and greenhouse gas emissions while stuck in traffic.”

Future LAU students could help make his vision a reality.

Following a rigorous selection process, half of this year's 400 applicants were invited to present their papers at the event, which took place over four days at the Crowne Plaza on Hamra Street.

Conference Chair Dr. Haidar Harmanani, professor of computer science and assistant dean of the School of Arts and Sciences, said this year’s conference included an unprecedented number of keynote speeches, panel discussions, and tutorials, and aimed to stimulate constructive debate by proposing an array of "visions for the future" of the field.

Electronic engineering is indeed in a growth phase. It may seem a rarefied field of research but its subject permeates modern life, from cell phones to microwaves, medical images to biometric passports, underpinning our systems not only of telecommunications and digital entertainment but also those of energy and health care.

"Electronic engineering is a rising, still relatively new field with an accelerating turnover of new research," says Technical Program Chair Dr. Fadi Kurdahi, professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of California, Irvine. “For that reason, many papers are published at conferences rather than in journals."

A session on nano-based systems served to confirm Kurdahi’s point about the field’s cutting edge Cellphones, MP3 players, and computers are ever more densely packed with functions powered by silicon transistors. The average laptop now contains more than 50 million transistors, each around 100 nanometers in length. Soon, however, the silicon transistor will reach its lower size limit, thwarting the industry's drive to create smaller, faster systems.

Nanotechnology could overcome this impasse, superseding silicon with microscopic molecular devices that could transform electronics. Conference Chair Dr. Mohamad Sawan of the University of Montreal predicted that a terabyte hard drive the size of an apple seed will appear within the next five years.

Several presentations addressed environmental concerns. A keynote speech by Dr. Bernard Courtois, director of Multi-Project Circuits (CMP) in France, outlined new methods of reducing energy consumption with low-power electronic devices. Professor Andreas G. Andreou of Johns Hopkins University noted that production of a single microchip consumes 40 kilograms of water and produces four kilograms of waste.

Adreou predicts that implantable microchips will be integral to health care in coming decades, facilitating diagnosis, drug administration, and patient monitoring.

Sawan’s work exemplifies Adreou’s prediction. As the Canada Research Chair on Smart Medical Devices, Sawan is advancing real-time diagnostic tools by circulating blood and cells through microchips, as well as developing "brain machines."

“Through CT and MRI scanners have furthered our knowledge of the brain, we have yet to discover precisely how human vision happens, or how an idea is formed," he says.

Sawan hopes to decipher neurotransmitter connections that cause diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, and then to create implantable microelectronic devices that directly connect to the neurosystem, allowing experts to monitor the brain and wirelessly modify the implanted device to optimize treatment.

Middle East-based electronic engineers contributed over 17 percent of papers presented at the conference, which also attracted numerous Arab expatriates. Hazem El Tahawy, managing director of Mentor Graphics Egypt, expressed satisfaction with this turnout, stressing the importance of developing a regional electronics industry structure to support emerging local talent.

The conference offered LAU students a unique opportunity to interact with international industry professionals.

"This exposure to different perspectives on such a wide range of topics will help me to narrow my focus on when I begin my own research," said Fouad Kada, an electronic engineering graduate student at LAU Byblos.

Alluding to LAU's recent string of ABET accreditations in engineering and computer science, Harmanani said, "this conference takes it to the next level by shifting the focus from teaching to advanced research."

Luiz Santos of the University of Santa Catalina in Brazil commented on the conference's organization and dynamic atmosphere. "People are interacting a lot in small sessions, which really fulfills the goal of establishing international connections," he said.

Next year's ICECS will be held in Seville, Spain.

“This event was supported by the university in line with our strategic plan, which has a pillar on faculty development,” said Dr. Sami Baroudi, assistant provost for Faculty Affairs and a professor of political science.

Organized by the Provost’s office, the three-day workshop was led by Dr. Suad Joseph, professor of anthropology and women and gender studies at the University of California, Davis.

“Proposal writing is not simply about winning money — it’s about critical thinking,” says Joseph, who has taught proposal writing for over 30 years. “The key tools of writing translate across disciplines and fields of activities, whether it’s writing essays, books or journal articles.”

Joseph adds that breaking down proposal writing helps demystify the process of doing research and the process of theory and knowledge building. “My commitment is to decrease our dependency on research, theory and knowledge building from the outside.”

Paula Habre, an instructor in humanities at LAU Beirut, attended as part of a group working on a proposal for LAU’s Writing Center.

“Dr. Joseph was very thorough, and gave examples from personal experiences to give us an idea of what to expect,” says Habre.

“Sometimes there are things you don’t consider to be part of your budget, for instance,” she adds. “It is often difficult to say what you might need three years down the line, especially if you have more than one aim.”

Around 80 percent of grant proposals are rejected these days, but Joseph encouraged participants to remain positive and proactive, according to Habre.

“We saw how we might think mistakenly about steps,” says Habre. “She talked about rejection and how to move on, and to reapply for grants because the chances of getting accepted the second time are much higher.”

Participants had been asked to prepare a one-page abstract of their project and email it to Baroudi ahead of time, in order for Joseph and the organizers to familiarize themselves with specific needs of different groups and individuals.

The workshop began with a lecture about funders, audiences and costs of research. Most of the first day was devoted to writing an effective research proposal, keeping goals, originality, feasibility, and costs in mind.

During the second and third days, faculty members seeking grants for institutional and individual research projects met one-on-one and in small groups with Joseph.

Graduate students from LAU, Lebanese University, and the American University of Beirut also had the opportunity to meet with Joseph during a workshop on December 15.

“Students learned about writing strong proposals to get funding for doctoral work, or funding for fieldwork for their master’s dissertations,” says Baroudi. “They were also able to meet with LAU faculty members in small groups to further clarify their proposals.”

“Healing the Wounds of History: Addressing the Roots of Violence” brought together historians, psychologists, psychiatrists, sociologists, political scientists, educators, activists, professors and students — 160 participants in all — to share personal and professional perspectives over three days of plenary discussions and group sessions.

Organized by the Centre for Lebanese Studies (CLS) at Oxford University’s St. Antony’s College and the Guerrand-Hermes Foundation for Peace (GHFP), in partnership with LAU’s Institute of Diplomacy and Conflict Transformation (IDCT), the conference highlighted the use of psycho-social approaches to address historical grievances and break out of cycles of violence.

During the opening ceremony, Alexandra Asseily, co-founder and member of the board of Governors of CLS, stressed the distinction between forgiveness and forgetting. We must remember, she said, so as not to let atrocities happen again. She challenged the audience to consider “how to embark on a journey different from the one we seem to have been programmed for.”

Dr. Walid Moubarak, director of IDCT and associate professor of political science at LAU Byblos, said the aims of the conference reflect the institute’s mission of “employing a progressive definition of diplomacy to create a culture of peace that will reduce violence, increase justice and respect for human rights.”

“This is acutely important in a country like Lebanon, where deep-rooted cycles of conflict have passed on from one generation to the next,” Moubarak said.

The Minister of Education and Higher Education Dr. Hassan Diab, representing the President of the Council of Ministers Najib Mikati, echoed the need for a holistic approach to conflict transformation, one committed to social justice, human rights, social and economic stability and educational reform.

The keynote address was delivered by Dr. Vamik Volkan, Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville and a renowned expert in psychoanalytic approaches to conflict resolution. Volkan explored shared reactions to largegroup conflict and traumas such as victimization, dehumanization and humiliation.

Presenters Patrick Magee and Jo Berry followed with a moving example of reconciliation. Berry’s father was a conservative British MP killed in 1984 by a bomb planted by Magee, a former Irish Republican Army member. Soon after his release from prison in 1999 Magee met Berry. The pair has met regularly since then and shared their experience with others, as “an example of what can happen through dialogue and compassion,” Magee says.

The final two days of the program consisted of group breakout sessions. Each of the six groups of 15-20 participants then shared their ideas for a more unified and peaceful Lebanon during the final plenary session of the conference. Suggestions ranged from the general, such as sharing conflicting narratives as well as educating and empowering children, to the specific, such as increasing Beirut’s public spaces to facilitate daily encounters of difference and diversity.

Finally, participants drafted a 10-point “Declaration for Healing Our Wounds of History,” which they plan to present to Prime Minister Najib Mikati.

The conference ended with a trip to the “Garden of Forgiveness” in Beirut’s downtown district. Participants left copper tags with written grievances on an olive tree outside the garden, symbolically letting them go.

“This message of optimism confirms my belief in a very bright future for this country,” said Moubarak.

Dr. Makram Ouaiss, assistant professor of political science and international affairs at LAU Byblos and a facilitator of the conference, concurs. "Participants openly shared their fears, hopes and concerns, and as a result were really energized to find ways to move forward together," he says, adding that these local acts of reciprocal understanding are precisely what is needed at the national level.
 

Organized by the School of Architecture and Design, “Architecture and the Political” brought together 19 scholars from all over the world to explore the connection. The two-day symposium began on November 10 and featured presentations both on the Beirut campus and at the Beirut Art Center.

SArD Assistant Dean Dr. Elie Haddad, who served as chair of the symposium’s organizing committee, described its goal as that of “promoting reflection about architecture in its larger scope.”

The committee was co-chaired by Dr. Haddad and Dr. Nadir Lahiji, an architectural critic who has taught intermittently at LAU since 2000. Lahiji and Haddad, who have collaborated on the symposium in previous years, decided this year to highlight themes tackled in a recent collection of essays edited by Lahiji, Political Unconscious of Architecture: Re-opening Jameson’s Narrative.

The call for the symposium drew over 60 abstracts from architects and theorists all over the world, including Europe, the Middle East and the United States.

“It’s a topic that a lot of people are interested in, and we wanted to address it in a way that would apply globally, not just to the region,” Lahiji says.

The symposium examined the discourse of the political in contemporary architecture, the politics of aesthetics, and the role of the city as an emancipatory space where social ideals can be expressed and realized.

It tackled various contemporary architectural issues, ranging from social housing and political urbanism to the politics of renovation, generic architecture, and architectural environmentalism.

“Our designed buildings and streets are a reflection of our multifaceted culture and politics,” said Badr, “but politics and architecture should agree on one thing: green. Compromising green will compromise the maker of politics and architecture: mankind.”

Keynote speaker David Cunningham, Deputy Director of the Institute for Modern and Contemporary Culture at the University of Westminster and editor of the journal Radical Philosophy, discussed the importance of urban space in mediating architecture and politics, highlighting the impact of capitalism on the former.

“Architecture is radically transformed by the growth of the metropolis. All architecture is political,” said Cunningham, prompting the audience of the symposium to ponder the larger forces shaping and transforming architecture.

The symposium’s very setting resonates with its theme, several speakers suggested.

“A 15-minute drive from the airport to downtown Beirut takes you from one political context to another,” said Badr, noting that the architectural identity of Beirut correlates with its cultural identity.

Lahiji agrees. “There’s a certain peculiarity that makes Lebanon, and Beirut specifically, significant in terms of the relationship between architecture and politics, especially when it comes to the politics of reconstruction of the center of city,” he said.

Haddad stresses that Lebanon in particular has suffered adversely from the “impact of the political on urban and architectural frameworks, as evidenced by chaotic development, a lack of coherent urban policy, and a growing social housing problem.” He adds that academia’s role is precisely to put such issues under the spotlight and propose alternatives.
 

Mary Burns, a senior technology specialist at the global nonprofit Education Development Center (EDC), spoke to some 30 LAU education students, teachers and education specialists about the growing use of new technologies in the field of education, including Internet Protocol Television, virtual worlds, online videos, social media and mobile technologies.

“We are moving away from the traditional workshop model, and entering a more personalized and collaborative world,” said Burns.

Burns illustrated her talk with examples of projects EDC has successfully implemented in several developing countries. She introduced the audience to a number of applications, websites and other high-tech tools currently used by teachers around the world.

The event was organized by Dr. Iman Osta, associate professor of math and computer education and chair of LAU’s Department of Education. “Our students are natives in the world of technology, and forums like this offer a great opportunity to motivate them,” she says.

Osta says her department is looking forward to consolidating the technology component of its programs.

According to recent statistics published by Grunwald Associates, a market research and consulting firm, 43 percent of students on U.S. campuses believe their institution needs more technology. Statistics also show that students tend to learn more efficiently in “blended learning” environments, where traditional pedagogy is mixed with a technologically mediated approach.

”I look at the internet, Facebook, Twitter and my mobile phone — things we use everyday for personal issues — differently now,” says education major Nisrine Yamout, 19. “I feel very enthusiastic about using these as tools to serve my major and later improve my professional skills,” she adds.

Yamout and others were particularly attracted to simulated environment programs, such as Second Life, simSchool, and TEACHME, which educators can use to practice classroom-management techniques and build their confidence in teaching.

“These help learners hone their technical, creative, and problem-solving skills,” Burns explained.

Video is used mainly for co-teaching, individual support (through “virtual bug in the ear” technology, which allows remote educational professionals to give real-time advice to teachers in class) and instructional modeling. Social media, on the other hand, facilitate professional exchanges and help build new communities.

According to Burns, however, the greatest promise lies in mobile technology, “As prices drop and telecommunications improve, this tool has the biggest potential for teachers,” she said, pointing out that online courses are increasingly accessible through smartphones.

“Many tools and applications presented were totally new to us,” says Bassem Kandil, instructor in LAU’s Department of Education. “I am more curious than ever to evaluate their potential, put them to use and pass on the skills to our students.”

Burns has been helping the Ministry of Education and Higher Education draft a national strategy to implement information and communications technology in teaching and learning programs.

“Thus far there has been no policy in that respect,” says Paulette Assaf, institutional development and information technology specialist at the Ministry of Education, who attended Burns’ talk. “We believe that lectures like these drive discussions and energize thinking, in ways that ultimately will help us reach our goal.”

The two-year project, that is sponsored by the Mennonite Central Committee and LAU, aims to train teachers on how to serve as resource persons in their respective schools in interactive, child-centered instructional strategies, positive classroom management skills and constructive, non-punitive approaches to discipline.

“The South is getting a lot of attention, and Greater Beirut schools are affluent enough to afford teacher training, but it’s the North that’s lacking the resources,” says Dr. Irma-Kaarina Ghosn, director of IPJE. “This is why we’re focusing on the North as much as we can,” she adds.

Housed by the School of Arts and Sciences on the Byblos campus, IPJE is the first university-based peace-education institute in the Middle East.

Since its inception, IPJE has been actively organizing conferences and organizing education workshops to advance its vision in the region.

“When students get bored, they get in trouble,” says Ghosn. “In order for children to engage in learning, you have to reach them. Once you do that, your work as a teacher will be a lot easier,” she explains.

The teachers were seated in groups of 4 or 5, according to the subjects they taught, rather than which schools they taught at.

Amale Rizk, who teaches math in Kindergarten 1 and 2 at Monsef national School, is optimistic about the workshop.

“I have no doubt this workshop is very important,” she says. “It’s up to us to apply what we learn here in the classroom.”

Lisa Rachwan, a social studies teacher at Modern School Akkar, similarly hopes to acquire pedagogical techniques she can apply in her classes.

The workshop also served as a platform for exchanging ideas and sharing teaching experiences — whether successful or unsuccessful.

Participants submitted anonymous questionnaires soliciting both straightforward information (how many years they have taught, average number of students per class) and more open-ended questions, for example about the reasons for student misbehavior or the effectiveness of intrinsic versus extrinsic rewards.

According to Ghosn, children today are exposed to a lot more “media and community violence,” which has profound implications for their development.

A follow-up debrief meeting will take place next month, to review participants’ progress with the techniques suggested in the workshop.

“Some new techniques will be suggested by workshop leaders, but other strategies will have to come from the teachers themselves,” explains Ghosn.

The second and third workshops will take place in January and March, with each followed by a debrief meeting.

By the beginning of the second year, teachers will participate in a workshop on how to pass on acquired knowledge to other teachers.

At the end of the project, a handbook containing the teaching methods and techniques that proved successful will be distributed to the teachers, and potentially to the students’ parents.
 

Moukheiber, a graduate of Harvard Law School and an MP since 2002, began by testing Salamey’s students’ knowledge of Lebanese Parliament, asking them to explain its functions in their own terms, before going on to offer his own critical assessment of it.

“Parliament in Lebanon had been hijacked over the years, and became in some ways a façade institution,” Moukheiber said. He added that even today, parliamentarians sometimes spend more time campaigning than governing.

Indeed, according to Moukheiber, of Parliament’s seven main functions — legislation, representation, budget allocation, oversight of the government, elections, providing services to the citizens and attending social events — the latter two take up the most time from parliamentarians.

“Free elections are only a part of democracy,” said Moukheiber, adding that a functional parliament is absolutely essential. “Voting citizens tend to get very excited at the time of elections. But if the people they elect don’t discharge the function they’re supposed to, there’s a big problem.”

The time allocated for core parliamentary duties in Lebanon contrasts sharply — and according to Moukheiber, invidiously — with that of other countries.

For example, while parliamentarians convene for legislative purposes five days a week in the United States and three days a week in France, their counterparts in Lebanon do so only twice a year.

The last time Parliament voted for a budget, moreover, was six years ago, leaving Lebanon without a financial plan ever since.

Asked how any country can keep on running without a fiscal forecast, Moukheiber replied that “reality, especially in the field of political science, is not always what you study in the books.”

Nevertheless, he says, “Parliament is now coming back to life, becoming once again a place where real decisions are made,” he added.

Impressed with Moukheiber’s blunt candor, Salamey describes the event as “an opportunity for our international affairs students to learn from and interact with a Member of Parliament, and discuss various issues of general public concern with him.”

“His talk brings our students closer to the realism of politics, thus bridging academic acquisition with practical knowledge — which is the essence of teaching and graduating tomorrow’s leaders,” Salamey adds.

Moukheiber also spoke of Lebanon’s National Human Rights Action Plan (NHRAP) and the effort to devise a national strategy on human-rights issues, including women’s rights, foreign workers’ rights, and torture in prisons.

Moukheiber has lectured, written and published extensively about a range of issues, with an emphasis on human rights, civil society, anti-corruption measures, protection of the environment and heritage, and most recently, parliamentary reform.
 

The workshop was organized by the Paris-based National Institute for Demographic Studies, a specialized research institute working in the field of population studies.

Participants included 18 undergraduate seniors and graduate students from LAU, Université Saint-Joseph, and the Lebanese University, as well as four LAU faculty members, all interested in honing their quantitative skills for future research projects.

Four INED associates — Cora Mezger, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Sussex, Sorana Toma, a Ph.D. candidate at Oxford University, and Lama Kabbanji, researcher at the Institute of Research for Development — led the training, which introduced quantitative migration research methods and analysis of macro- and micro-level data. Throughout the course the participants had hands-on sessions with Microsoft Excel and the quantitative analysis software SPSS.

Dr. Paul Tabar, associate professor of sociology and anthropology at LAU Beirut and the director of IMS, says that the purpose of the workshop was twofold.

“The first, more straightforward aim was to show students and faculty how to construct a survey question and use SPSS to analyze data collected from that survey,” he says.

“The other aim was to raise awareness among faculty about the need to teach these kinds of skills in a more in-depth way in their own courses, to make our students who are embarking on a master’s degree program better equipped with quantitative research skills,” he adds.

Tabar would like to see students writing their master’s theses using both qualitative and quantitative research. “Without both of these components, their theses will simply be pieces of argumentative writing,” he says.

Ph.D. student Mariam Hasbani says that the regression analysis (modeling and analyzing multiple variables) portion of the training was most useful. “Since I'm planning to conduct a survey for my own Ph.D., I may consider the migration topic because the theories we discussed were very interesting, and of course the practical part we did on SPSS will be very helpful.”

One of Tabar’s students, Mira Mawla, a senior political science/international affairs major at LAU, decided to participate because there were a lot of concepts in quantitative research that she wasn't yet familiar with.

“I had forgotten how to work with Excel, so this was a good refresher. Also, I'm sure I will use the SPSS program soon, especially for my senior study,” Mawla says.

The participants clocked 26 hours of class time over the four-day span, which is more than half a semester’s workload, according to Tabar.

