Dr. Chaouki T. Abdallah’s Investiture Address
When I was seven years old, I failed an exam. My mother took me aside and spoke to me—not just about the exam, but about the hard work of my father and our lives. She told me how much she loved us, and added, with gentle urgency, that if I didn’t study harder and eventually go to college, I wouldn’t be able to help her or my father when they needed me.
I share this story because my mother raised eight children on my father’s stone mason salary, and on their extra income from growing? and picking olives and almonds, and from raising chicken. All eight of us graduated from college, and I am blessed to have all eight of us here this evening. Mom & dad, we ALL heard you.
I also share this story because it wasn’t just my mother who made us who we are today. It was grandmother Naama, aunt Sultany, my uncles Kamil, Naim, and Fuad, and the entire village of Rachana that came together to raise, support, and educate us.
Our mother never attended Beirut College for Women, or any other school for that matter, like many of the lucky ones here today. In fact, neither of our parents were educated beyond the first grade. But admirably they ensured that all their sons and daughters earned college and advanced degrees. In doing so, they changed not only their children’s lives trajectories, but also the lives of many who encountered the children of Tanios and Milani.
Next to us stands a lighthouse. And universities are just that—lighthouses that guide nations to a safer, heathier and more prosperous future. From Byblos, the birthplace of the alphabet, to Beirut, the mother of laws; from the first school in Antoura to Université Saint Joseph, to AUB, LAU, NDU, Balamand, and to all other Lebanese universities—this ancient land and its people have kept the light on for humanity in the darkest moments of history, and today, we’re called upon to again lead our own nation into a better tomorrow.
It has been a while since we’ve had the chance to reflect. Today is a moment not to be resilient as Lebanese have been said to be, but to stand on the gates of hope and have our students usher us into a better future. Today, I am here to renew the covenant forged by those who came before me- presidents such as Smith, Stotlszfus, Irwin, Nassar, Jabbra, and Mawad.
It is their legacy that lights our path as do the LAU values laid out by our founders.
Those values, etched in our institutional history and lived by those who came before us, are being reaffirmed today. We embody them by creating entrepreneurship opportunities for our graduates—so they don’t have to leave their families and their country to realize their potential. We live them together as we renew our pledge to serve humanity, and through our graduates—who research, heal, design, build, lead, write, paint, and sculpt—and we keep the light shining from this university on the hill. We model them by creating a global university that educates not only students in Lebanon, but those in NY and other global cities.
Today, as I am invested as the tenth president of LAU, I take this moment to honor the sacrifices and quiet heroism of Lebanese mothers and fathers—who, for generations, have raised global citizens and made Lebanon the world’s brain and talent factory.
I honor our founders, our past presidents, our faculty, and our students.
And as we celebrate education and the house that “Sarah and her sisters built”, we are united in a spirit of renewal. The world today is uncertain, but one thing remains clear: whatever world emerges next, LAU and its graduates will be there to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Earlier, you heard the precession “you never walk alone”. Over the last 35 years, I have not walked alone. When Catherine and I married, we had three different ceremonies—just to make sure it took. And she said “Yes, I do” three times, one in Lebanon. Wherever I went, my wife Catherine was there: sometimes beside me, offering wisdom; sometimes behind me, pushing me forward; and sometimes, like today, in front of me—supporting me and our family.
My wish to all of you is to have in your lives a Sarah to blaze a trail for you to follow, a Milani to love you unconditionally, and a Catherine to complete you.