“Despite its intensity, one cannot expect such a workshop to replace a one-semester course — but given the time limitations the instructors did an excellent job,” Tabar says. “They managed to convey how important quantitative research skills and SPSS are for any student’s future research.”

IMS gave the attendees a certificate of completion at the end of the workshop to “make student attendance useful,” says Tabar. “This can also be added to their CVs and make them more attractive candidates later on.”
 

The discussion focused on the concept of civility in politics, and whether it goes against religion and political rule.

While Salamey’s class is a graduate seminar focused on democratic transitions in the Middle East, Menza’s is comprised of a more diverse group of students whose majors range from political science to engineering and business, adding a miscellany of opinions to the discussion.

“It’s good to have a dialogue with people of different opinions. This is the essence of learning,” says Menza. “If you have a dialogue with people who have the same opinion, it boils down to no dialogue.”

Students from both classes were required to prepare for the videoconference by reading the same articles.

During the videoconference Salamey urged students on both ends not to view the discussion as LAU versus AUC.

There was a consensus among students from both classes that civility holds a non-military connotation, and many agreed that that the respective definitions of ‘civility’ and ‘religion’ are not consistent throughout the world.

Complex, open-ended questions such as ‘Does civility imply that religion and the state are separate?’ were deliberated — and sometimes left unanswered.

The discussion also tackled pluralism in society, with Lebanon being a prime example of consociationalism, whereby each of the nation’s 18 coexisting sects are allocated a portion of power.

LAU and AUC students agreed that civility is best built when the state recognizes the different communities that exist within society, thus becoming a manifestation of these communities.

Three dialogue sessions have been scheduled between the two universities for the fall semester, focusing on topics relevant to democratic transitions in the Middle East and the future prospects of state and society.

This occasion marks the second collaboration between the universities; the first took place in August when Menza spoke to Salamey’s class of the challenges confronting Egypt in its post-Mubarak transition, also via videoconferencing.

Salamey hopes these round-table discussions can incorporate students from other universities as well.

“Other than AUC, the Richmond International American University in London has expressed interest in exchanging faculty videoconferencing sessions and developing joint student research projects,” says Salamey.

“LAU and Richmond IAUL have signed an agreement to foster faculty and students exchange and research collaboration. The International Affairs program at LAU is in the process of developing similar linkage with Adrian College in Michigan,” he adds.

The award-winning journalist, blogger, social commentator, and LAU alumnus (’03) even encouraged them to mention him if tweeting from his lecture, titled “The revolution behind the revolution: The role of social media in the Arab spring.”

“Things are changing,” said Abbas, explaining that though revolutions have occurred throughout history, the 2011 Arab revolutions were distinguished by a domino effect facilitated by social media.

Abbas summarized the common causes behind the revolutions, and highlighted the central role of fellow bloggers both in assisting locals and informing the rest of the world about unfolding events. He cited the Egyptian Wael Ghoniem as an example of a blogger whose reach and impact were profound.

“‘To those in power,’” he said, quoting Ghoniem’s words from an interview earlier this year, “‘you are facing a generation which communicates in a way you don’t understand.’”

Abbas spoke about the importance of the Internet in disseminating information, arguing that while traditional mainstream media is biased toward established consensus opinion, social media levels the playing field for a multiplicity of voices.

“People now don’t just watch a story on TV or read about it in a newspaper” after the fact, he said. “They have instant and on-demand access” to events as they unfold, and can even participate in the shaping of the story.

Referring to questions about objectivity in social media, he said the “better argument will always win.”

Abbas blamed dictators for attacking journalists and blocking communication, but noted that the deposed governments contributed to their own downfalls as their tight censorship of the media helped trigger the revolutions.

“A free media diffuses the anger,” he explained. “When you censor media, it stimulates a revolution.”

He argued that the attention on the Middle East in the news has helped this region’s journalists thrive. “The Middle East is suddenly back in the spotlight. It’s a good time to be a journalist here.”

“One thing is certain,” he added. “We never know what to expect next.”

Abbas earned his B.A. in marketing with a minor in communication arts from LAU and his M.A. in marketing communications from the University of Westminster. Based in London, he is known primarily for his column on the popular U.S. website The Huffington Post, which he began writing in 2008.

Abbas has worked for the pan-Arab daily Asharq Al Awsat, Al Hayat Newspaper in Saudi Arabia, Future Television in Lebanon, Leo Burnett in Saudi Arabia and Ink Publishing in London. 

Though the immediate injury is physical, the psychological impact of domestic violence can be far more worrying, with depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and substance abuse being the major concomitant consequences, Saade says.

The underlying peril of domestic violence stems from the fact that it continues to affect women’s wellbeing long after the actual violence has stopped, she explained.

In 1996, Lebanon ratified the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), and the Lebanese Constitution states that women are equal before the law, and enjoy the same civil and political rights as men.

“And yet, there is no national law in Lebanon establishing the minimum age of marriage or the age of consent,” says Saade, adding that in a patriarchal society such as Lebanon, there is no concept of marital rape.

Although many women may seek professional help, 75% of abused women don’t reveal the abuse; meanwhile 57% of those who do, choose to confide in a family member or a friend instead.

“You cannot choose the right solution for these women, nor tell them what to do. They know what the safest option for them is,” says Saade, adding that listening to the traumatized patients and validating them is critical.

Sisters Jacqueline Hajjar and Evelyne Accad founded Beit el-Hanane last year. Hajjar, a former LAU professor, was involved in helping abused women long before the inception of Beit el-Hanane.

“I’ve had students who were abused or raped. I’ve been helping these women for many years,” says Hajjar, “but it wasn’t until last year that my sister and I decided to make it more official, so we started Beit el-Hanane.”

“The timing of the intervention with traumatized abused women is crucial,” notes Saade, adding that the rapport between the mental health professional and the abused patient is key to the success of the treatment. 

The mental health professional should also provide the abused women with psychological education that highlights the relationship between stress and health.

Further clinical interventions include developing a safety plan and displaying posters, pictures and videos on abused women’s legal rights.

“A mental care professional can’t wear two hats,” says Saade, arguing that the healthcare specialist has to choose between being a feminist who would report the abuse to higher authorities, and being a therapist solely devoted to helping the abused patient.

The Second Meeting of States Parties to the Convention on Cluster Munitions was organized by UNDP in coordination with the Lebanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Emigrants. Held at the InterContinental Phoenicia Hotel in Beirut, it drew 1,220 participants from 58 countries representing various UN agencies, international organizations and civil societies.

The 178 student volunteers, of which 108 were from LAU, were involved in conference setup and support, and assisted participants at the airport and hotels. LAU students were especially active in the pressroom, and audio and IT support teams. Out of the 22 team leaders, 12 were LAU students.

“The fact that we had so many LAU student volunteers responding to our Outreach and Civic Engagement unit’s call for service means LAU is presently at the forefront of social service and civic responsibility,” says Elie Samia, OCE executive director.

In the airport sector, volunteers were present 24 hours a day. Their job was to welcome diplomats and participants at the airport, usher them and help them get registered. The transportation team was responsible for escorting participants to one of 12 designated hotels. Info booths at all of the hotels were run by LAU students.

“It’s summer time, so universities and students are taking breaks. But at OCE, we like to give students more opportunities to participate in this kind of volunteering, and have real responsibilities,” says Joseph Kanaan, OCE project management coordinator.

Launched in August 2010, the Convention on Cluster Munitions is an international treaty that aims to ban the use, production and transfer of cluster munitions, in addition to providing assistance to victims and affected communities. As a country that has been affected by cluster munitions, Lebanon ratified the treaty.

“As the problem of cluster munitions has long been prominent here, I felt it was an obligation to participate in this convention,” says Sevac Ohanian, an LAU political science and international affairs student.

“I have responsibilities other than being a good student. I have to contribute to my society,” he adds.

Deema Saidi, an LAU business marketing student, has been part of the Model United Nations program at the university since her first year. “I read about this conference and I thought it would be a good experience,” she says. “It’s different to work with the UN directly than just observe its work on TV,” she adds.

“It’s not just about having something extra to put on your CV,” Kanaan says, adding that “the volunteers get a real taste of diplomacy at a UN convention, which is a great thing to experience, especially as a student.”

Vice President of Student Development & Enrollment Management Dr. Elise Salem praised the students for a volunteering effort of this significance and magnitude, saying it is a “splendid contribution to the good cause of banning cluster munitions in Lebanon.” She advises students to “keep supporting good causes and spread positive energies wherever and whenever needed.” 

On September 9, a 17-member delegation from the Ministry of Higher Education, various universities and publishing companies in Iraq got to know the ins and outs of the library from its director, Cendrella Habre.

The Iraqi guests hope to replicate LAU Beirut’s library in their home country by taking tips on design, new technology and day-to-day operations.

“I mainly emphasized the issues of service quality, space, environment, IT, and teamwork in the library,” says Habre.

During the visit she also explained the negotiation process that goes into subscribing to or renewing online resources, as well as the switch from print to online versions of the library’s periodicals.

The guests came ready with many questions and discussed their own unique challenges in implementing newer and more efficient library services.

“From the first look, this library is amazing,” says Khalaf Youssef, head of post-graduate studies in the Ministry of Higher Education and administrator of the Iraqi Virtual Science Library, a consortium. “There are many challenges in libraries in Iraq right now, including the budget of individual universities, the mentalities of the librarians and staff, and technology issues.”

“Because of the war, new technologies and databases aren’t necessarily available in Iraq. We need to develop the staff of our libraries at Iraqi universities and that’s why we’re here,” says Dr. Isam Khdayer Mahmud, of Al-Thakera Publishers and Distributors.

Mahmud organized the visit after a previous tour of the Riyad Nassar Library in July. He added that he was impressed by the size of the LAU library, which he considers very highly ranked in the Arab world. “It shows the university gives a lot of attention to its library,” he says.

The LAU library tour was part of a three-day workshop called “Development of Academic Libraries in Iraq,” which included various visits and trainings around Beirut.

Habre says that after the visit, the Iraqis asked if she and her staff could offer them training workshops on negotiations with online publishers.

French library association tour

Sixteen French librarians visited the library on September 19 as part of an annual trip designed to exchange ideas and information with counterparts in different countries.

Members of the Association of French Librarians of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region met with Habre and other staff to learn more about the library’s services and use of public spaces.

“It’s important for us librarians to get together and exchange ideas, stay connected, and see what’s going on outside of our region,” says the trip’s organizer, Marie-Hélène Bastianelli from Marseilles, a retired librarian who has remained active in the association.

“From what I can tell, this library is very interesting with its use of public spaces,” says Pierre Triballier, a librarian from the town of Hyères in the south of France. “A library should, after all, also be a place to socialize and find people with common interests,” he adds.

Habre agrees, saying that the quantity of books doesn’t make a library great — it’s the quality of the materials offered, and a lot more.

“In my opinion, we stand out in the region because we offer services to the community beyond the walls of the library — we are not a traditional academic library,” says Habre. “We have friendly, welcoming staff; the design is attractive and comfortable; and students feel at home. We pride ourselves on being service-oriented and always up-to-date in terms of technology.”

During the hour-long lecture, Menza discussed the political and social developments in Egypt, focusing on various emerging civil and religious political parties.

Menza noted that the events in Egypt since the rise of the anti-regime revolution in January have been fast-paced and unforeseen.

“There weren’t many expectations that so many people would be on the streets protesting against the regime,” said Menza, adding that the majority of the protestors belonged to the upper middle class.

Menza listed the human rights violations by the regime as one of the reasons that contributed to the escalation of the anti-government protests.

After president Mubarak’s resignation and the collapse of the regime on February 11, Egypt was left without any real political agenda, said Menza. The Supreme Council of Armed Forces was in charge of the country, and was the “president itself,” he added.

Apart from the political tension, social and economic issues were not being tackled, which contributed to the widening of the gap between the people and the government, according to Menza. “The political elites were still discussing their own issues; the biggest problems of the Egyptian community were neglected,” he explained.

Issues such as corruption and justice for the crimes that were committed against the demonstrators were arising.

This led to more marches in May and July, calling for the removal of the entire cabinet, and the resignation of the Supreme Council and the Prime Minister. “The street became the only place for discussions, to show who’s stronger,” said Menza.

Menza emphasized the role of the political activism of the youth in the protests. “The resistance to the ideas of the youth was guiding this revolution,” he said.

Menza holds a Ph.D. in Arab and Islamic Studies, with a specialization in political economy and sociology, from the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at Exeter University in the UK.

The lecture was organized by Dr. Imad Salamey, LAU assistant professor of political science and international affairs, as part of his Introduction to Political Science class.

Salamey says the event was the first in a series of lectures that would be hosted via videoconferencing at LAU, as part of the Global Dialog Project.

Future events will not be restricted to hosting guest speakers. “We intend to organize live discussions of various topics between LAU students and students from other universities,” says Salamey. This “can expand to educational institutions other than the American University in Cairo.”
 

Titled “Empowering Citizens: Elections, Civil Society and Peacebuilding,” the workshop brought together activists from post-conflict societies such as Lebanon, Iraq, the Palestinian territories, and Sudan to develop a better understanding of the role of civil society in promoting democracy and engaging countries in electoral reform.

“Most importantly, the workshop aimed to objectively understand civil society organizations and donor dynamics [in the four societies], and what the differences are by looking at localized case studies,” said Dr. Bassel Salloukh, LAU associate professor of political science, who was the co-director of the event together with Dr. Marie-Joelle Zahar from the Université de Montréal, Canada.

Participants discussed how CSOs and non-governmental organizations can improve their work on democratization in divided societies, how to best measure a program’s effectiveness, as well as how donor priorities shape local agendas.

The workshop explored case studies from different regions of the world, to get a holistic view of how donors and CSOs engage.

According to Salloukh, the result will be a set of recommendations for addressing aid being used to forward donor agendas, donor fixation with “success stories” and “empirical proof,” and the impact of short-term thinking on funding.

Salloukh also noted that despite geographic distances, speakers targeted many similar issues and themes.

Mesrur Aswad, from the Iraqi Institute for Human Rights, outlined the history and challenges of NGOs in Iraq from 1996 onwards. After the start of the war in 2003, many international bodies that became donors forced local organizations to adapt to their style, according to Aswad.

“Most of the already active NGOs were unable to continue, because international donors stopped their aid to them, and new NGOs arose,” he added.

The focal point of a speech by Al Bakir Mukhtar, from the Khatim Adlan Center for Enlightenment and Development in Sudan, was whether it was more effective to distribute aid directly to CSOs, or to work within existing government agencies.

Mukhtar related a story of government officials receiving millions in aid from the Arab League to help resettle those displaced by the conflict in Darfur. “There were only [a few] houses built,” he said, adding, “And rumors went around that the head of the project embezzled the funds.”

According to Mukhtar, international donors remain hesitant to give funds directly to aid organizations in countries where the government may be hostile to aid efforts, such as in Sudan.

The distribution creates a culture of mistrust, said Mukhtar, adding that few NGOs work together, or directly with international donors, for the betterment of society. Mukhtar stressed the need for equal partnership between all acting bodies.

According to Samer Abdallah, the general coordinator of Nahwa al-Muwatiniya in Lebanon, CSOs need more transparency in their financial structures in order to build trust with donors.

“We have to ensure that money is going through the channels that will create change,” he said, before criticizing the rising culture of NGOs as “career-building opportunities.”

“People no longer volunteer for NGOs,” he said. “Instead, they want to work with NGOs to network, build capacity, gain marketable skills, and travel.”

As NGOs become increasingly coveted employment options, Abdallah believes that fewer people will be willing to act as unpaid volunteers.

The workshop, funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), was a follow-up to a 2009 workshop on the same topic, as part of a three-year (2008–2011) collaborative project with Université de Montréal to publish recommendations on the topic.

The workshop was hosted by Dr. Nancy Hoffart, professor and founding dean of LAU’s Alice Ramez Chagoury School of Nursing.

LAU’s IPE program is designed to prepare professionals in the university’s health and social care programs to function as effective, collaborative team members in order to improve health care and patient/client outcomes.

The program brings together students from the nursing, medicine, pharmacy, nutrition, and social work programs, to take part in IPE learning experiences in classroom, laboratory and clinical settings.

The aim of the retreat was to educate faculty about recent IPE developments and new approaches, which can then be incorporated into courses and clinical experiences beginning in the fall 2011 semester.

In her opening speech, Hoffart told workshop participants: “At LAU, I believe it’s important for us as faculty to develop trust and good communication, which is already evident among our 11-member IPE Work Group,” which consists of faculty members from the schools of Nursing, Medicine, Pharmacy, and Arts and Sciences.

“We’d like to extend this out to more LAU faculty. We are proud that the IPE program forms part of LAU’s new five-year strategic plan, to be launched in October 2011,” Hoffart added.

Leading an icebreaker during the retreat, Dr. Mona Haidar, who teaches at LAU’s School of Medicine and is a member of the IPE Work Group, asked faculty and other participants to write down facts about themselves and compare them with those of their colleagues.

The activity was a way to introduce the mission of IPE and highlight similarities among the health care professions for LAU students and faculty.

“We want to expose IPE to the rest of LAU’s health care faculty, so that more can join us in this initiative,” said Haidar. “We can work together, implementing learning activities with our students in hospital, community and classroom settings.”

Guest speakers Patricia Bluteau and Dr. Ann Jackson addressed the workshop participants via videoconference from the UK. They described their experiences with interprofessional education at the University of Warwick, and engaged participants in a Q&A session.

The workshop also addressed modes of delivering IPE, along with other challenges and constraints.

“One challenge might be that the five disciplines have different content to cover, with different time frames to complete them in,” said Hoffart. “We are taking small steps now, while seeking further guidance from Jackson and Bluteau.”

The retreat included a collaborative activity led by Dr. Anna Farra, faculty member at LAU’s School of Medicine and a member of the IPE Work Group. Faculty and attendees were divided into several groups to discuss various terms used by different groups of health and social care professionals. This enabled participants to identify faculty from other health care fields with similar academic interests.

The retreat ended with a tour of the new LAU clinical laboratories housing cutting-edge equipment and “patient-mannequins,” all in a hospital-like setting designed for clinical training.

“Implementing interprofessional education will be a hallmark experience for students and faculty in LAU’s health care programs,” Hoffart concluded. “We hope to become a leader in IPE, and a role model to other institutions within the region.”
 

TEDx events are organized locally but under the general guidance of the world-renowned Technology Entertainment and Design (TED) conference series. TED says these branded events “bring people together to share a TED-like experience.”

Presentations by Hans Rosling, Derek Sivers and Elie Pariser addressed Asia’s bid to regain its economic position in the world, the role of leadership in the creation and evolution of a popular movement, and the potential pitfalls and costs of “behavioral targeting” for general users’ experience of the internet, respectively.

The presentations were followed by an extensive discussion involving TEDxBeirut team members as well as audience members.

This atmosphere of vigorous and open exchange fosters students’ appreciation for dialogue, according to Reine Azzi, LAU instructor of English and moral reasoning.

“Our students should graduate with increasing awareness of the world they live in, instead of simply focusing on the disciplines they’ve chosen,” Azzi said in her introductory remarks. “TEDxSalons — and other public lectures and debates — provide an arena in which students can build upon their synthesizing, creative, ethical and respectful minds.”

Azzi said her belief that university instructors could learn from the TEDx approach to communication was reaffirmed by the success of the event.

The mission of LAU’s Department of Humanities, which organized the event, includes the arrangement of activities in which students interact through debate. Azzi said the TEDxBeirut salon marked a promising beginning to such a series.

“We hope that LAU and TEDxBeirut are initiating a local movement that will help to spread knowledge and innovative ideas,” she added.

TEDxBeirut curator Patricia Zougheib, who moderated the event, says the aim of such events is to build and expand the TED community in Lebanon and the region, as well as spread awareness of the TEDx concept.

“We want people to learn what TED is all about, and to get acquainted with the TED talks’ formats and spirit,” Zougheib says.

TEDxBeirut’s planned series of one-day conferences will follow TED’s format for talks, performances, and dialogues aimed at provoking conversation about future possibilities, according to Zougheib.

“Our long-term vision is to grow TEDxBeirut over the years, and thus gradually contribute to creating an informed, passionate and caring community,” she adds.

Zougheib was overwhelmed by the university’s warm reception. “LAU Beirut proved to be an excellent venue for TEDxBeirut’s first salon,” she said.

To learn more about upcoming TEDxBeirut events in Lebanon, check this Facebook page or the TEDxBeirut website.
 

The eight-hour workshop was led by LAU English instructors Abir Ward and Samira Shami. Ward focused on poetry while Shami introduced participants to the art of the short story.

The event also featured audios of the late Lebanese poet and travel writer Haas Mroue’s poems in his own voice.

The workshop highlighted the importance of creative writing as a “pillar of art,” according to Ward.

“A form of expression like dancing, acting, and singing, creative writing has immense therapeutic effects as well,” Ward said.

For example, “Mroue wrote about Beirut as his form of coping mechanism since he had witnessed the horrors of the [Lebanese] Civil War first hand,” Ward added.

The workshop, which was organized by LAU’s Department of Humanities, was named after Mroue, after his mother, Najwa Mounla, donated the event’s hosting fees.

“This workshop serves to promote creative writing and help establish LAU as a hub for writers and poets in Lebanon and the Middle East,” Ward says. “By organizing such workshops, we help anyone with a passion for writing find his voice,” she adds.

Such activities “provide an outlet for talented and interested students, encourage them to participate in creative-writing endeavors, and help promote interest in writing in general,” Shami says.

Farah Saati, an LAU communication arts (journalism emphasis) student who has also attended a previous edition of the creative-writing workshop at LAU, felt that this year’s event rose above her expectations.

“I really benefited from the workshop since it was interactive and triggered the creativity inside us, also giving us a space to critique each other’s work,” Saati said.

Ward is delighted with the participants’ response to the workshop.

“Participants’ interaction was amazing. Everyone seemed highly motivated, enthusiastic, and willing to do the work,” Ward says. “Judging by the comments and emails I received after the workshop, I can say that the event was a great success,” she adds.

Shami agrees. “Of course, I can’t speak for everyone, but from the comments I received, the responses were very encouraging to me as facilitator,” she says.

“Together with the help of Mroue’s mother, we plan on having longer and more varied creative-writing workshops, competitions and even a short publication in the name of Haas Mroue,” Ward says.
 

The workshop, which was designed by LAU’s Institute for Media Training and Research and Institute for Women’s Studies in the Arab World, aimed to empower participants through intensive courses in journalism and gender relations.

IWSAW Assistant Director Anita Nassar moderated the event alongside Dr. Yasmine Dabbous, IMTR director. Nassar and Dabbous welcomed the guests on the opening day of the workshop.

Nassar described her institution’s mission of connecting female activists and women through gathering key information for NGOs. Field research thus forms an integral part of activism, she told workshop participants.

The opening speech of Dabbous focused on various advantages offered by the workshop.

“This training is an opportunity for journalists from Lebanon and Iraq to learn about each other’s cultures and work ethics,” she said. “They will share knowledge, experience and stories both as media professionals and as women working in a challenging field.”

The first two days of the training covered investigative journalism, interviewing skills, ethics, cultural journalism, new media, gender representation on television, and the general challenges faced by women in the profession.

During a friendly roundtable discussion, the Iraqi journalists, all based in the northern Iraqi city of Ninewa, discussed the heavy restrictions they face within the borders of a generally insecure zone.

Nithal Yousif Elea, a criminal law specialist who participated in the workshop, noted that females are often targeted by extremists, but insisted she would never work outside Iraq unless she could take part in her country’s struggle for democracy from abroad.

“I will serve my country as a journalist — from inside or outside Iraq,” Elea said.

The journalists had relocated from their initial residence in Mosul after receiving numerous death threats. Dozens of female journalists have been assassinated in Mosul.

“They live in dramatic, extreme conditions. It’s like a constant state of war, only worse — it’s terror,” Dabbous said.

Adding that the situation of guest journalists in Iraq can be “unbearable,” Dabbous expressed her hopes for a swift transition to freedom.

“The journalists have come to us looking for solutions to their problems. All we can do is hope that things will change over time as transition is never easy,” she continued.

Dabbous however was delighted to see the Iraqi journalists enjoying a learning experience away from the harsh conditions they live in.

“They discuss, absorb, share their problems, and ponder solutions,” Dabbous said. “Perhaps most importantly, they’re enjoying their time away from the frontlines. This is an opportunity to reflect.”

The program included trips to An-Nahar, Murr TV, Laha Magazine, as well as some touristic sites.

Diana Mukalled and Sobhiyya Najjar of Future News, Gisele Khoury and Alia Ibrahim of Al-Arabiya, Denise Rahme Fakhry and Claude Abi Nader Hindi of Murr TV, Rana Najjar of Al Hayat, and Iman Chamas of the National News Agency all featured in the workshop.
 

Organizers hope that bringing together key researchers for open discussions on the issue will lead to collaborative projects between institutions in the future as a first step to discovering solutions to health and socio-economic problems associated with food safety and security.

“This conference will alert all participants to the significance of food safety in general and to the critical situation of food safety in Lebanon in particular,” says Dr. Fuad Hashwa, dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at LAU Byblos.

“The detailed discussions about local food quality and safety engaged all participants in fruitful discussion that will hopefully lead to the improvement of current practices and better food safety,” Hashwa adds.

Local representatives from the food industry and policy makers also participated in certain sessions of the conference, which was organized by the Department of Natural Sciences at LAU’s School of Arts & Sciences and took place on the Beirut and Byblos campuses.

“It is very important that academia and industry come together. We believe that this will be of mutual benefit to both,” said Dr. Ahmad Kabbani, chair of the LAU Beirut’s Natural Sciences Department, in his speech at the event’s opening.

Kabbani added that Lebanese laws should be modernized to enforce the hiring of more microbiologists in food industries for quality control.

“We cannot leave it haphazard and random,” he said. “We have to respect the credentials of our young graduates. They are the best protectors of our safety; they are the promise of this country.”

Topics of the conference included food safety microbiology, food toxicology, post-harvest physiology of fruits and vegetables, global issues for food security and safety, nutrition and physiology, food health benefits, and anti-tumor effect of food components.

During the conference opening at the Beirut campus, Atef Idriss, the CEO of MENA Food Safety Associates (MEFOSA), which provides consulting and training services to help food companies establish safety and quality procedures, spoke of a regional food crisis.

He said: “MENA is one of the highest food deficit regions of the world. When it comes to food trade, we are importing in excess of $50 billion of food each year, the highest per capita in the world.”

Fuad Fleifel, the general director of the Office of Consumer Protection at the Lebanese Ministry of Economy and Trade, said during the opening that one of his top priorities is to restore public confidence in food safety — a confidence, he said, that has been tarnished over the years by conflict.

“Consumers have the right to be told the truth about their food,” Fleifel said. He assured that “food policy always has food safety as primary objective. No [private interest] is allowed to jeopardize that objective.”

The technical sessions started with a keynote address by Dr. Glenn Young, a professor of food safety from the University of California, Davis. Food safety, he said, is about real and perceived risks.

The risks start on the farm, through the practices of cultivating fruits and vegetables and raising livestock. Then, they are in the hands of transporters, before making their way to consumers whose behavior also affects the food safety risks.

Professor Young said that more people die from foodborne illness than other major illnesses combined.

“If we consider the world population, more people die of diarrheal disease infection than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined,” he said. “This is why food safety really should be taken more seriously.”

The event included two workshops, the first on May 3 led by Dr. Marita Cantwell from UC Davis on “Successful Postharvest Handling of Vegetables” at LAU Beirut, followed by a two-part workshop on May 4 at LAU Byblos, and May 7 at the American University of Beirut’s Medical School, on “Advances in Microscopy in the Field of Molecular Biology.”

The latter of the two workshops was organized by Dr. Mirvat El Sibai, assistant professor of biology at LAU, who co-led it with Dr. Michael Cammer, assistant research scientist at the Skirball Institute of Biomolecular Medicine in New York University.

The second day of the conference in Byblos coincided with the biology and biomedical sciences poster conference presented by LAU students.

For more information about the conference, visit its website.
 

Professionals from library and IT departments from universities across the world discussed the best ways to meet these demands, as well as encourage interdepartmental cooperation, at the eighth annual meeting and conference of the American International Consortium of Academic Libraries, held at LAU from April 27–30.

AMICAL is an international consortium of American-model, liberal arts institutions of higher learning based throughout Europe, North Africa, Central Asia and the Middle East.

Members meet annually to discuss emerging issues in the field of higher education with a library and IT focus, according to Cendrella Habre, director of LAU Beirut’s Riyad Nassar Library.

Under this year’s theme “E-content: Collecting, Managing, Promoting, Teaching,” members and invited guests explored potential ways for library and information services to transform the way they bring scholarly content to their respective academic communities.

“In simple terms, I would say the theme means providing easy access to any piece of information available electronically to end users (in our case, students, faculty and staff),” Habre explains.

“E-content has recently invaded our world without prior warning, and we, as libraries, have had to face this challenge through trial and error to meet our end users’ needs,” Habre said during the opening ceremony at LAU Beirut’s Business Building.

In his opening speech, LAU President Dr. Joseph G. Jabbra praised AMICAL for its outstanding commitment to delivering academic content innovatively.

“We, as presidents and provosts of universities, are very grateful to you, for any institution wouldn’t be worth a grain of salt without a vibrant library at its heart,” Jabbra told conference participants.

In terms of e-content, Habre says LAU is “going with the flow.”

“There is no way that we can flee this trend. Several of our print journals have been switched to e-format, as well as the majority of our print reference material (dictionaries, encyclopedias, maps, etc.), and packages of e-books, have been added to our collection,” she explains.

Around 135 people, including LAU staff, attended this year’s four-day meeting, which included panel discussions, rounds of lightning talks (highly focused five- to 10-minute presentations), and roundtable discussions.

Participants also had the chance to take part in a joint program with the Association of American International Colleges and Universities conference, held at LAU Beirut from April 29–May 1.

The AMICAL and AAICU conferences were scheduled concurrently to allow library and IT staff to further interact with the presidents and administrators of institutions. One of the several joint AMICAL–AAICU events included a workshop on IT–library cooperation.

Habre calls the event “extremely informative.”

“In terms of LAU library staff members, this event helps them in moving beyond their daily tasks and the library walls to be involved in other responsibilities as well as reassure teamwork,” Habre says. “It also helps them in expanding their network and learning from each other.”

This was the second time AMICAL met at LAU (the first was in 2005).

Participants hailed from universities including Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane, Morocco; American College of Greece; American University of Paris; American University in Cairo; American University of Beirut; and Haigazian University, to name a few.

The conference also gathered representatives from library suppliers and publishers such as EBSCO, Oxford University Press, Thomson Reuters, and Baker & Taylor, as well as some IT companies including IBM Middle East and Hewlett-Packard.
 

The three-session conference, titled “Trinity State: Homeland, Citizen, Citizenship,” was jointly organized by LAU’s School of Arts and Sciences; the Lebanese Cultural Dialogue Circle, an organization concerned with Lebanese and Arab culture; and the Alumni Association of the Lebanese University’s Institute of Social Sciences.

“Lebanon is not built solely on politics or economics or military superiority, but rather it can only excel through its adoption of culture, thought, creativity and writing,” said Dr. Nidale Daccache, assistant professor of Arabic studies at the Department of Humanities at LAU Byblos, who was the event coordinator.

“Industrial countries have developed with the help of their creative citizens and other countries have failed to develop due to the lack of education among their citizens,” added Daccache, who is also a member of the Cultural Dialogue Circle.

In his introductory speech, LAU President Dr. Joseph G. Jabbra emphasized the themes of patriotism and equality among Lebanese citizens under the authority of the law.

“The Lebanese people’s hopes for their country can only be realized when their work can serve the country,” Jabbra said. “How can the Lebanese be proud when Lebanon is ranked last on their list of priorities? How can we pride ourselves in living above the law?”

Jameela Hussein, chair of the Cultural Dialogue Circle, said the concept of citizenship is not innate and must be incorporated into the academic programs.

“The true form of citizenship takes shape through a social contract between the individual and his or her country,” Hussein said. “This contract specifies the rights and responsibilities for both the citizen and the country.”

Dr. Nadeem Mansouri, president of the Alumni Association of the Lebanese University’s Institute of Social Sciences, said that Lebanese citizens must reflect on the current circumstances of their faltering state, hoping that the country can be steered away from familial and sectarian divides.
 

The event was hosted by IWSAW , LAU’s Institute for Migration Studies, and KAFA (Enough) Violence and Exploitation at LAU Beirut, on March 30.

It presented studies by Kathleen Hamill, lawyer and human rights activist (“Trafficking of Migrant Domestic Workers in Lebanon: A Legal Analysis”), and Dr. Ray Jureidini, professor of sociology at LAU Beirut (“An Exploratory Study of Psychoanalytic and Social Factors in the Abuse of Migrant Domestic Workers by Female Employers in Lebanon”).

Both examine — through different disciplinary lenses — the structural factors shaping the situation of Lebanon’s 200,000 domestic workers.

Cecile Abadie, a section head for the Delegation of the European Union to Lebanon, spoke first, highlighting the need to work together to improve living conditions for foreign women in Lebanon, in particular “to develop rights-based government policies concerning migration while taking into account contributing social and cultural factors.”

Abadie emphasized that abuse can be physical and sexual, but is often much more subtle, taking forms that are actually both permissible by law and widely accepted in social and cultural terms.

Abadie was followed by Ghada Jabbour, head of the Exploitation and Trafficking in Women unit of KAFA (enough) Violence and Exploitation, a Lebanese NGO committed to the human rights of women and children.

KAFA initiated the “Stop the Exploitation of Migrant Domestic Workers” project in 2010, of which these two studies form part.

Hamill’s study involved identifying and redefining terms such as “human trafficking” and “abuse.” Part of the problem, she concluded, was that many domestic migrant workers do not realize they are being inhumanely treated, and many employers do not see themselves as abusive.

Her legal analysis report also flagged the vulnerabilities that Lebanon’s labor law and system not only allow but encourage. Problems stem from the very beginning of the process (the sponsorship system) and continue to develop through the recruitment procedure, culminating in a lack of labor protection and legal redress.

Sixty-five percent of the domestic migrant workers Hamill interviewed in her research had experienced forced labor. Tellingly, most were unaware that according to international law this itself constituted abuse.

Professor Jureidini’s study concentrated on the psychoanalytical and social factors that can lead to abuse. These can range from unconscious processes or mental health issues to authoritarian attitudes and jealousy. The geography of the home as a ”secret” place — where one is literally behind closed doors — can be an exacerbating factor.

Most crucially, Jureidini’s research revealed the extent to which “migrant domestic workers are part of the psychological framework of the family.”

The talks were followed by a lively Q&A session. Audience members pointed out that the culture within the home countries of domestic workers also requires analysis.

An LAU migrant worker also spoke, thanking the panel for their research and highlighting the positives of working in Lebanon alongside the exploitation they sometimes face.
 

A panel of scholars discussed the book in the Irwin Hall Faculty Lounge, where copies of it were made available for purchase.

In addition to Tabar, the discussants included Dr. Jennifer Skulte-Ouaiss, assistant professor of political science and international affairs at LAU Beirut; Dr. Melhem Chaoul, professor of sociology and acting director of the Research Center at the Institute of Social Sciences at Lebanese University; and Dr. Ray Jureidini, associate professor of sociology at LAU Beirut. Skulte-Ouaiss and Jureidini are colleagues of Tabar’s at IMS.

“This book is about the impact of immigration and settlement on the culture of Lebanese migrants and their descendants in Australia,” said Tabar in his opening remarks to the audience.

The book touches on topics such as racism, “ethnic capital,” and the shift from state policies emphasizing assimilation toward those privileging multiculturalism.

Co-authored with Dr. Greg Noble of the University of Western Sidney and Dr. Scott Poynting of Manchester Metropolitan University, On Being Lebanese in Australia is the result of years of collaborative research.

The research conducted included extensive interviews, participant observation and personal reflections. Individual chapters analyze everything from second-generation immigrant vernaculars to youth sexuality to the politics of football fandom to the symbolic re-appropriation of dabke and Ashura rituals.

Jureidini praised the book for its mixture of “theoretical sophistication and descriptive vividness,” and for its “insistence on avoiding or challenging simplistic stereotypes.”

He also spoke feelingly in his prepared remarks about his own experiences of racism and xenophobia, and the “disquieting” emotional impact the book had on him.

“As someone who grew up in Australia as a Lebanese immigrant, so many things in this book that hit home, quite deeply,” Jureidini said. “I think it’s a great book, and to anyone with an inkling of the events described and analyzed here, it will ring all too true. I can’t do justice to its depth and intensity.”

Tabar said that in their analysis of immigrant identity, he and his co-authors aimed to avoid the “classical dichotomy between agency and structure,” between, that is, a sociological approach foregrounding the independence of individuals and one foregrounding societal and systemic pressures.

Conceptual frameworks derived from the writings of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu helped them in this task, Tabar said.

Jureidini said the book’s treatment of identity was “the most sophisticated — and necessarily complex — that I’ve come across so far.”

Tabar spoke of his plans to continue collaborating with Noble on related academic projects.

The event drew a large and fairly diverse audience, including not only fellow LAU faculty but also deans, graduate students, undergrads, professors from the American University of Beirut, and even Lebanese and Australian diplomats.

On Being Lebanese in Australia is one of several publications IMS has made possible in the prolific four years since its founding.
 

Jackson Diehl, The Washington Post’s deputy editorial director, posed this rhetorical question to a rapt audience in Washington, D.C., to compare and contrast the recent wave of popular upheavals in the Arab world with the largely successful anti-Soviet protests that swept across Eastern Europe in the late 1980s, and the mostly unsuccessful popular uprisings that started in France and spread through Europe in the mid-19th century.

“It’s too early for us to tell,” Diehl said, answering his own question.

Diehl was one of three journalists, together with Al-Jazeera’s Zeina Awad and Max Fisher from The Atlantic, assembled by LAU on March 24 in the U.S. capital to discuss the unprecedented uprisings that have spread throughout the Middle East and North Africa.

The LAU panel, held in conjunction with the LAU Board of Trustees’ meeting in Washington, D.C., was moderated by Dr. Graeme Bannerman, LAU’s representative in the U.S. capital and a highly respected commentator on Middle Eastern affairs.

For one hour, the journalists and Bannerman engaged in a spirited and engaging discussion about what has happened and what they expect to happen in the region going forward.

Each panelist also addressed the role that the media has played in the uprisings — both traditional and new media such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

After a brief introduction by Dr. Charles Elachi, BOT chairman, Bannerman laid out the important role that each media outlet represented on the panel has played in its coverage of the Middle East in recent years.

He noted that The Washington Post’s editorial page has been a strong supporter of U.S. intervention in the region, while The Atlantic has been a more thoughtful arbiter of events.

Bannerman also pointed out the unparalleled role that Al-Jazeera has played in providing the people of the world with an unvarnished view of events on the ground.

After Bannerman’s introduction, the three panelists presented their own thoughts about the uprisings, their meaning, and potential future developments.

While Diehl expressed his enthusiasm about the ouster of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, he recognized the challenges being faced in Libya, Yemen, Syria and elsewhere.

But he said he remains cautiously optimistic about the future of the region.

Fisher focused his remarks on the role that traditional and new media have played in the uprisings.

He also pointed out the proclivity of the American news media to paint the Middle East in black and white colors without taking the time to dig deeper.

Awad, who is of Lebanese descent and spoke of the great pride she takes in institutions like LAU, said her network, Al-Jazeera, has largely become ingrained in the growing revolution.

She added: “This is the first time in our history that Arabs are listening to each other instead of being told what to do by their governments.”

The panel then took questions from the audience, which was made up of LAU BOT members, alumni, staff and friends.

The event featured presentations and workshops from educators and representatives of various international publishing houses, including Cambridge University Press and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, as well as an exhibit of a variety of new textbooks that participants perused during breaks.

LAU’s Department of Education collaborated with one of Lebanon’s largest book suppliers, Levant Distributors, which sponsored the conference.

Dr. Iman Osta, associate professor of math education and chair of the Department of Education, calls the event a “tradition.”

“We sensed a need for such educational forums whereby teachers can meet other teachers as well as educators and textbook representatives, to share experiences and learn about the educational philosophy and pedagogical foundations of the textbook series they are using or they might use,” Osta explains.

The major theme throughout the presentations was the challenge of when, where and how to use English as the medium of instruction across the curriculum, especially in math and science. The issue has been particular tricky for teachers, administrators, parents and students, given the multilingual nature of Lebanon.

“Is teaching math and science in English beneficial to students?” asked Dr. Kamel Dallal, director of educational affairs at the Makassed Philanthropic Islamic Association of Beirut, during the opening panel, titled “English Across the Curriculum: Issues and Concerns.”

“Changing the language of instruction in schools should consider various dimensions such as the community and cultural environment where the students live, and the school environment as well — we should be sure teachers and parents are ready to make the switch,” Dallal said.

During the same panel, Dr. Tamer Amin, LAU assistant professor of science education, highlighted the need for teachers to receive more support to accommodate the development of language skills across the curriculum.

“As a teacher, you must be asking yourself: ‘How do I teach material that is challenging when I have to think about language issues?’ Teachers need better materials to work with, and that’s what this conference is about,” Amin said.

According to Dr. Mona Majdalani, LAU professor of education with an emphasis in mathematics education, the feedback from teachers, students and sponsors was very positive.

“Attendance at the event was unprecedented to the extent that administrators are enthused to expand it next year,” Majdalani says.

The workshops were particularly helpful, says Osta, as they presented possible textbook- and technology-based solutions to key educational challenges. “Many useful ideas were generated through the presentation of software accompanying textbooks,” she adds.

“The tips offered by keynote speakers addressed general ideas applicable across the board,” Majdalani adds. “The seeds were planted and it is up to the attendees to take those and ‘fly’ with them.”

The unprecedented wave of uprisings in the Arab world, which have swept away the Tunisian and Egyptian regimes, triggered Western intervention in Libya, and sparked major demonstrations in Yemen, Bahrain and Syria, by and large caught the academic community by surprise.

In a heavily attended panel discussion, Dr. Fawwaz Trabulsi, professor of political science at LAU and the American University of Beirut, said the failure of scholars to anticipate the uprisings sheds light on analytical flaws in academia.

“Our academic programs were always directed away from the possibility of upheaval,” Trabulsi said.

“Despite our awareness of the existing poverty, the ethnological systems that ruled the region, the huge youth demographic, and the mass emigration from villages to cities, no one saw these revolutions coming,” he added.

Citing what he described as the mistaken assumptions of dominant political analysis, Trabulsi criticized the common focus on “regional stability” and insisted that the suppression of Islamists by various Arab governments was unwise.

“Consensus academic opinion was that worsening conditions would marginalize the extreme Islamists,” said Trabulsi, who is also a columnist for local newspaper As-Safir. “The moderate Islamist movements would benefit through the civil services they offer, the argument went, and meanwhile the governments would remain unchanged.”

The uprisings have provided the striking spectacle of people in large numbers simply bypassing their political parties, according to the second panelist, Dr. Fadia Kiwan, professor of political science and head of the Political Sciences Institute at the Université Saint-Joseph.

Kiwan said that Mohamed Bouazizi’s self-immolation, which served as a catalyst for the Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia, was merely “the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

Kiwan outlined various motives for the Arab revolts, distinguishing between direct and indirect causes.

“Among the indirect reasons for the uprisings is the fact that the failing Arab nation-states have been artificial ones, founded after multiple wars and by contradictory groups of people,” Kiwan said.

“Other indirect factors for revolt include Western interference, increase in poverty rates, a lack of citizen engagement in political life, rising interest in Arab nationalism, a lack of investment on the part of states in their own economies, the rise of social media among Arab youth, and the absence of incremental state measures to improve living standards ,” Kiwan added.

Among the more direct causes of upheaval, Kiwan cited the demands of middle-class and bourgeois youth for a freer society as particularly important.

Regional entrepreneurs who have steered clear of government corruption, trade unions and other elements of civil society have also been pivotal to the success of democratic movements, according to Kiwan.

The discussion was organized by the LAU Retirees’ Circle and moderated by Dr. Bassel Salloukh, associate professor of political science at LAU Beirut.
 

Swift technological advancements that have reshaped daily life have created the need for a new academic system.

But LAU English instructor Juheina Fakhreddine, one of the panelists, believes that academic strategies need to be gradually upgraded, and warned against calling for a “learning revolution.”

“A revolution in the educational system can be dangerous. Education doesn’t happen all of a sudden. It’s a process that takes time and effort,” she said.

The inability of students to discover their academic passion at the university is one of the major flaws of the Lebanese scholastic curriculum, Fakhreddine said.

“The problem lies in the Lebanese curriculum at schools,” she explained. “Despite all the subjects that students learn at school, they are unable to choose their preferred major and end up switching majors and shifting interests during their university years.”

Fakhreddine believes that grades ought to be replaced by a system that can stimulate passion for the learning experience. She said that the grading policy fosters students’ interest in test scores rather than cultivating their interests and critical-thinking skills.

In a Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED) video screened at the event, Sir Ken Robinson called for a learning revolution through personalized instruction. The renowned author, speaker and international adviser on education, creativity and human resources advised students “to enjoy rather than endure” their education.

While conceding the need for adapting the current global academic strategy, LAU English instructor Mona Shahine, another panelist, faulted Robinson’s lecture for not acknowledging societal factors affecting vocational choice.

“It is nice to tell people to follow their dreams but not everyone has the capital to do so,” Shahine said.

She voiced concern for Lebanon’s high school programs, which fit the “fast-food model” of standardization Robinson addressed.

“We have 45 universities that have spawned programs we do not really need. We do not study our markets,” Shahine said. “I agree with Robinson, in principle, that we need to customize the learning process,” she added.

The third panelist, Dr. Tamer Amin, assistant professor at LAU’s Department of Education, concurred with Shahine that Robinson’s theme of all individuals having a hidden talent was flawed.

Dr. Vahid Behmardi, chairperson of LAU’s Department of Humanities, who was present, echoed Shahine’s concern that students are generally unaware of the role of a liberal arts curriculum in shaping a well-rounded graduate.

The discussion was organized by LAU’s Department of Humanities and moderated by LAU English instructor Raghida Ibrahim.
 

Potolicchio, a visiting assistant professor of American politics & public affairs and research methods at Georgetown University, in Washington, D.C., gave the presentation, titled “The United States: The Economic Model of Religion and Politics,” in LAU Beirut’s Irwin Hall Faculty Lounge on March 10.

Potolicchio addressed the religiosity of Americans and gave a series of reasons why understanding religion in the United States could lead to a better understanding of its politics.

The American professor argued that scholars of secularization theory, who have for years been predicting the demise of religion, have been wrong. “If you actually look at the data across the world, you see an increase in religious observance, particularly in the last 50 years.”

Americans have certainly not been exempt from this trend and are “very religious,” he pointed out. Statistics show that 90 percent of Americans are religious, 80 percent consider religion to be important or very important, and 60 percent frequently attend some sort of church service.

“Religious practice is higher in the United States as compared to other Western countries because religion has become inextricably political and it has been so since the founding of the country,” Potolicchio told the audience.

He added: “Americans have come to rely on the fact that politicians are going to be religious. At the legal level, there is of course the separation of church and state, but the actors who compose the government are plainly religious.”

And religion isn’t going anywhere any time soon, he argued.

According to Potolicchio, unlike economic superpowers that have changed over time, three major powers have dominated the realm of religion over the last two millennia: Islam, Judaism and Christianity. “I can almost guarantee you that these three religions will be the major religions a century from now, two centuries from now, three centuries from now,” he added.

He recommended that typically secular American political scientists need to start including religion in the political equation to better predict where the religion trend is going in the United States. “This could have an effect on policy, on diplomacy, on international relations.”

According to Dr. Vahid Behmardi, chairperson of LAU’s Department of Humanities, the lecture attracted the highest number of students than all events organized by the department over the last two years. He estimates that out of around 50 people who attended, only four were faculty and the rest were students who came independently.

“I think that maybe this topic was particularly attractive and interesting,” says Behmardi. “Politics, religion, the United States as a model — these are appealing issues to many students, especially those from the social and political sciences programs.”

At Georgetown, Potolicchio has taught courses on presidential rhetoric, religion and politics, Constitutional Law, and the U.S. political system. He is the lecturer on American Federalism for the Open World Leadership program at the Library of Congress, where he speaks weekly to visiting dignitaries from the post-Soviet republics. He has delivered keynote lectures in the Czech Republic, Greece, Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro, Albania and Bulgaria.
 

Chidiac, who reached international stature after a failed 2005 assassination attempt left her with serious injuries, described her hopes of leaving a journalistic legacy transcending the “living martyr” tag she gained following the incident.

Having recruited an experienced teaching staff, including Naharnet’s editor-in-chief Nawfal Daou, Chidiac expressed her optimism about the institute’s prospects of promoting quality journalism in Lebanon.

She critiqued, however, the popular notion that media can — or even should — be objective, insisting that this ideal is naive, that in fact the individual touch of a journalist is not only desirable but inescapable.

“There is nothing true about objectivity in media. The choice of segments, for example, in a report brings out the personal angle of the reporter,” Chidiac maintained.

Chidiac noted the significance of the recent rise of social media for professional journalists, and confirmed that the institute will be offering intensive courses in new media.

“The social media revolution demonstrates the difference between the world of our generation and the world of your generation,” Chidiac told the mostly young audience during the Beirut-campus event.

She also urged journalists to fight for their freedom in what she described as a global phenomenon of media suppression.

Chidiac, who holds a Ph.D. in Information Sciences from Pantheon-Assas Paris II University, has received a number of prestigious international press-freedom awards, including the Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur from former French President Jacques Chirac and, most recently, the Courage in Journalism Award from the International Women’s Media Foundation.

“The awards presented to us are an obvious indication that journalists are still struggling to win their freedom all around the world,” she said.

When asked about ways of countering political stereotypes in Lebanon, Chidiac described her plans for a web TV show designed to foster uncensored political discourse in Lebanon.

Chidiac announced that prospective students of the Media Institute will be eligible for reduced enrollment fees.

The events were organized by LAU’s School of Arts and Sciences with the help of Christian Oussi, executive director of Public and Media Relations at LAU; and Tony Farjallah, instructor of communication arts; in Beirut and Byblos respectively. They were mainly attended by communication arts (journalism and TV/film emphases) and political science & international affairs students.

Referring to the Byblos presentation, Dr. Fuad Hashwa, dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at LAU Byblos, says: “I was quite impressed with Chidiac’s presentation and the discussion that followed; this is an opportunity for our students to participate in the May Chidiac Foundation workshops during their internships.”
 

Chidiac with LAU Byblos students after her presentation.

The symposium included presentations by Dr. Ameen A. Rihani, vice president of Academic Affairs at Lebanon’s Notre Dame University and nephew of the famous novelist; Dr. Nijmeh Hajjar from the University of Sydney in Australia; Dr. Naji Oueijan from NDU; and Dr. Nuwar Diab, LAU assistant professor of English and linguistics.

Each speaker highlighted a different aspect of Rihani’s writings, but all contended that the vision of the founding father of Arab-American literature is just as relevant today as it was 100 years ago.

Born in Freike, Lebanon, in 1876, Rihani emigrated to New York City in 1888 where he became acquainted with the works of Walt Whitman, Leo Tolstoy, Henry David Thoreau, and Charles Darwin, to name a few, which would influence his later writings and philosophy. His extensive literary career took off at the turn of the century and by the time of his death in 1940, he had published 29 notable works in English and 26 in Arabic.

And Rihani’s influence spread well beyond the world of literature.

He is widely considered one of the first advocates of Arab nationalism.

As one of history’s most prominent humanist intellectuals, Rihani had a secular humanist vision for Arab society based on equality, justice and freedom, according to Hajjar. “Rihani was on a quest for genuine change in Arab societies … [and] he saw education as the primary force of change in the Arab world,” Hajjar told the audience.

Rihani advocated for a progressive, democratic Arab society, but often warned that it could not be imposed from the outside, Hajjar added.

Throughout his life, Rihani worked tirelessly to bridge the gap between the East and West, engaging both sides to learn from each other with mutual respect. He was critical of what he saw as Arab apathy and ignorance but was equally critical of the West’s spirit of expansionism and colonialism.

The Book of Khalid, published in 1911, was his first major novel and has subsequently become known as the first Arab-American novel. A milestone in the worlds of philosophy, literature and politics, the work is essentially a culmination of the observations and conclusions Rihani had made living between two different worlds.

“The Book of Khalid suggests building an intellectual bridge between the present and the future. It carries a vision for establishing the ‘Great City’ and the upcoming superman emerging from the spirituality of the East, the art of Europe, and the science of America,” explained his nephew at the symposium.

Though the times Rihani lived in may have been very different from today’s, his calls for equality, religious harmony and intercultural understanding in Arab society and the greater world are enduring and especially prescient.

When asked how Rihani’s messages apply to the present, Dr. Rihani said: “It will only be applicable if, and when, human intellectual development starts within the individual and spreads to the community and then reaches the nations of the world. This is what Rihani writes about in his book Extremism and Reform.”

The symposium was the first event held in Lebanon on the occasion of The Book of Khalid’s centennial. It was organized by LAU’s Department of Humanities, and was moderated by Dr. Samira Aghacy, dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at LAU Beirut.

The journalists, 11 men and two women, attended seminars on LAU’s Beirut campus, met with famous Lebanese media personalities, visited the country’s major newsrooms and took in the sights of Beirut during the training week, held from November 22–26.

Organized by The Institute for Media Training and Research at LAU, the workshop comes as part of a USAID program to help facilitate Iraq’s move to democracy, according to Dr. Yasmine Dabbous, TIMTAR’s director and assistant professor of journalism and media studies at LAU.

The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad funds training programs for Iraqi journalists to educate them about media management and media law in a free system.

“Journalism plays an important role in a democratic state and we would like Iraqi journalists to be exposed to the Lebanese system — as it is relatively free compared to other Arab countries — and to discover the latest technologies fostering better research and distribution opportunities,” Dabbous says.

The training course provided comprehensive lectures on such topics as newsroom management, social and political talk shows, media law and ethics, organizational communication, and new media.

The group heard from Gisele Khoury of TV news channel Al Arabiya; Rola Rizk from the staff of Ahmar Bil Khatt Al Areed, a TV talk show that runs on the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation (LBC); and Ghassan Hajjar from daily newspaper An-Nahar, among others.

In the evening hours, the participants visited Future TV, MTV and the headquarters of An-Nahar.

TIMTAR also organized trips to Jeita Grotto and Byblos for the visitors.

On the final day of the workshop, the journalists were awarded certificates of participation during a small graduation ceremony.

One of the most successful and engaging parts of the week for the Iraqis was the day devoted to new or digital media, led by LAU instructor Ayman Itani, who is a digital media strategist.

“We covered blogging, video streaming, and social networking as means of empowerment. Even the older men were interested in new media,” says Dabbous. “They seemed to be really engaged with the subject and wanted to apply it to their workplaces as soon as they got home,” she adds.

The workshop also included a roundtable discussion, held in Irwin Hall, between the Iraqis and a group of influential Lebanese journalists, where they discussed similarities and differences between each country’s media and culture.

“Technology is more advanced in Lebanon, but our societies are similar in terms of fragmentation and divisions,” said Dr. Mahmoud Tarabay, an LAU faculty member who co-moderated the training week (alongside Dabbous).

“Everyone in the room has had to grapple with what the media owner’s role should be in deciding the news versus an individual journalist’s autonomy,” Tarabay said after the discussion.

While security concerns were not named as the major challenge facing these particular Iraqi journalists, who hail from the southern province of Muthanna along the Saudi border (an area that has enjoyed an extended period of stability), a lack of access to information as well as how and where to get further training on cutting-edge techniques were cited as key problems.

“Throughout the week, I was able to reflect a lot on how to strive for independence in the newsroom and have a message to change the status quo,” says Fahad Hassan, a reporter for Aswat al Iraq, a newspaper based in Muthanna’s capital of Samawa.

According to him, although press freedom is better now than before the 2003 invasion, Iraqi journalists are still facing difficulty in reaching a lot of information relevant to their stories. “But it is getting better slowly,” Hassan adds.

Dabbous says she has received emails from the Iraqis since their return home and the feedback has been very positive. “We got such a good evaluation,” she says.

“This training week was not meant to be a top-down thing — we weren’t lecturing. It was more of an exchange where everyone benefited from each other’s stories and approach. The Lebanese learned from the Iraqis and vice versa,” Dabbous says. “Such a constructive exchange between Arab countries is badly needed.”

Read a story about a similar TIMTAR workshop held earlier this year.

Social media, also known as digital or new media, includes such online platforms as Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and blogs. And according to Nasr, not only is this new medium here to stay, but it also has a vital role to play in stirring up the status quo.

“I’m seeing social media as an opportunity to bring change, to energize people, to inspire people,” she told the crowd of mostly students. “I don’t know where it’s going, I just know it’s going somewhere and I’d like to be in the driver’s seat. I want to play a role in telling traditional media how wrong they are about being scared of new media.”

Organized by The Institute for Media Training and Research at LAU, Nasr’s lecture drew around 150 people, in addition to hundreds of web viewers. LAU Social, a digital media class, was responsible for setting up a live broadcasting platform that streamed video, pictures and tweets to members of a wider online community.

“We had around 250 viewers from outside the university, mostly people from Lebanon, since Octavia Nasr is very well-connected with the online community” in the country, says Ayman Itani, LAU Social instructor, who is a digital media strategist and a three-year Twitter user.

The atmosphere in the auditorium was uncharacteristic of a traditional academic lecture. A group of LAU Social students tweeted and blogged live updates from their laptops for the duration of the talk. Many others could be seen tweeting and taking video on their smartphones.

Nasr too checked her BlackBerry for tweets throughout the session and encouraged students to tweet her questions. “That’s how people get my attention,” she said.

She challenged everyone in the audience to become responsible “citizen journalists.”

“Go beyond the headlines and go to the really meaty news about what’s happening in the world today,” she added.

Nasr started exploring Twitter in 2008, looking for a more dynamic alternative to traditional media. She grew tired of “the same people recycling the same sound bites on different TV stations,” she said. “I wanted something new.”

“People on Twitter are smart — they don’t sit there in front of their TV sets and … accept the news as delivered by channel A and then B and then C,” she said. “They look for the news themselves.”

An audience member asked if Nasr no longer had faith in traditional media.

“No one should even think of giving up on traditional media,” she answered. “But you can’t apply traditional media rules to new media — it just doesn’t work; it’s a different animal.”

She added that traditional media would remain the cornerstone of journalism. “We cannot depend primarily on citizen journalists. They’re not trained. … It takes years to become someone with a sense of editorial judgment,” she explained.

Dr. Yasmine Dabbous, TIMTAR director and an assistant professor of journalism and media studies at LAU, agrees: “Social media can’t be sustained unless you have trained journalists to sort out what’s right and what’s wrong, as well as to publish and distribute the news to a large audience.”

But both Nasr and Dabbous believe that the future lies in a marriage between social and traditional media, and hopefully, they say, a happy one.

Born and raised in Lebanon, Nasr has lived in the United States for almost half her life.

Throughout her 20-year career at CNN, the last 10 of which as the senior editor of Middle East affairs, she won numerous awards for her coverage of war zones.

As of last month, Nasr has been heading up Bridges Media Consulting, a company she founded to help media organizations and individuals bridge the gap between traditional and new media. She is also the editor of OctaviaNasr.com.

The lecture was part of TIMTAR’s Distinguished Journalists Lecture Series that was launched in January.

Bollens, who has extensively studied the role of urban policy and city building amid nationalistic ethnic conflict and political transitions in various cities around the world, talked about the findings of his research in Beirut during two separate lectures at LAU’s campuses in October.

According to Bollens, the same elements that restrict democracy such as consociationalism (power-sharing based on confession), are also holding Lebanon together, albeit very loosely. Practical reforms to improve certain aspects of the country are not seen as viable, he says, since they would affect the sectarian balance.

The question of sectarian balance is but a single point among the 18 observations Bollens pinpointed and thoroughly examined after an extensive tour of Beirut and after meetings with 21 high-profile figures in Lebanon, including urban professionals, academics and members of NGOs.

The 18 observations were an attempt to answer two questions Bollens struggled with during his visit to Lebanon: how have urban policy and urban governance in Beirut influenced sectarian relations since the civil war; and how have sectarian relations influenced post-war urban development and the practices of urban planning in Beirut.

On October 22, Bollens was invited as a guest lecturer on the Beirut campus in the Lebanese Politics and Administration course taught by Dr. Imad Salamey, LAU assistant professor of political science, to talk about “Divided Cities and Power-Sharing Arrangements.”

He presented how power is shared in urban areas divided along ethnic or sectarian lines, in five cities besides Beirut — Belfast, Brussels, Jerusalem, Johannesburg and Sarajevo.

“I was quite intrigued by the various ways that many of these cities were divided — linguistically, religiously or racially — and the approaches taken to quell or propagate the status quo (redrawn borders, ethnic councils, confessional power-sharing),” says one of Salamey’s students.

The first lecture by the American scholar was given at LAU Byblos in an event organized by the Urban Planning Institute and the Department of Architecture & Interior Design at LAU’s School of Architecture and Design.

Through presentations of numerous case studies and research, the event revealed how global warming and the region’s rapidly increasing population are stretching the water supplies alarmingly thin.

Over 30 researchers from universities in Germany, Lebanon, Jordan, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Egypt took part.

“If there is a global solution to the water crisis, it may be a bit late for the Middle East,” says Dr. Fuad Hashwa, a professor at LAU’s Department of Natural Sciences and dean of the School of Arts and Sciences in Byblos. The school co-organized the event with the German–Arab Scientific Forum for Environmental Studies e.V.

“Lebanon is fortunate to have more water resources than neighboring countries, but we still need to have a responsible attitude to water and better management of the resources,” says Hashwa.

“Arabs cannot afford to waste a single drop of water,” said Najib Saab, secretary general of the Arab Forum for Environment and Development, at the symposium’s opening.

Saab revealed the finding of his organization’s upcoming report, which predicts that by as early as 2015 Arabs will face an annual per capita water share of less than 500 cubic meters — less than one-tenth of the world average.

“The state of water resources in the Arab world is precarious and worsening,” he added. “Water scarcity is perhaps the most serious challenge facing the region in the coming decades, and without concerted efforts at improving water management and institutions, the situation will only deteriorate further.”

Ralf Klingbeil, the regional adviser for environment and water at UN’s Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, cited a recent World Bank study, according to which the MENA region has the least freshwater resources per capita in the world that continue to decrease with the region’s high rate of population growth.

“We don’t really have a clear exit strategy,” said Klingbeil. “We’re using these [water] resources like we’re mining oil, gas or other resources, but we don’t know what we’re going to do when the water is gone.”

Referring to the consequences of water shortages in the region, Klingbeil cited a July 2010 report by the International Organization for Migration that identified water as a main cause for the widespread population displacement in Iraq.

Dr. Talal Darwish, a researcher from the Lebanese National Council for Scientific Research, revealed land degradation and forest fires as consequences of the water crisis.

“One of the most devastating symptoms of climate change is climatic extremes,” he said, adding that 57 percent of Lebanon was in severe drought condition in May 2010.

What can be done to improve the situation?

Dr. Fathi Zereini, chairman of the German–Arab Scientific Forum for Environmental Studies e.V., called for more efficient use of the existing water supplies, the development and adoption of new technologies, a wide public awareness campaign, a reduction of green house gas emissions, and the improvement of air quality as means to reverse the grim water trends.

“Seventy percent of water [in the MENA] is used for agriculture,” he said. “This is not sensible. A change of thinking is needed in this respect. The problem can only be dealt with effectively if we work together, and use our scientific advances and technical know-how.”

Fadi Comair, the general director of Hydraulic and Electric Resources at the Lebanese Ministry of Energy and Water, said the government has put forth an ambitious scientific and management program to deal with the water crisis, but warned that both the technical and policy aspects of the plan must work in order for it to succeed.

“The first challenge is that of governance,” Comair explained. “If we succeed on the technical side … and we lose on the governance side, we won’t be able to adapt ourselves to the global changes [needed to address the problem] in the MENA region.”
 

Over 30 researchers from universities in Germany and throughout the MENA region participated in the symposium.

Posted September 16, 2010—

Environmental scientists from the Middle East, North Africa and Germany will examine the impact of global warming on water resources in the MENA region, during the Fifth Environmental Symposium of the German–Arab Scientific Forum for Environmental Studies to be hosted at LAU Byblos from September 20–21.

The symposium aims to encourage and enhance the exchange of experiences and cooperation among German and Arab scientists; politicians; representatives of universities, institutions and industry; and the wider public about the different aspects of the event’s theme. It also intends to contribute to environmental protection and to understanding among nations.

Presentations will fall under four categories over the two days: the impact of global warming on water resources; water resources, protection and management; air and soils pollution and protection; and wastewater treatments and reuse. The conference program (PDF, 368 KB) will also include poster presentations.

Following the conference, participants will be invited to take part in a series of field trips to acquaint them with Lebanon’s water resources and to promote cultural exchange. The trips are planned for Jeita Grotto, the Bekaa Valley and North Lebanon on September 22, 23 and 24, respectively.

The biannual event is co-organized by LAU’s School of Arts and Sciences in Byblos and the German–Arab Scientific Forum for Environmental Studies e.V., in collaboration with the Department of Engineering, Geology and Hydrology at RWTH Aachen University, Germany, and the Institute for Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences at J.W. Goethe-University in Frankfurt, Germany.

Sponsors of the event include the Arab Forum for Environment and Development (AFED), which LAU is an academic member of; the Lebanese environmental magazine Al-Bia Wal-Tanmia (Environment and Development); the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung; the National Council for Scientific Research in Lebanon; and the Ministry of Energy and Water.

This year will be the first time Lebanon hosts the symposium, previous editions of which were held in Germany, Jordan and Morocco.

Contact information about the symposium organizers is found on this page.

Largely forgotten, ignored or simply unknown to many people living in the country, Horsh Beirut, as it is commonly referred to, was the topic of a four-person panel discussion at LAU Beirut on August 20.

Held as part of an environmental science course taught by Mohammad S. Al-Zein, a part-time faculty member at LAU’s Natural Sciences Department, the event revealed Horsh Beirut’s history, social significance, and symbolic nature.

“Nature exists as a memory, a collective metaphor. Horsh Beirut is no exception for many Lebanese,” Al-Zein said during his introduction, recalling how he used to play there as a child during the war.

Located on the edge of the Municipal Beirut limits just north of the southern suburbs, the park is home to about 70 types of birds in addition to other wildlife, and is closed off to the public aside from a small graveled area.

This restriction — one of the main focus points of the discussion — is thought to be an unfortunate reality for many Beirut residents.

Fadi Shayya, an urban planner and editor of the book At the Edge of the City: Reinhabiting Public Space Toward the Recovery of Beirut's Horsh Al-Sanawbar, described this limitation as a failure of governance. During his presentation, he showed photos he took of Horsh Beirut with trash scattered across the land, and a fence with added spikes and barbed wire to prevent individuals from sneaking in.

According to Shayya, about 66 percent of the park is closed off to the public. Only 17 percent is open, with the rest accounting for the parking lot, sidewalk and empty space.

“Beirut is a dense city. And it is dense not only because it has many people, but because it is an unplanned city,” Shayya said, as he explained how it was not until the French mandate that Beirut’s development began to take shape within a structured plan.

According to him, only 2.6 percent of Municipal Beirut is designated as public green space — about 458,000 square meters of the city’s 17,542,000 square-meter total area. Horsh Beirut makes up about 330,000 square meters or 72 percent of Beirut’s public green space.

Shayya showed a slide demonstrating the gradual decay of Horsh Beirut since 1696, when it was estimated that the space covered an area of 1,250,000 square meters, almost four times its current size.

“Beirut is indeed a forest of concrete,” though that was not always the case, Shayya added.

Another panelist, Zahra Wahid, who is in charge of a day school inside Horsh Beirut, focused on Beirut’s green history. She presented slides of a city once covered with trees during Ottoman rule, when strict laws prohibited their uprooting, according to her.

The greenery slowly vanished as the city’s population grew, destroying a habitat for many animals that were forced to migrate north. The war also contributed to the environmental destruction of Beirut.

“In 1982, the Israelis burned all our trees from Naqoura to Beirut. In Horsh Beirut, there were just 320 trees left after the invasion,” Wahid said, adding that many of those trees were later destroyed to make passages for vehicles during the war.

Panelist Francoise Lenoble, who today works in the Municipality of the Ile de France region in France, was an activist and member of a team that came to Lebanon following the war to assist with reconstruction and the restoration of Horsh Beirut.

She recalled working with young Lebanese architects at the time, who took her by the hand and let her smell the scent of jasmine in the earth. The gesture apparently touched Lenoble who realized how some Lebanese were concerned that reconstruction and plans to build a “modern” city might destroy the city’s culture, history and green space.

“I was dedicated to keeping Beirut, Beirut — preserving the city’s identity to something that reflected the Lebanese diversity,” Lenoble said. “We thought that Horsh Beirut should be a place where children from all communities and backgrounds could come together,” she added.

Mohammad Ayoub, the general manager of Nahnoo, a youth-oriented NGO that is working on a campaign to open up Horsh Beirut, described some of the general fears associated with the public space.

Because of its location in Beirut’s often stigmatized south, Ayoub said some people from other areas hesitate to visit that neck of the woods.

“There is a fear that if people from different backgrounds and sects meet, there will be violence,” Ayoub said. Horsh Beirut can in fact help avoid that violence by allowing “people from different regions and backgrounds gather and mingle together without this fear of ‘the other,’” Ayoub added.

Organized by LAU’s Institute of Family and Entrepreneurial Business, the seminar gathered business owners and entrepreneurs to hear Dr. Joseph Astrachan, executive director of Cox Family Enterprise Center at Kennesaw State University in Georgia, USA, share his long-standing expertise and professional advice.

In her opening note, Dr. Josiane Fahed-Sreih, IFEB director, highlighted the significance of the seminar, marked by the presence of E.M.B.A. students from Kennesaw State University who were visiting Lebanon. The 18-month E.M.B.A. program at Kennesaw State takes 15 students, who hail from family businesses worldwide, to the home country of each student, allowing them to learn firsthand about family dynamics and communication.

In presenting his study “Separating Myth from the Reality of Family Business,” Astrachan refuted the myth that planning assures effective succession. “The three keys to successful succession are: Board of directors, strategic planning, and family meetings, which I dub as the ‘Diet,’ ‘Exercise,’ and ‘Don’t Smoke’ of family business,” he said.

Strategic planning entails opening the lines of communication with the top management about the direction of the business, while family meetings help to set expectations, Astrachan explained. He added: Board meetings, ideally taking place three–six times per year, are meant to keep management accountable. According to research, having two outsiders to each family member on the board improves performance, not to mention that outsiders increase financial value.

“Family businesses don’t survive because of bad family dynamics and hard-fought trust,” Astrachan said, adding: “Relationship quality is needed to withstand the stress on family life and is highly dependent on the frequency of communication, average length of each communication, and average depth of communication.”

“It is important to be aware of the challenges and deal with them as they arise through open communication,” commented one of the attendees, Momtaz Daaboul, managing director of his Damascus-based family business, Madar Coil Coating.

For Georgina Ibrahim, a self-employed soft-skills trainer and a faculty member at LAU’s School of Business in Beirut, the seminar allowed her “to gain an insider look into family businesses.” Although it depends on each case, “there is no doubt that the role of communication is paramount for the success of any family business,” she added.

Since its inception, IFEB has had a packed calendar of activities. High on the list are educational programs and seminars about family business featuring local and international speakers.

This year, IFEB is launching the Family Business Network and an arbitration chamber to assist family businesses in conflict resolution.

Addressing the issue remains a top priority for leaders who support secularism in politics, from across diverse sectors in Lebanon — a country where civil marriage is forbidden and whose public officials are chosen based on their religious confessional affiliation.

“We’re sick of it,” says Dr. Nidale Daccache, assistant professor of Arabic at LAU, who began organizing the event last October, referring to sectarian attitudes in the country. “We need a civil state.”

Organized by LAU’s Humanities and Social Sciences Department in Byblos, the symposium gave the floor to about a dozen individuals representing various sectors in Lebanon including education, government and media.

The event began by introducing the concept of the civil state and how Lebanon can begin a transformation through the separation of religious and secular doctrines in government, and by the strengthening of the democratic electoral systems.

One of the first steps that must be taken, Daccache explains, is to educate people on what a civil state could look like, and what it could offer the citizen. Intellectuals could play a role by organizing workshops to encourage the Lebanese to think more critically about the issues surrounding their everyday lives, and to learn to respect and tolerate others regardless of religion or nationality.

“We can’t establish a civil state if no one knows what it is,” says Daccache.

During the symposium, it was agreed that a shift toward a civil state of pluralistic democracy as an alternative to the current sectarian system represents another critical step.

“We need to talk about our country and our history,” asserted Daccache, adding, “We need to return to the rights forgotten in the constitution, which recognizes that the Lebanese state is the state of the citizen.”

Daccache went on to describe how state-guaranteed rights have been appropriated by local leaders in communities, forcing citizens to appeal for support and protection among their sect leaders rather than the state.

The media was identified as an effective tool to help the spread of civil state culture by shedding light on civil society representatives — and including them in debates on key issues associated with the establishment of a civil state.

Speakers also encouraged a “culture of resistance” to the current system, calling for secular laws and a stronger role for women in politics.

University representatives talked about the role of higher education to achieve national integration.

Leaders agreed that education is key to turning the country around and can be the catalyst for change moving forward, if children are taught at a young age about their responsibilities and duties toward the state.

About a dozen secular-minded leaders participated in the daylong symposium. From left: Said el Ghraib, journalist from NBN television; Dr. Ghassan Moukheiber, member of parliament; Jamila Hussein, president of NGO Halaka El-Hiwar Athakafi; Pierre Abi Saab, journalist from Al-Akhbar newspaper; and Dr. Pierre Daccache, former member of parliament.

“Lack of trust is a real killer in a family business,” said Fahed-Sreih, who is also an associate professor of management at LAU, while explaining that the issue has torn apart families and destroyed businesses. “If you lose trust, the task of rebuilding it is one of the most difficult.”

The event was a part of a four-day program from March 17–20 organized by the institute, including a public conference on “Managing Family Wars” (March 17) — supported by the Indevco Group — followed by two seminars.

Held on March 18, the first seminar on “Family Wars: Managing Conflict and Risk in the Family Business” was addressed to family business owners and leaders, and their top executives and close advisers. The second seminar from March 19–20 focused on “Building Family Business Intelligence,” and was designed for business people, organizational leaders, professional service providers, educators and government officials.

Established under the School of Business, IFEB regularly holds seminars focusing on different issues in family business, while taking into account the cultural aspects of the participants who are mostly from Lebanon — where 95 percent of private businesses are family run, but usually include family business owners from other parts of the region as well.

“If you have an issue, we discuss it, but we don’t get personal,” Fahed-Sreih said, addressing the 18 or so participants that took part in the first seminar. “When it goes personal, the issue gets more intense.”

In addition to Fahed-Sreih’s presentation, the first seminar included a lecture by Grant Gordon, director general and co-founder of the Institute for Family Business in the United Kingdom, and co-author of Family Wars: Classic Conflicts in Family Business and How to Deal With Them. He presented strategies to help families run strong and viable businesses while avoiding conflict.

The second seminar on building family intelligence was led by Dr. David Pistrui, industry professor of business at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, who also serves as the Coleman Foundation Chair in Entrepreneurship.

Building family intelligence involves several aspects like innovation, the role of technology in business, and an entirely new concept called “design thinking.”

Pistrui explained that design thinking involves approaching business through multiple perspectives — such as sociology, anthropology, business administration, rapid prototyping, ethnographic research, and technology — and meshes them together to create a broad perspective.

“It’s a framework relevant to family businesses of two to 2,000, to assess problems and identify opportunities to create value around solving problems,” Pistrui said.

Pistrui, who has built an impressive repertoire over the past 25 years lecturing on issues related to family business across the Middle East, said design thinking “is a universal concept but culture plays into it regarding how you use cultural understanding to address opportunities to resolve conflict and innovate, both within terms of the business, and in terms of the family.”

The daylong public conference, which was held on March 17 to launch the two seminars, included a keynote address by Minister of Tourism Fadi Abboud who emphasized the importance of peaceful relations among family members in a country with a tradition of strong family kinship.

“Families are the cornerstone of society, and the well-being of families is a key element in moving toward a civilized society that can promote growth and development,” Abboud said.

The floor was shared throughout the rest of the day by about a dozen business leaders in Lebanon who shared their experiences and expertise on a variety of aspects in business ranging from the dilemma of quality versus productivity, establishing ground rules, and mother–daughter conflicts.

Held at LAU Beirut from March 22-23, the workshop was led by Dr. Mary J. Allen, who has served as an assessment and accreditation consultant for several colleges and universities in the United States, including as part of her work with the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC), one of six official U.S. regional associations that accredit universities, colleges, and schools in the United States and foreign institutions of American origin.

The workshop emphasized that assessment must be ongoing and sustainable to ensure the best learning outcomes for students.

"We don't do assessment because some accreditator or provost tells us that we have to do it," said Allen, who also taught psychology and held various high-level administrative positions at California State University, Bakersfield, for around 30 years. "We do assessment to monitor and improve our students' learning -- We are professional educators and learning is our product."

In a nutshell, assessment entails collecting and examining evidence to find out how well students are learning and to indicate the integrity of a teaching/learning program.

"If [assessment reveals that] the students are not learning, you do something to change the learning environment to make sure that students are more successful in the future," she said. "That's really what assessment is all about."

The gathering was the third in a CPLA-organized series of four workshops and two conferences on program and learning assessment funded by the Ford Foundation. The final workshop will be held in June, followed by the last regional conference in September -- for which the center has announced a call for papers.

"So far the series has been great and well taken by everybody," says Dr. Rima Bahous, CPLA director and associate professor of education at LAU. "I'm not sure if they are putting everything they learned into practice but pretty soon they will be held accountable for it," she adds.

Bahous also noted that a major part for LAU to meet accreditation standards hinges on program and learning assessment.

The sessions of the second and third workshops for Teacher Certification in Educational Technology, which were held from March 5-6 and 19-20 respectively at LAU Beirut, began by introducing participants to basic computer skills before moving on to more advanced online tools that could be used for teaching such as blogging and wikis.

"We are training them on how to use advanced technologies in teaching while paying attention to gender differences in how boys and girls approach technology," says Dr. Mona Nabhani, director of LAU's Teacher Training Institute that is running the program with the Michigan State University.

Now in its third and final year, the project is based on a regular program of three courses taught at MSU that has trained over 3,000 teachers in the United States. It is being financed through a grant from Higher Education for Development (HED) under the Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI).

Nabhani, along with the program's coordinator Dr. Iman Osta, visited MSU three times in the past three years to get a feel for how the course was being taught, and how it could be effectively developed and tailored to meet the needs of teachers in Lebanon.

"This is a unique program in that we follow up with participants after the workshop is done," Osta says. "This time we made it a point to have a two-week break in these workshops to allow participants to apply what they have been taught."

The program will soon be adopted at LAU as a three-course series for students and teachers who will receive a certificate upon completion. The courses will be offered both through LAU's regular course catalog, as well as through TTI with flexible times to accommodate teachers' schedules.

"As teachers go through programs like this, they become better equipped to use technology, but more importantly, they learn to teach with technology," says Dr. Joseph Codde, professor of ICT in Education and Educational Technology at MSU who has helped develop and bring the program to LAU.

Codde, who has been working in the field for 24 years, gave presentations at the latest workshops. He says that even teachers from schools in poverty-stricken areas that cannot afford to invest in IT still have a lot to benefit from the program through its emphasis on instructional methods and teaching strategies.

"They may not have the technology today, but it's not just about using technology," Codde says. "It's also about becoming better teachers."

Upon returning to the United States, Codde says he will appeal to MEPI to extend the program citing its success at enhancing the classroom experience for teachers and students.

Read about the first series of the TCET workshops held last year as part of this program.

The first half of the day was comprised of a lecture on first aid, basic life support, and CPR, in which Amineeddine covered the basics of first aid, before beginning a detailed lecture and presentation about CPR.

The first aid part of the lecture began with an explanation of the “Rule of C’s” — described as Check, Call, Care — that we should all remember in an emergency situation. First, we should check for safety — of ourselves, of the scene and spectators present, and finally of the victim or patient. Next, we should call for emergency assistance such as an ambulance or police, and finally we should care for the patient/victim.

Amineeddine reminded students that the individual providing aid, the “aider,” is the “most important person in any emergency.” He added that the spectators are the second most important because, “we want to keep the number of victims as minimum as possible.”

We were reminded that the most important axis of the human body is the head, neck and spine, so patients should never be moved from their location unless it is by medical professionals. An overview of the significance of the other systems in our body — nervous, respiratory, circulatory and muscular — was presented to us in order of their importance to the human.

Attending a lecture and training program given by an LAU pre-med student to a large group of pharmacy students offered a perfect example of the university’s interdisciplinary approach to medical and health care education, that is being unfolded through the prominent School of Pharmacy in addition to the new School of Medicine and the upcoming School of Nursing, paving the way to integrate further interdisciplinary approaches to education.

In his lecture on CPR, Amineeddine briefed the class about circumstances in which CPR might be necessary for adults, children and infants. He taught the class the proper bodily positions and, crucially, how to hyperextend the head to open airways by putting one hand on the forehead and two fingers on the chin, then tilting the head back.

After the basics were covered, Amineeddine offered the class a presentation, using “Annie,” a resuscitation doll, on various CPR steps encompassing rescue breaths, timing, chest compressions, and using an external defibrillator — all of which must be conducted on a hard surface in the supine position.

In the afternoon session of the training day, the students were divided into three groups, in which they all practiced how to give CPR on a resuscitation doll.

Amineeddine, who has offered many CPR training sessions at various universities and organizations in Lebanon through the Red Cross, said that offering this at LAU was special for him as it is his university, and he was really happy with how the School of Pharmacy students responded to the event. “The field they are coming from is not far from first aid,” he said. “They were very responsive. Lots of participation — It was very good.”

This report was written by a participant of the CPR training session.

CPR program in Dr. Najib Nimah’s honor

The training session, which was organized by LAU’s School of Pharmacy and the No Apathy Pharmacy and Health Awareness Student Society (NAPHASS), was named in honor of the late Dr. Najib Nimah (1975–2009), who was an assistant professor at LAU’s School of Pharmacy from 2007 till his untimely death last year.

“His passion for helping people never ceased, as he was involved in various community services,” says Dr. Farid Sadik, Dean of LAU’s School of Pharmacy. Dr. Nimah devoted most of his adult life in helping out the Lebanese Boy Scouts and the Lebanese Red Cross, in addition to other organizations.

“While at the School of Pharmacy he enthusiastically wanted to introduce students to CPR and first aid,” says Dr. Sadik, adding, “He never had the opportunity to see his dream come true as he became ill.”

The Pharmacy School is planning to offer the CPR training program named in Dr. Nimah’s honor on a regular basis.

The same seminar was also held on March 6 and attracted a variety of graduate students and working professionals.

The eight-hour seminar covers everything from employee/employer rights and obligations to vacation, overtime and sick leaves, while teaching participants how to identify abusive firing. It also trains them to read and find gaps in employment contracts, as well as to understand social security regulations in the private and public sectors.

“CEP has always been a pioneer in offering professional workshops for those who seek professional development and aim at enhancing their careers and expanding their knowledge in the working field,” says Monya Berjawi, an LAU graduate student who works at the CEP office and helped organize the seminar.

Both seminars are led by Dr. Dany Samaha, an attorney at law in Lebanon who has published numerous works, and has lectured and offered training seminars at La Sagesse University, Lebanese University and the Lebanese Chamber of Commerce.

Around 40 people participated in the event on March 6. Half of them were CEP students enrolled in the Professional and Senior Professional in Human Resources Management (PHR/SPHR) preparatory courses. The other half were HR managers and coordinators at banks, universities, schools, and other institutions in Lebanon.

The seminar turned out to be a huge success, according to Bushra Badran, CEP administrative assistant.

“Based on their evaluation forms, the participants said they were generally very satisfied with the outcome of the seminar,” Badran says. One participant found the examples given during the workshop “practical and applicable,” while another wrote: “Everything was well-organized and easy to follow.”

However, Badran says some of the participants found that “the issue contained too much information for just one day — They felt we needed to extend it over two days.”

For more information about the participation fee and other details, or to register for the April 10 seminar, contact the CEP office at cep.beirut@lau.edu.lb or 01-786456, ext. 1390 or 1676.

“If there’s one thing that unites us in Lebanon, it’s the air that we breathe,” said Dr. Ahmad Houri, associate professor of chemistry at LAU, who was selected as the Euro Arab Chair for Renewable Energies by the Granada-based Euro Arab Foundation for Higher Studies last year. He asked the audience of students, professors, activists and journalists: “What can we do locally?”

Houri gave a presentation in which he explained the slow but dangerous effects of climate change. Using charts and photos taken from around the world, he illustrated the sharp contrast between the environment of 50 years ago and that of today.

One photo showed a polar bear sitting alone on a small piece of ice surrounded by water, another picture showed a once-deep river in Switzerland that has now become a valley with a small trickle of water at its basin.

A chart documenting global warming over the past 100 years showed that temperature increases significantly accelerated 50 years ago, with the advent of the automobile and consumer society. In addition, Houri noted that since 1979, more than 20 percent of polar ice caps have melted away. He said, “All over the world, lakes and rivers are drying up.”

Turning to Lebanon, Houri offered everyday examples of practices such as the common use of air conditioning and the trend of big cars such as SUVs, which are all affecting climate change. He posed an urgent plea to the audience, saying, “We need a goal, any goal.”

Environment Minister Mohamad Rahhal criticized the Lebanese state and citizens for their lack of initiative in combating global warming. He believes Lebanon has already seen the effects of global warming, saying there are insects on cedar trees that did not exist before, that Lebanon used to receive several more months of snow than it does now, and that public mentality needs to improve in order for things to change.

Rahhal also pointed out that global warming causes Lebanon to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars every year.

While Houri noted that the biggest culprits in global warming were by far China and the United States, Rahhal pointed out the Lebanese population actually produces a larger amount of pollution per capita. “The wars of the future will be over water,” he predicted.

Abdo Tayyar, a representative for Water and Energy Minister Jubran Bassil, said “Lebanon has never had a water strategy.” He added: “If we don’t do something, we’ll be weaker in the future.”

Tayyar added that global warming can be seen in the “climate’s unreliability,” including increasingly severe droughts and flooding. Tayyar, a specialist in dams, said Lebanon has a lack of renewable water resources compared with other countries in the region, such as Egypt.

Wael Hmaidan, executive director of IndyAct, a group of environmental NGOs, gave an equally bleak prospect for the future, but still had hope in the future generations to bring about change. “We only have 10 years to change things,” he said. “How can Lebanon save itself?”

Hmaidan noted that LAU is highly concerned with environmental issues, and ended on a positive note, saying students can play an important role in combating climate change in the country.

The council, established in 1962, coordinates all national public research and cooperates with universities and businesses to financially and logistically support research. It calls for about 22 research projects across diverse fields each year.

“We look for creativity,” said Dr. Hassan Charif, one of four CNRS advisers present during the lecture. “We want to have the culture of research grow in Lebanon as much as possible.”

From 2003–2008, close to one-third of CNRS funds were used to support research in medical and biological sciences, another third went to engineering and information and communication sciences, and the last third was divided between environmental and natural sources, agricultural sciences, and human and social sciences.

The CNRS representatives explained the criteria and guidelines proposals must meet for consideration. Academics have until June to submit research proposals for 2010.

“The ultimate objective of the seminar was to encourage and support our faculty in preparing proposals to submit to CNRS for possible funding,” said Dr. Nashat Mansour, assistant dean of LAU’s School of Arts and Sciences in Beirut.

In a separate event organized by the school on December 16, Dr. Peter Hill, an academic developer at the University of South Australia, gave a lecture on “Innovations in Teaching and Learning.”

Both lectures were given during a meeting for faculty members affiliated with the School of Arts and Sciences in Beirut as part of the school’s ongoing effort to raise the bar in terms of research and teaching.

“The major things we do at this university are teach and research — the other things are just details,” said Mansour, explaining how the two events complement the work being done at LAU.

In his lecture, Hill spoke of the need for educators to adapt as universities undergo rapid changes. For students to learn most effectively, Hill explained, teachers themselves must learn to become innovators in their disciplines.

He offered the faculty members several approaches to adopt toward achieving that goal and encouraged them to become familiar with LAU’s priorities in teaching and learning, to look for departmental and disciplinary gaps and, above all, to “know their students, listen to them and keep their learning to the fore.”

“Innovation requires that obstacles be overcome,” said Hill. “And that means taking risks.”

To apply for research grants or learn more about CNRS, visit its website.

“Sectarianism is extremely aggressive and based on an artificial divide between people that belong to the same geographical milieu ... created by the eternal fight for political power,” Dr. Corm said in his lecture entitled “Sectarianism and Lebanese Communal Conflicts.”

The origin of sectarian divisions and the “imaginary” concept of East versus West in Lebanon, Corm said, can be traced back to 1840, over policies to divide the Christian and Druze peoples of Mount Lebanon, representing a conflict between France and England over the road to India.

He went on to criticize common expressions used to describe Lebanon and its society, such as, “the terrible cliché that Lebanon is bridge between the East and the West.”

“Personally as a Lebanese,” he said, “I don’t want to be a bridge because when those imaginary concepts — East and West — collide, they collide here in Lebanon.”

Corm blamed secularists themselves for failing to overthrow sectarianism.

He painted a grim picture of what the future may hold for Lebanon in terms of a secular revival, but challenged students to develop a strong program to fight sectarianism.

“This is a fight that has to be fought within educational institutions,” he said.

Corm served as finance minister from 1998–2000. He has published over 28 books and dozens of journal articles on history, religion, politics and economics.

The remarks were made during the fourth installment of an ongoing guest lecture series in the Lebanese Politics and Administration course taught by Dr. Imad Salamey, assistant professor of political science at LAU.

Read a story on a previous lecture in Salamey’s class.

The audience of students, faculty and professionals in Irwin Hall Auditorium immediately broke into cheers and applause.

For over one hour Fisk captivated listeners in his lecture on the failure of Western media to report on the truths of war and conflict in the Middle East.

Fisk talked about how the Western world has adopted ideas since September 11, 2001 that had not been heard since the end of the First World War, making reference to the new wave of senseless xenophobia and prejudice that has swept the Western neo-liberal mindset. He added that the West’s approach of peacemaking is not peaceful at all — “We always come offering freedom with weapons.”

Fisk criticized what he described as “propaganda campaigns” that editors in the Western media go on in terms of spinning coverage of conflict and news in the Middle East. The result is that they package a tidy, palatable, censored and inherently untruthful coverage of news in the region.
 

A search for truth

Fisk offered countless examples, from articles printed in newspapers in the United States, Canada, Ireland, the U.K. and New Zealand, of gross inaccuracies and mistruths that were presented to their readerships, namely by not verifying independent sources. The result is that these stories become fiction.

He said: “The Middle East is not a football match. It’s a bloody tragedy, and the journalists have a responsibility to be on the side of those who suffer.”

He offered further specific examples from the Western press, of many articles that all clearly spun or whitewashed the truth about the suffering of the victims of the Arab–Israeli conflict, similar to Zionist propaganda. Fisk offered the example of the West Bank “barrier,” saying that: “The wall — bigger, longer than the Berlin Wall — is referred to as a fence or security barrier” in the Western press. Another example he offered was of illegal Israeli settlements that are built on land stolen from the Arabs, but the Western press refers to them as, among other polite descriptions, “Jewish neighborhoods.”

“Most people in this region want freedom from us — the West — and this we do not intend to give to you,” said Fisk.

In his introductory remarks to the lecture, Dr. Ramez Maluf, head of LAU’s Institute for Media Training and Research, chair of the Communication Arts Department and associate professor of communications, said, “In Lebanon journalists are victims of political and sectarian conflicts — many journalists find themselves marginalized.”

Maluf noted that the journalists who nurture the cycles of violence are distressing. Fisk’s reporting does not hide the reality that war and violence are distressing. Maluf said it is “Fisk’s uncompromising passion for justice and compassion and concern for human life” that sets his journalism apart from the majority of other journalists.

“A journalist’s report should be published as it was written,” said Maluf, and “Fisk writes it as he sees it.”
 

A distinguished career

Only a few of the major events in the Middle East that Fisk has covered in his career include the Civil War in Lebanon, the Iranian Revolution in 1979, the Soviet war in Afghanistan, the Iran–Iraq War, the Gulf War in the early 1990s, and the invasion of Iraq in 2003. He is one of very few journalists in the world that have interviewed Osama bin Laden — three times — between 1994 and 1997.

Fisk has a Ph.D. in political science from Trinity College in Dublin and, to date, seven honorary doctorates. He has written three books, Pity the Nation: Lebanon at War and more recently, The Age of the Warrior: Selected Essays by Robert Fisk, and The Great War for Civilization: The Conquest of the Middle East, which sold more than two million copies.

He has been voted International Journalist of the Year by the British Press Awards seven times.

The lecture was the first of the “Distinguished Journalists Lecture Series,” organized by LAU’s Institute for Media Training and Research, that is being held this year. As part of this series, several internationally recognized journalists of a range of media — print, new media and broadcast — will visit LAU to lecture about various topical issues.

That said, despite the fact we live in the age of new media, Fisk confesses he is a traditional on-the-ground reporter, and does not use the internet or care much for technology. “I know nothing about new media and I don’t want to know,” he said. “I believe in print.”

And Fisk still stands out among the journalist pack, as he has done for over 30 years. Maluf described him as the most accomplished journalist since the Vietnam War.

Perhaps the essence of Fisk was best summed up when Maluf shared a comment he heard the other day, by a local journalist, upon hearing that Fisk would soon be traveling to Yemen to cover the current raging conflict. “Fisk is going to Yemen in a couple of days,” he said. “Finally we’ll know what’s going on in one of our Arab countries.”

Saliba is a legal specialist at the Law Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., who provides advice and analysis to the legislative, executive and judicial branches of the U.S. government on issues related to the laws of the Middle East and North Africa.

In his lecture entitled “The Lebanese Presidency in the Constitutional Discourse,” he explained that the Lebanese Constitution, enacted in May 1926, has been subjected to several changes over the years through three major agreements that limited the president’s powers: the National Pact of 1943, the Taif Agreement in 1989, and the 2006 Doha Agreement.

“The peculiarity common to all these agreements is the fact that they were concluded outside the normal constitutional process,” Saliba said, explaining that agreements which affect constitutional issues are legally required to be mandated by the Lebanese Parliament.

The president exercised the most power based on the terms of the country’s original constitution, according to Saliba.

Before 1943, he said, one-third of the country’s parliamentary members were appointed by the president, while the rest were elected.

The president also held the power to choose the ministers and nominate the prime minister, all of whom assumed a role of shielding the president from any errors he committed, excluding high treason or the violation of the constitution.

“The president had the power to appoint or dismiss any of the ministers at will, for whatever reason, and he was not responsible before the Parliament to say why,” Saliba explained.

But despite the wide powers held by the president before 1943, the year of independence, Saliba noted that France still reserved the authority to override any decision by the Lebanese government, including the president.

After the signing of the Taif Agreement in 1989, which was officially enacted in 1990, the president lost nearly all of his powers. All the powers the president had up until that point were transferred to the council of ministers, which was put under the control of the prime minister.

“The only power the president still has is the fact that you cannot form a new government without the signature of the president, but once he signs, that’s it,” Saliba said. “Even a minister, in his ministry, has more power than the president,” he added.

The event was part of an ongoing public lectures series by guest speakers invited by Dr. Imad Salamey, LAU assistant professor of political science, to address his Lebanese Politics and Administration course.

The next lecture on "Sectarianism and Lebanese Communal Conflicts" will be given by former Finance Minister Dr. Georges Corm on January 12 at 11:00 a.m., in Sage 01, Beirut campus.

Read more about the guest speakers Salamey invited last year at his Comparative Governments of Great Powers course.

In her opening remarks, by Dr. Samira Aghacy, dean of the School of Arts and Sciences in Beirut, explained Haydar’s deep passion for the environment.

“Haydar’s attachment to nature should not be considered as an escapist attempt to shy away from contemporary issues,” she said. “In his poetry, he’s explicit about his aversion and anger at the abuses of the Earth’s natural resources that have polluted the world and caused irrecoverable and irreversible change.”

Dr. John Monroe, former professor of English literature at AUB, traveled from Cyprus to speak at the event. Monroe described meeting Haydar for the first time in 1984 when the poet visited his AUB office unannounced.

Monroe, who had also been working as a journalist at the time, said that he began to question Haydar about the political situation and role of the Amal Movement in Haydar’s hometown of Baalbeck, causing the poet to grow visibly annoyed.

“Jawdat gave me a dismissive wave of the hand and said, ‘these things will pass,’” Monroe recalled. “He wanted to show me his poetry.”

“Why would you want to discuss something so serious when you have such a beautiful view from your window?” Monroe added, paraphrasing Haydar’s response when he attempted to continue discussing politics.

Dr. May Maluf, associate professor of English literature at the Lebanese University, was next to take the stage where she presented a close examination of several of Haydar’s poems.

During his career, Haydar published numerous works in Arabic and four volumes of poetry in English: Voices (1980), Echoes (1989), Shadows (1998) and 101 Selected Poems (2006), shortly before his death at the age of 101.

Because of the poet’s habit of weaving through various literary styles and touching on a broad range of issues, Maluf explained that Haydar’s readers have trouble understanding from which lens to view his work.

“Intrigued by the prolific stylistic modes of Haydar’s poetry, readers often find difficulty in categorizing his poetic imagery — they have difficulty placing him in a literary canon,” Maluf said. “Solution: Let’s refer to him as a great poet.”
 

Published on November 24, 1859, On the Origin of Species presents the theory that species slowly evolve over hundreds of thousands of years through a process of natural selection. The theory was quickly adopted by the scientific community but was presented at odds with the dominant religious concept of creationism.

“I don’t know of any other book in the history of science that has had such an impact on the way we look at ourselves,” said Dr. Ramez Maluf, chair of LAU's Communication Arts Department, who organized the event.

The discussion included presentations by Dr. Kamal Badr, the founding dean of LAU’s Gilbert and Rose-Marie Chagoury School of Medicine, as well as Dr. Habib Malik, LAU associate professor of history, and Mohammed Al Zein, instructor of natural sciences.

Badr presented an overview of evolution, describing it as an “excellent tool” that has helped scientists in the medical field discover biological facts, but noted that on a philosophical level, the theory may pose more questions than answers.

“Evolution is really a story of how we came about — it tells us a lot about how our species arrived to where it is,” Badr said. “Its limit however ... is that by learning how we came about, we do not have any clear idea of why.”

While emphasizing his firm religious beliefs, Malik presented a 30-minute speech to argue that evolution and faith are not incompatible despite widespread notion to the contrary.

He blamed “progressive secular liberals” on one side, and “traditional religious conservatives of the marginal variety” on the other, for creating and propagating the idea that faith and evolution clash.

“This entire debate for the vast majority of Christian believers is much ado about nothing,” Malik said. “Darwin did nothing less than uncover how life develops over time — what a marvelous and colossal achievement.”

Al Zein’s presentation focused on the influence of Darwin’s theory in 19th-century Beirut. He recanted the story of the “Lewis Affair” in 1882 at the American University in Beirut, then known as the Syrian Protestant College, involving Ray Lewis, a popular American professor of chemistry and geology at the school.

During a graduation speech Lewis was asked to give at the university that year, he identified Darwin as being among four “ideal men of science,” which caused an uproar among faculty who scoffed at the very mention of Darwin, bringing Lewis to resign over his statement.

“This generated the first student revolution in the Arab world,” Al Zein said, describing student support for the professor. “They went on strike and decided not to go back to class until Lewis came back.”
 

Both events were organized by the Graduate Program in Comparative Literature at LAU’s Humanities Department.

Katouzian’s first presentation, “European Liberalisms and Modern Concepts of Liberty in Iran,” on November 18, was based on a comparative study to contrast the ideas and forms of liberty that emerged from the late-17th century onwards in Europe, with the concepts of liberty in Iran during the latter half of the 19th century.

“In Europe, the state’s power was limited by laws and customs outside of itself,” Katouzian said, explaining that although Europeans at the time were run by absolute governments, power was still largely concentrated by powerful social classes outside the government.

“Unlike Europe, Iran had been run by arbitrary governments where there was no law independent of the state that constrained its power,” Katouzian added.

The elite classes in Europe, he explained, used their power and influence to protect their land and property which the state bore no authority to confiscate whereas in Iran, status or wealth offered no guarantee for one’s long-term class distinction.

“Someone who was rich [in Iran] ... did not in fact believe that his children would also be powerful or rich as a matter of course,” Katouzian said. “On the other hand, someone who came from a very limited background could rise to become the chief minister — that’s why the composition of upper classes in Iran would change in the short run.”

Liberty in the poetry of Iranian poet Forugh Farrokhzad

Katouzian’s second presentation held the following day was a seminar on Forugh Farrokhzad, a late Iranian poet believed by literary experts to be one of the country’s most influential female writers in the 20th century.

Katouzian began the seminar, titled “Of the Sins of Forugh Farrokhzad,” by commenting on one of the poet’s most controversial works, Sin, which describes the pleasure of a sexual experience.

“Its enormous impact on readers and critics in and out of Iran is due to its apparently vocal, almost proud defiance against the social conventions and the condemnation that the poet knew to be mandatory for committing such sins, especially if the sinner was a married woman,” Katouzian said.

Farrokhzad, who lived from 1935–1967, expressed dark emotions in her writings, often detailing her feelings of guilt, remorse and intense suffering.

Her works were banned in Iran for over 10 years following the 1979 Iranian Revolution.

Katouzian spoke about the torn relationship between the poet and her disapproving father who shattered her spirit as a young girl. Despite feeling frightened and humiliated by her father, Farrokhzad still wrote of her love for him and longed for their relationship to improve.

Some modern critics describe Farrokhzad as a feminist for breaking from social conventions with her sometimes shocking and promiscuous tales — a label Katouzian rejects.

“There is nothing in her work that actually reflects feminism in the sense of campaigning for women’s rights,” he said. “But there is that implication that she, as a woman, can live the life she likes to in defiance of the existing conventions and constrictions.”
 

Representatives of NGOs, schools, universities and ministries mostly from the Middle East, but also other countries such as the United States, Canada and the U.K., participated in the event, which was co-organized by the Early Childhood Care and Development Program at the Arab Resource Collective and LAU’s Department of Education at the School of Arts and Sciences.

“The objective of this conference is to spread [awareness] of the diversity of early stages of childhood ... and to develop a strategy to support children in their own communities,” said Dr. Samir Jarar, chairman of ARC’s Board of Trustees.

“The starting point is with [recognizing] individual rights for all, but especially for children,” he added, before listing what he described as the four most essential rights: education, health care, freedom of speech, and protection.

The three-day conference included four plenary sessions, 19 concurrent sessions, 10 workshops, and one working group, which collectively amounted to 55 hours. It opened at LAU Beirut’s Irwin Hall and continued at the Holiday Inn Dunes Hotel.

The sessions hit on a variety of topics including children with physical and learning disabilities, child protection, discipline, and cases of Palestinian children in Lebanon’s refugee camps.

The participants also examined child sexual abuse in Lebanon, the inclusion and protection of Iraqi child refugees in Jordan, the marginalization of migrant children in Lebanon, children with Down syndrome in Lebanon, and the impact of conflict on Palestinian children.

Several speakers gave presentations at the opening ceremony including Dr. Jane Betts, senior disability adviser for the NGO World Vision U.K., who stressed the need to push governments to enforce international conventions that guarantee children’s rights to education regardless of disability or income.

In many cases, “children are facing extreme marginalization with no hope for reaching their full potential,” Betts said. “We must not let ... the millions of children with disabilities down. We have the tools, and we must have the will, and we must be tireless in supporting parents and communities to include all children within early childhood care and development.”

Planning for the conference began about 18 months ago when ARC pitched the idea of collaborating on such an event to Dr. Ahmad Oueini, chair of the LAU education department.

Oueini and ARC had previously worked together on other workshops and projects including a successful program designed to train mothers in Lebanon’s disadvantaged regions to prepare their children for school.

Oueini said he hoped the conference would serve as a venue to exchange ideas, among other things.

“Networking is very important,” Oueini said. “[It’s about] meeting new people from all over the world, learning from their experiences, and gaining new ideas and resources.”
 

Organized by LAU’s Center for Program Learning and Assessment, the two-day conference attracted over 100 delegates to discuss best practices for assessing and improving the quality of courses offered by higher education institutions.

“We have linked with many universities in Lebanon and the region,” says Dr. Rima Bahous, CPLA director and LAU associate professor in the Department of Education. “It was great, and the feedback seems to all be quite positive.”

LAU Associate Professor Nahla Bacha, assistant dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at the Byblos campus and a member of the CPLA team, says the center allows LAU to have a central role in the region while helping other universities to “assess their programs and to disseminate the assessment culture in order to improve higher education.”

The conference, along with two workshops held at LAU in December 2008 and April 2009, were funded by a two-year $200,000 grant from the Ford Foundation and supported by Levant Distributors.

CPLA’s initiatives represent a giant leap in a field that has only recently become of importance to universities in the region.

“In higher education we were trained in research but not in teaching … We are never really given a formal education in how to teach so we never know how our students are learning or performing,” said LAU Provost Abdallah Sfeir in his welcome address. Now with the CPLA program, “we will bring people from other faculties in Lebanon and the region and train them in order to get this culture through.”

“You start small and, little by little, you build the capacity — and I’m very impressed to see the number of people who have engaged in this,” Dr. Sfeir added.

Bacha is sure that CPLA is a vital driving force behind improving standards at LAU and universities throughout the region. She says: “I think we are having a very strong impact [on education in the region].”

“We have already seen this with the previous two workshops … In their own universities, [the delegates] tried to do things to assess their programs and now this seminar is a chance for them to [give their] feedback, to show that the workshops were effective in boosting assessment.”

She adds: “It’s unique. I don’t think there’s any other [Middle Eastern] university that has this.”

The work of CPLA is timely — the keynote speaker of the event, Professor George Kuh, chancellor’s professor of higher education at Indiana University, flew in from the United States to share his involvement in similar programs. “There is a lot going on in the United States and the rest of the world and we’ll be hearing much more of this as this international work [on education assessment] ramps up,” said Kuh.

Two related CPLA workshops and a final seminar are planned for 2010.
 

Nearly 80 years after his death, Gibran’s works continue to be studied, cherished and revered around the world.

“Until this day, Gibran still exists in all cultures from East to West,” said Antoine Tawk, president of the Gibran National Committee, speaking at the conference held at the Bristol Hotel. “He represents a message from Lebanon to the world about diversity, forgiveness and the values of freedom,” Tawk added.

The conference was divided into three sessions and focused on Gibran’s “presence in different cultures and societies.” Each session featured three speakers and a moderator representing Lebanon, Japan, Indonesia, the United Kingdom, the United States, Italy, Germany and France.

Dr. Djelal Kadir, a professor of comparative literature from Pennsylvania State University, characterized Gibran, who emigrated to the United States when he was a child, as a paradigm of America’s paradoxical culture, describing Gibran’s rejection of American naturalization and refusal to pursue American citizenship as “distinctly American gestures.”

“The magnitude of Gibran’s paradoxical status in America is no less immense when one considers ... [that] his work has sold more than 10 million copies in English, with translations in more than 20 languages,” Kadir said.

He added that Gibran’s most famous book The Prophet, published in 1923, sold more copies than any other book aside from the Bible in the United States during the 20th century.

“All of this made Gibran not only an American phenomenon, but also a transnational one,” Kadir said.

“Kahlil Gibran was the one who drove me into the Arab world and world of Arab literature,” said Dr. Akiko Sumi, associate professor of Arabic language and literature at Kyoto Notre Dame University in Japan.

She said that while Gibran is less known in Japan than he is in the Middle East and the United States, his work is beginning to catch on, especially inside academic circles, as more of Gibran’s books are being translated into Japanese.

Eka Budianta, a member of the Indonesian Heritage Trust, a civil society organization, said that traces of Gibran’s influence are found not only in Indonesian literature, but also in education, popular contemporary Indonesian music, and religious activities, to name a few. Gibran has even become a popular name among Indonesians, Budianta said.

“We come from a country where Kahlil Gibran is deeply admired, fairly appreciated, and sometimes misunderstood,” Budianta said. “Lebanon is blessed to have been given the birth of Kahlil Gibran, the fighter of peace, the guru of humanity.”

Visitors trickled in and out of the conference throughout the day. Short opening remarks were presented by LAU President Joseph G. Jabbra and Dr. Samira Aghacy, the dean of the School of Arts and Sciences in Beirut.

According to Dr. Vahid Behmardi, LAU Arabic literature professor and conference coordinator, the idea to hold the event originated two years ago when the Gibran National Committee contacted LAU seeking to collaborate on a project to mark the 125th anniversary of Gibran’s birth. An agreement was made and a committee formed to select speakers.

“The purpose of this conference is to show that Gibran is not limited to the Middle East and to the West,” Behmardi said. “Gibran is universal.”
 

MESM, a regional project established and sponsored by the European Multidisciplinary Society for Modeling and Simulation Technology, has been running annually since 1999. This year marked the first time EUROSIS held the conference in Lebanon -- with the support of De Montfort University in Leicester and IEEE UKRI–SPC -- and chose LAU to host it.

The conference was divided into five sessions with distinct themes: simulation methodology and tools, simulation and artificial intelligence, communication network simulation, complex systems simulation, and industrial simulation.

Over the first two days of the conference in LAU Beirut, 19 papers were presented on topics related to the session themes including simulation models for cyber attacks, an alternative home absorption system, and a new look at digital handwriting recognition, to name a few. The third day was spent in Byblos introducing the participants to the campus.

"We in EUROSIS believe strongly that modeling and simulation make a powerful combination to improve the systems and organizations of the 21st century," says Dr. Marwan Al-Akaidi, EUROSIS general conference and program chair, and head of the School of Engineering and Technology at De Montfort University.

MESM is just one of 12 conference kinds under the umbrella of EUROSIS. Aside from the Middle East, EUROSIS runs and sponsors regionally geared annual conferences in North America, Asia and Europe, as well as several other thematically specialized conferences that are held throughout the world.

Typically, the only differences in simulation trends developing in separate regions are those that take into account the unique situations and needs of specific areas, says Dr. Haidar Harmanani, MESM regional chair, and chairperson of LAU's Computer Science and Mathematics Department. "Based on the region, simulation requires certain specific social behaviors or expectations that could affect it," he adds.

For example, Harmanani explains, industrial simulation focusing on family businesses, which make up the vast majority of businesses in Lebanon, is more suitable and beneficial to the country than it perhaps would be in regions where family businesses are less common.

Although the participants all came from Europe, aside from just four, they were all of Arab or Iranian descent.

At the end of the conference, Harmanani and Al-Akaidi presented an award for the best paper to Nadine Zbib, who represented a team of three from the University of Lille–Nord de France, for their paper on "Simulation of Dynamic Allocation and Routing in FMS Using Potential Field."

Through such events that enhance LAU's exposure, "we are opening avenues for our students," Harmanani says, adding that after the conference, some participants contacted him to express interest in collaborating on future projects and even sponsoring LAU students for Ph.D.'s.

The six seminars covered a wide variety of topics designed to train business professionals to improve their management skills, engage employees and lead their companies to success.

Each seminar lasted one day excerpt for the first one, titled "Bank Risk Management Before and After the Financial Collapse," which was held over a span of three days.

"I wouldn't say that [any one topic] is more important than the others," says Dr. Elias Raad, IBAF director. "Some people think bank risk management is an important topic, while others find leadership and teamwork to be important."

Dr. Joseph F. Sinkey, a former professor of financial institutions at the University of Georgia, led the bank risk management seminar, which was attended by 32 people. A distinguished scholar, Sinkey has published seven books and traveled to dozens of cities worldwide to give speeches and hold similar workshops.

An average of 36 people attended the other five seminars, which were led by Phillip Borzilleri, senior vice president of Morin & Associates, an American training and consulting firm for financial institutions, and a professor at DeVry University's Keller Graduate School of Management in St. Louis, Missouri.

IBAF was established in 1997 specifically for the purpose of holding training seminars, Raad explains.

"The Dean [of the School of Business in Byblos Wassim Shahin] and I thought that there is a need for training, especially in the banking area, so we established this institute," Raad says.

The IBAF seminars have taken place each year since the institute's founding, except 2007.

More information on the annual seminars can be found on the IBAF's website.

The program goes beyond showing educators how to teach technology, said Codde, head of the program from the American side and supervisor of the workshops. "We want to teach teachers how to teach with technology," he added.
 
Osta, who's the program coordinator in Lebanon, said the project aimed at developing an LAU educational technology program by exchanging expertise between teams from both universities and adapting three MSU courses.

The project, which is in its second year, is funded by a USAID and Higher Education for Development grant.

The program aimed at familiarizing seven editors with the latest topics and trends in Arabic news writing and analysis. Participants attended "to update their writing skills [and] to learn better ways on how to write attractive and better-selling leads and titles," said Dr. Mahmoud Tarabay, who conducted the training.

The program mainly focused on how to report crises, such as wars, natural disasters, and grave economic problems. It is important to know "how to cover such major and sometimes dangerous events without forgetting one's safety," said Tarabay.

Following an extensive research on the newest media practices and terminologies, Tarabay, associate professor of communication arts and IMTR training consultant, designed a program tailored to the needs of the participants.

Trainees were acquainted with "words related to the case of the crisis in the stock market worldwide, [and] terms used after September 11 about terrorism, fighting terrorism, and the dialogue between civilizations," said Tarabay.

"We've had a long-standing relationship with KUNA," said Associate Professor Ramez Maluf, IMTR director. The institute was created this year with the consolidation of the Beirut Institute for Media Arts and the Institute for Professional Journalists.

In June 2006, IPJ organized a similar workshop in Beirut for KUNA journalists. However, the political events that followed were an obstacle for the continuation of such activities. Even this year, because of the May incidents, the organizers had to change their initial plan of organizing the training in Lebanon, and to choose an alternative venue in Egypt.

Despite these difficulties, Tarabay believes that "though many Arab countries can offer such a program, it is widely known that to get a diverse training you need to come to Lebanon."

The newly formed IMTR has embarked on a series of initiatives. Recently, it has become a member of the Euromed network of journalism training institutes through which schools of journalism in that region come together. Maluf was named network coordinator in October. He has also joined the Euromed Media Task Force, a 30-member EU-attached consultative body of media experts from Europe and the Mediterranean.

On December 1, the institute also organized a round-table discussion with two foreign correspondents working in Lebanon. Mitch Prothero, Middle East correspondent for The Observer and The National, and Andrew Lee Butters, Time magazine's Middle East bureau chief, talked to students about their experiences and perspectives on covering Lebanese stories.

For ten days, the students lived together on the Byblos campus and took part in the all-expenses-paid fourth annual Summer School for Emerging Leaders on Conflict Prevention and Transformation, organized by the Institute for Peace and Justice Education.

Through the entertainment-cum-education program, the 27 students learned the nature, sources, and types of conflict as well as the various theoretical models for analyzing conflict. They explored the various third sides--bridge builder, provider, teacher, peacekeeper, equalizer--at play in transforming discord.

Participants learned to listen by means of small-group discussions on hot topics such as abortion, homosexuality, honor killing, sectarianism. The "listener" chose a subject and stated his opinion in one sentence; the "advocate" expressed the opposing view; and the "coach" made sure that the listener remained objective and did not engage in a debate.

The students enacted scenes based on disputes they had personally experienced. Some chose to present a university election clash scene, while others a night-club fight. Hannah Reich, interactive theater facilitator, said, "This method works with conflicts within a social context, in which a person is oppressed by others, faces an injustice or is in an unfair situation where he or she feels there is no way out."

An unusual card game, the "Barnga Culture Rummy," was also part of the program. Each table had different rules, and verbal or written communication was forbidden. At the end of each round, the highest and lowest scorers switched tables. "The game was frustrating because each player was trying to play by his rules and the lack of communication made it hard to convince the other that he was wrong," said Lebanese University student Jessica Bou Tanios.

Participants also saw a film, Milagro, based on a real community conflict over water rights in New Mexico. Then, they planned and presented an intervention for the dispute.

As a final project, the groups proposed ways to tackle various challenges they have observed such as violence in schools, the role of the media in shaping public opinion, and university students' rights. The program director and other conflict-resolution professionals provided feedback.

The event concluded with the distribution of certificates and the exchange of souvenir stones on which the students had engraved peace-related expressions.

The program, funded by UNDP and the Mennonite Central Committee, sought to teach young people to have "an open mind[,]... deconstruct walls and leave with a faith of change," according to IPJE Director Irma-Kaarina Ghosn at the opening ceremony.

Local and regional professionals often lack training, specifically in the banking sector, as "some people don't have business degrees," said IBAF director Elias Raad, while others "have been on the job for a long time" and need to brush up on their knowledge of essential issues.

This year the seminars attracted 80 professionals to the Byblos campus. It's the program's 11th year.

Dr. Phillip Borzilleri, senior vice president of Morin & Associates and professor at DeVry University's Keller Graduate School of Management, led all the sessions, sharing with the participants his 25-year experience as a consultant and coach in operations, customer services, and employee relations.

A two-day seminar entitled "Bank Branch Management" aimed to help professionals determine what customers want and how to develop employee service skills. It focused on the importance of continuous service improvement to achieve customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Borzilleri presented total quality management tools managers could use to increase efficiency and reduce common (and often expensive) mistakes, redundancies, and wastes of resources.

Another seminar tackled the issue of the sub-prime mortgage crisis that has recently affected the U.S. economy and is threatening to have global repercussions. The causes, evolution, and main players of the crisis were discussed, followed with advice for bankers on how to protect their interests in the coming years.

It is important to discuss this topic in Lebanon so as to avoid the same problem here, explained Dr. Raad, who is also the Accounting, Banking, Finance and Marketing chairman in Byblos, and E.M.B.A. program coordinator.

Participants in another hands-on seminar were taught the skills and practical methods for building high-performance teams in banks, including conflict management and consensus decision-making.

The improvement of communication skills was discussed in a separate seminar. Through videos and games, participants learned how to communicate important messages and receive feedback on how their behaviors were being interpreted by their staff and co-workers. They were also exposed to the DiSC® style assessment, an online program that presents effective ways to understand other people.

Participants received certificates and E.M.B.A. students from LAU who took part in the event also earned credit for their attendance.

The event "exposes LAU to the business world," said Raad, adding that many of the attendees begin hiring LAU graduates as a result.

To find out more about the seminars, visit IBAF's website.

The study of these trends was the focus of a two-day colloquium that gathered prominent scholars, UN representatives and civil society members on the Byblos campus last week.

A multitude of issues related to the Arab family and the changes it is undergoing were addressed through 24 papers, with topics ranging from migration, war and conflict management, demographic changes, governance, business, education and child rights to psychological aspects, family relations, gender norms and values, eating disorders and social care.

Keynote speaker Dr. Saad Eddine Ibrahim, professor of Political Sociology at the American University in Cairo and distinguished visiting professor at Istanbul Kültür University, explained that the grounds of the traditional Arab family have been shaken by the "hyphenated families" (e.g., Lebanese-American), the high divorce rates of around 40% in the Gulf, the separation of families, the femininization of the Arab world, and the numerous civil or externally motivated wars in the region. Keeping an optimistic tone, he said, "Whether we like it or not... [globalization] is going to be with us... Let us understand it, learn how to deal with it, and be active participants in it; otherwise, we will become [its] victims..."

Dr. Josiane Sreih, associate professor and director of the Institute of Family and Entrepreneurial Business at LAU, said, "The Arab family is quite a complex entity, bound with its set of traditions and cultural ties on the one side, and its willingness to adapt to the advancement, openness and independence of the West [on the other], and finds itself in a triggering position and a difficult stage of adaptability."

The institute hosted the colloquium, funded by the Doha International Institute for Family Studies and Development, in an effort to spearhead discourse and research on the pressures and opportunities facing the Arab family and society. The initiative is particularly important, since "the issues of the family in the Arab world have been neglected at the level of serious empirical and theoretical work," said one of the presenters, Dr. Suad Joseph, professor of Anthropology and Women and Gender Studies, and director of Middle East/South Asia Studies at UC Davis.

The colloquium--the first of its kind in Lebanon--took about eight months to prepare. A scientific committee made up of LAU faculty screened all the papers received, adopting a 50% rejection rate to maintain quality.

Dean of the LAU School of Arts and Sciences Samira Aghacy said the conference "is an indication of the level of commitment our university has to interdisciplinary research and in particular to family studies in Lebanon and the Arab world."

Founded in 2000 by the School of Business, IFEB aims at becoming a forum to generate and exchange knowledge about family businesses, and enhancing their continuity and growth.

On the first day, guest faculty Dr. Thomas Anders, Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute, presented a grand round on "Pediatric Sleep Disorders" at Clemenceau Medical Center.

The grand round was followed by a tour of CMC and a visit to other teaching and research facilities, which are leading candidates for affiliation with the LAU School of Medicine.

The next day, a one-day workshop on the "Implementation of Curriculum" was conducted by the HMI team, which included Dr. N. Lynn Eckhert, Director of Academic Programs, and Dr. Constance M. Bowe, Senior Consultant.

Around 20 newly recruited LAU medical faculty members attended the workshop coordinated by Dr. Zeinat Hijazi, Assistant Dean for Medical Education at LAU. The main topics addressed during the event, which took place on the Beirut campus, included: "Applications in Curriculum Design of the Kolb's Learning Style Inventory, " "Alignment of Learning and Assessment Objectives in Designing an Integrated Curriculum," and "Organizational Culture of a Medical School."

The workshop also featured a mock, problem-based learning class in which eight second-year pre-medical students participated. Another group of seven students from both campuses, together with faculty members, observed the exercise.

On the last day, the School of Medicine and HMI organized a half-day national workshop entitled "Medical Education: A New Vision" at CMC.

After the welcoming speech by CEO of CMC Mounes Kalaawi, LAU President Joseph Jabbra, and Dean of the School of Medicine Kamal F. Badr delivered opening speeches.

In her keynote address, Dr. Eckhert discussed the "New Trends in Medical Education and International Accreditation of Medical Schools." She then chaired a panel discussion, the objective of which was to launch a national dialogue on "Modernization and Harmonization of Medical Education in Lebanon."

The panelists included Dr. Georges Aftimos, President of the Lebanese Order of Physicians and high-level officers of six medical schools in Lebanon, namely Dr. Negib Geahchan representing Dean Fernand Dagher (Université Saint-Joseph) and Deans Kamal Badr (LAU), Philippe Chedid (Lebanese University), Nadim Cortas (AUB), Kamal Kallab (Université Saint-Esprit de Kaslik), and Camille Nassar (University of Balamand).

The discussions focused on how the rich diversity of medical educational traditions in Lebanon can transform it into the dominant provider of human resources in medical education and training in the Middle East, thus meeting the growing needs of the region.

Next, Dr. Hijazi presented an overview of the LAU medical curriculum, followed by the last speech, entitled "Managing Institutional Resistance That Arises When Breaking With 'Tradition,' " delivered by Dr. Bowe.

The School of Medicine started its operations with the appointment of Founding Dean Badr in December 2006, after which curriculum design and faculty recruitment started. Construction of the medical school building in Byblos began in early 2008. Currently, more than 76 premedical students are enrolled in the undergraduate program, and in September 2009 the first class of students will be admitted.

Dr. Irma Ghosn, IPJE Director and chair of LAU's Humanities and Social Sciences Division in Byblos, gave two lectures in New York early this month to promote the event and raise awareness on the issue of peace building among students and children.

In one of her lectures, entitled "Summer Academy on Conflict Resolution and Peacemaking: Emerging Leaders Learning to Dialogue With 'the Other,' " Ghosn introduced the audience to the program and purpose of the academy, and shared stories about teaching peace-building skills to young people from the Middle East.

Last year, about 30 university students, primarily undergraduates from Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Palestine, Egypt and Kuwait, were selected out of more than 80 applicants to participate in the third regional summer academy. During the ten-day workshop, students developed interpersonal skills, gained a better understanding of conflict resolution, and presented proposals for community projects.

"If we can equip future leaders with the skills of peace building, negotiation, consensus building and so on, we will have a better society," said Ghosn, as she explained the idea behind the initiative. According to her, the summer academy has led many of the participants to pursue peace-related studies and human rights work.

Ghosn has been particularly interested in promoting peace and tolerance among children through literature. In fact, this was the topic of her second lecture in New York, entitled "Children as Peace Builders."

"I believe that carefully selected children's literature can be used for peace-building purposes," Ghosn said. According to her, certain types of literature develop a child's character and can foster the kinds of skills and attitudes needed to enhance peace. Ghosn focuses on children, because researches have shown that most of these character traits and values develop at an early age.

Her research illustrates that proper kinds of literature may enhance, for example, children's imagination, creativity, empathy, and tolerance, as well as their ability to use words rather than physical aggression in play.

Exposure to some classical fairy tales, such as Cinderella, helps a child to identify with the heroine, who is a good person despite the sibling rivalry or the unfairness of a parent she experiences. Likewise, the child may learn to be good even in hardships and unfairness, Ghosn explained.

Her research shows that stories can also teach the norms and values of society; children can learn about how to be a good friend and how their behavior affects others in relationships.

According to Ghosn, children's awareness of conflict resolution can be raised through specific types of literature that show how conflict escalates, what kinds of outcomes it can lead to, and how it can be resolved.

Two great examples of stories that teach children to be peace builders, according to Ghosn, are  "Two Monsters," a story about what can happen when people don't understand and refuse to listen to each other, and "A Hundred Dresses," a story about bullying, originally published in the 1940s.

To learn more about the activities of the Institute for Peace and Justice Education, visit its website: http://www.lau.edu.lb/academics/centers-institutes/ipje/.

Dr. Nabelah Haraty, an instructor in LAU's Humanities Division, presented a lecture entitled "Look Who is Speaking," under Alumni Affairs Office auspices on April 4. More than 120 alumni and LAU community members listened to Haraty's advice about how to combat the anxiety people feel when they have to speak in pubic.

Haraty, an expert in oral communication, first identified the elements of good communication--the speaker; the verbal and non-verbal message; the auditory and visual channels; the noise distorting the message; the physical, socio-psychological, temporal and cultural context; the speaker's and the audience's culture; and the presentation. 

She said the basic obstacles to effective communication include the language barrier; the speaker's high expectations, lack of experience and low self-confidence; and the fact that often presentations are not well-prepared.

After explaining various types of communication apprehension and interactive personality dimensions, Haraty ended her lecture by presenting some solutions that could help people face speech anxiety.

The following week (between April 7 and 11), around 190 students participated in a series of workshops on how to conduct a debate. Upon Haraty's request, the English Speaking Union has agreed for a third consecutive year to send award-winning debaters from England, Michael Parker and Andrew Fitch, to teach debate skills to Lebanese students.

Parker and Fitch conducted 15 training sessions for various groups of LAU communication arts students, GC–LAUMUN team members, and Haigazian University students.

Fitch explained that they travel to different countries and teach university students the "structures and formalities of formal debate." The two young men, members of the ESU Speech and Debate Squad, tailor their workshops to the participants' level of English and experience in debating.

Parker emphasized the importance of the values and skills that come with debating. "The potential [in Lebanon] for good debate teams is really high," he added.

Besides such training workshops, ESU also organizes an annual international speech competition in London. In fact, Lebanese university students compete for two top spots to represent the country at that event. This year, LAU student Sarah Bawab participated in the local competition on April 5, during which 14 university students presented five-minute speeches on a unique theme entitled "New Horizons, New Frontiers."

Bawab, a business student in one of Haraty's communications courses who has been working with her to prepare for the competition, said that the experience was "very fruitful and educating."

"I didn't want to miss this chance. I thought, whether I win or lose, it would help me," she added. This is the sixth year that LAU participates and a student once made it to England.

At the lecture demonstration, Azar spoke about the dying arts of the Arab world. In particular, she summarized the history and current state of oriental dance, showing excerpts of old films with famous "golden era" dancers such as Naima Akef, Tahiya Karioka, and Samia Gamal.

She considered this event as an opportunity to introduce young people to a dance style she loves and hopefully they will fall in love with as well.

Azar explained that oriental dance originated from stylized folk dances and not, as per popular myth, from the harem. According to her, oriental dancers were the original feminists, improvising within a framework and showing their femininity in art.

After being popularized in the 1950s especially in Lebanon and Egypt, "raqs sharqi," along with many oriental arts, experienced a period of steady decline since the 1960s, Azar said. She attributed the "broad ignorance about the subject" and the negative portrayal of women in Arab art to mass consumerism, as well as to a lack of interest in preserving the Arab culture and arts.

As compared to Western dance forms, which carve silhouettes with limbs, this Eastern dance style involves many internal movements, especially of the abdomen and hips, Azar said.

The workshop, held after the lecture demonstration and on the following two days, gave communication arts students an opportunity to practice dance steps under Azar's instruction.

Azar, a third-generation Lebanese dancer, spent the last three years traveling and training dancers in North and South America, and in Europe. She is now back in her native country to try to revive the fading art form.

"Why are we so quick to accept what the West gives us and not learn our own culture?" Azar asked during her lecture, thanking LAU for allowing her to raise awareness on and shape a better understanding of classical oriental dance.

"Justice and preserving human dignity for all" were Ghoussoub's main concerns, according to IWSAW Director Dima Dabbous-Sensenig.

Cris O'Connor, speaking on behalf of the UK Ambassador, said we should "seek to emulate something of her ability to reach out to those we can't easily understand; to invest our emotional energies in learning to empathize; and above all to recognize the essential importance of humanity."

The event drew diplomats, writers, colleagues and friends who share their admiration for the daring and often controversial Lebanese figure. The speeches, a ten-minute excerpt of a taped interview with Ghoussoub, and the exhibit of some of her sculptures, books and belongings all highlighted her multiple talents.

Ghoussoub's human side was described by her close friend, Roseanne Khalaf, who recalled numerous anecdotes. As a young woman, Ghoussoub refused to participate in fighting during the Lebanese war; she established a non-sectarian pharmacy that provided services to whoever needed them; and she lost an eye and sustained shrapnel wounds when a shell hit her car as she drove a man to hospital.

Her love of Lebanon was shown through the full-of-agony personal emails Khalaf received from Ghoussoub during the summer 2006 war in Lebanon. In one of them, she wished she were there. "It's awful to witness this hell from the screens and realize that one is helpless, unable to do anything to alleviate the pain," she wrote. Less than a year later, Ghoussoub died suddenly in London.

O'Connor stressed Ghoussoub's role "as a Middle Eastern feminist," praising her "courage to open up debates on issues stifled by powerful taboos."

He also commended her writing talent saying that "she encouraged us to see human beings as human beings ... all flawed, yet all deserving of respect."

Along the same lines, Khalaf, assistant professor of English and creative writing at the American University of Beirut, said that "her startlingly original writing" reflected "her desire to move hidden or taboo subjects out of the shadows to radically challenge and reshape inflexible mainstream notions."

Ghoussoub's work as a publisher was specially acknowledged by Maggie Gee, a novelist whose book on racism was published by Ghoussoub's Al-Saqi Books, after being rejected by many others in London. "Mai was against censorship and not easily shocked, and she was able to look the truth in the eye," she said.

O'Connor said Al-Saqi Books gave Londoners "a window into Middle Eastern literature, culture, politics and sociology. [It] brought to people in Britain a better understanding of the complexities of Middle Eastern society" and allowed many Middle Eastern writers to reach audiences previously unavailable to them.

Every year on International Women's Day, IWSAW takes the opportunity to highlight Arab women's issues by paying tribute to prominent figures in Lebanon and internationally.

Last week marked the inauguration of an international conference on discrimination and tolerance in the Middle East, featuring renowned Islamic scholar-in-exile Nasr Abu Zeid. The conference aimed to initiate in-depth analyses of practices of discrimination and tolerance among people living in the region, especially by those who live and work here.

Too often and for too long, societies of the Middle East have substituted facts and interpretations provided by the West for their sense of self-knowledge, say conference organizers Ray Mouawad and Vahid Behmardi, both assistant professors in the faculty of Arts and Sciences. And while the reasons for this looking outward are numerous, it's a situation, they say, that can only "lead to more alienation and violence."

Abu Zeid, who left Cairo for the Netherlands in 1995 after his conviction as an apostate for his writings on the Koran, agrees. "It's a scandal," he says about the persistent lack of a commitment to serious scholarship at Arabic-speaking universities. "Some Arabic countries are endowing chairs for Islamic studies in European countries, but they don't do it in their own countries." Especially with regard to the Koran, he says, people "are discouraged from touching on these topics," and the assumption remains that "everything is set, everything is known."

Reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of the three-day program, two dozen panelists presented on a wide array of topics, including Lebanese sectarianism and reform, Copt identity under the Ottomans, and the "expendable men" of modern militaries. The papers--and a selection of short documentaries screened Thursday night--were also chosen to reinforce an overarching theme, says Behmardi. "All aspects of discrimination are correlated," he says. "You can't have a society that maintains one aspect of discrimination while removing the other ones."

The proceedings of the conference, planned to be held every two years, will be published by the Orient Institut Beirut.

The 8th International Conference on the Economics and Finance of the Middle East and North Africa grouped participants from the U.S., the U.K., France, Switzerland, Iran, Tunisia, Egypt and Lebanon.

About 11 speakers including academicians, economists and financial experts submitted papers on the economy and finance of the MENA region. The School of Business at the Byblos campus organized the event May 22–24, 2006.

David Cobham from the Department of Economics at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh tackled exchange rate regimes and trade with implications for MENA countries. He outlined such implications against the background of MENA countries' current exchange rate arrangements and trade patterns.

"Exchange rate regimes can have large effects on the pattern of a country's trade," he said. "In choosing their exchange rate regimes, countries should aim to maximize their trade as a means to maximizing growth and welfare," he added. Cobham believes that while most MENA countries are operating with exchange rate regimes focused on the dollar, they would be better off with a focus on the euro.

Hadi Salehi Esfahani from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the U.S. examined the evolution of trade policy in MENA countries since the 1960s. "Contrary to the current popular perception, until the 1980s, MENA countries were generally more open than the rest of the developing world. That situation changed in the 1980s and especially the 1990s as most MENA countries maintained their trade policies, while many other developing countries proceeded with liberalization," Esfahani told the conference.

Conference speakers also tackled issues related to monetary policies, social capital and governance, trade, finance and financial markets, as well as structure and growth of MENA economies.

On the sidelines of the conference, a public policy session on the Lebanese government's "Beirut I Proposal for Reform" was held with the participation of former Finance Minister George Corm, MP Farid El Khazen and Finance Ministry Consultant Saadeh El Chami. The roundtable discussion tackled the current economic situation in Lebanon and the problem of public deficit with its negative impact on economic activity and investment.

El Shami outlined the Lebanese government's economic reform proposal as based on two pillars: boosting growth to reduce public deficit and adopting new monetary and financial policies. While El Khazen regarded the proposals as offering short-term solutions to Lebanon's economic problems, Corm suggested launching economic dialogue between the Finance Ministry and the Central Bank to agree on the rescheduling of the country's debt.

Digital signatures are used to verify the identity of the sender or author of a document and to avoid intrusions. The technology has allowed thousands of businesses worldwide to switch confidently from paper-based processes to electronic workflows.

The first draft law regulating cyber-security in Lebanon was formulated six years ago. Several other drafts have been presented to Parliament since then, but none have come to fruition.

"Such a project goes along with our government's commitment to fighting corruption and boosting modernity," Mitri said, but added that it requires assistance from international specialists.

Administrative Reform Minister Jean Oghassabian said secure communications would be necessary to improve the flow of information between the public administration and citizens.

"[Citizens] would not trust any effective electronic government services in the absence of laws regulating digital signatures," Oghassabian said.

Attorney Stephen Mason, an expert in electronic communications security, shed light on the history, purpose, forms and applications of digital signatures. Mason also discussed his views on building a legal framework, looking at existing E.U. and U.S. legislation.

Mason covered electronic fraud and identity theft, suggesting ways to prevent them. He is a leading authority in the ways electronic communications can make or break an organization. He promotes the establishment of e-mail and Internet use policies, interception and monitoring of internal communications, and, data protection.

LAU President Joseph Jabbra underlined the benefits of such technologies to society, stressing the university's commitment to contribute towards raising the level of expertise in emerging technologies.

The president of the Information Systems Audit and Control Association in Lebanon (ISACA), Ramzi Tarabishi, briefed the audience on the association's efforts to provide knowledge on management, monitoring, security and professional auditing.

The conference, organized in cooperation with ISACA Lebanon, was held under the patronage of Lebanon's Premier Fouad Seniora at the Bristol Hotel in Beirut March 30, 2006 and it included representatives from Lebanese banks as well as professionals from LAU and other institutions.

LAU joined the bandwagon by hosting the Second Annual Banking & Finance International Conference in February 2006.

"The development of Islamic financial institutions depends on the success of their integration in the global financial market," said keynote speaker Dr. Ahmad Jachi, First Vice Governor at the Bank of Lebanon (Central Bank).

Economy and Trade Minister Sami Haddad praised LAU for hosting the conference saying Islamic finance had grown considerably in many parts of the world and was expected to mark further growth in Lebanon.

LAU President Joseph G. Jabbra said in opening remarks that the concept of Islamic banking promoted the principles of justice and equality.

"It did not start from a concern for loans and interests, but rather aims at bridging the gap between rich and poor and between rich nations and poor nations for the development of societies," he said.

The event held at the Beirut campus under the patronage of Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Seniora featured 21 international speakers and was sponsored by Al Baraka Banking Group, Al Amin Bank, and BOL's participation.

Dr. Tarek Mikdashi, dean of the School of Business at the Beirut campus, said LAU had introduced courses in Islamic banking at the MBA level.

"The increasing international interest in the subject of Islamic banks comes as a result of expanding globalization that involves all in addition to new developments on the geo-political scene and the infant Islamic trade markets," he explained.

Three Islamic banks currently operate in Lebanon: Al Baraka Bank Lebanon, Arab Finance House and the Lebanese Islamic Bank.

"The relatively young Islamic financial market has developed at a fast pace during the past five years," said conference chair Michel Majdalani, but noted a shortage of Islamic financial products vis-a-vis overall growing transactions.

Al Amin Bank's Acting CEO, Mohammad Al Moutawaa, listed problems the Islamic financial market was facing and pointed to a need to introduce new financial tools and improve liquidity management in Islamic banks.

BOL's Jachi highlighted the need for product innovation as well as the development of an Islamic money market, a regulatory and supervisory framework, corporate governance, standardized financial reporting and transparency.

He cited conditions for setting up Islamic banks in Lebanon, namely ownership, capital management and the proper application of Shariah (Islamic law).

Speakers also drew on their respective countries' experiences and case studies in suggesting guidelines to govern the Islamic banking sector. They said the sector needed to adopt universal standards in the management of Shariah-compliant banking practices.