mag 6-1 section a - lebanese american university

Faculty GazetteJanuary - July 2005 Volume 8.1

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“In the confrontation between the stream and the rock, the stream always wins, not through strengthbut by perseverance.” — H. Jackson Brown

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“We started exploring concepts and ideas. Texts came in later inthe process of creation. The ideas we explored are memory, his-tory, the past, the present, the future, time, death, survival, fire...We tried to project ourselves in the future, in the year 2025. Wethought we could, through that process, understand or justifythe present times. We found ourselves projected in the past. Apast we tend or pretend to forget. We realized that our past wasbound to haunt our future. We tried to burn our memory, but werealized that it was burning us. We ended up with ashes. As weworked, we found ourselves deconstructing the work, decon-structing texts, deconstructing characters, deconstructing our-selves through the deconstruction of memory, had it been collec-tive or individual.”

Nagy SouratyDirector“AMNESIA2025”

Faculty GazetteThe

The Faculty Newsletter of the Lebanese American University

3 Conferences, Seminars, Workshops, Lectures & Exhibitions

13 School of Arts & Sciences13 - Arts & Communication15 - Education & Social Science17 - Humanities18 - Computer Science & Mathematics20 - Natural Science

21 School of Business23 School of Engineering & Architecture23 School of Pharmacy

24 Flashes from Centers and Institutes

The Faculty Gazette is the newsletter of the Faculty of the Lebanese American University. It is produced twice yearly by the Publications Office, Nicol Hall, Room 527, Beirut Campus.

Editor | Kristiaan Aercke, Humanities DivisionDesigner | Ghada Majed, Publications Office

Mailing addressP.O.Box 13-5053 F-26, Chouran Beirut: 1102-2801, Lebanon.Tel : +9611 786456/64 ext. 1277Fax: +9611 867098E-mail : [email protected]

LAU's website: http://www.lau.edu.lb

The Lebanese American University is an American institution chartered by the Board of Regents of theUniversity of the State of New York and operating in Lebanon.

VOL. 7.1 3

The Graphic Design Program (Beirut) in collabora-tion with the British Council organized an AnimationWorkshop, February 23-26. The workshop was givenby Frazer MacLean, a feature and commercial anima-tor who was hired on the London Special Effectsteam that worked on “Who Framed Roger Rabbit”(back in 1987). Students collaborated on planning,designing and storyboarding animation for a musicvideo. The result was exhibited in Nicol Hall onFebruary 26, in the presence of Mr. MacLean, BritishCouncil staff, and Graphic Design faculty and stu-dents.

April 14 through 16, Yasmine Taan, NathalieFallaha, Sylvia Gabrielian, Zeina El Abed andSilia Abu Arbid (Graphic Design Program, Beirut)organized the typography and graphic design confer-ence “TYPO.GRAPHIC.BEIRUT05” (http://typograph-icbeirut.lau.edu.lb). Endorsed by ICOGRADA, this con-ference effectively established the LebaneseAmerican University in Beirut as one of the Arabworld’s leading centers in design. The major goal wasto instigate interest in developing contemporaryArabic typefaces to address the demands of the mar-ket. Following the welcoming speech by LAUPresident Dr. Joseph Jabbra and the presentation byJean-François Porchez (president of the AssociationTypographique Internationale), 23 speakers from 17countries gave papers on such issues as the evolutionof Persian type, typography in the urban environment,the role of font publishing companies and the licens-ing concept behind fonts (an interesting issue in theMiddle East where font piracy is a common practice),

the demand for design criteria to shape a local visuallanguage common to both Eastern and Western view-ers, influence of Latin script on Arabic script, andchanging expectations from the Arabic script. BrunoSteinert, managing director of Linotype and one ofthe prominent participants, insisted that“TYPO.GRAPHIC.BEIRUT05” was one of the best con-ferences he had attended in years. The conferenceconcluded with a fieldtrip to the first Arabic lettersprinting press in the Middle East, which is located inKhenshara, Lebanon. Yasmine Taan announcedplans for another “TYPO.GRAPHIC.BEIRUT” confer-ence to be held in 2007.

Parallel to the TYPO.GRAPHIC.BEIRUT05 conference,the Graphic Design Program organized an exhibi-tion on the Beirut campus, showing the work of theconference speakers (such as the breathtakingposters of Iranian designer Reza Abedini, the postersof Jennifer Spoon with their intensive use of Romanand Japanese characters, Al Mohtaraf’s innovativetype solutions in Arabic, and cutting edge work fromBüro Destruct) as well as of LAU faculty and graduat-ing students. Heinz Widmer, from the Swiss firm BüroDestruct, expressed his amazement at the quality ofthe LAU graphic design students’ work.

To conclude a rich semester full of activities, theGraphic Design Program faculty and students(Beirut) organized the graduating students’ exhibition“FRAGILE,” June 10-17 at Sheikh Zayed Hall, SafadiFine Arts Building. “FRAGILE” was a showcase of thegraduating students’ final projects, a true opportunity

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Conferences, Seminars, Workshops, Lectures & Exhibitions

1-2Animation Workshopwith Frazer MacLean

THE FACULTY GAZETTE4

1LAU President JosephJabbra speaking wordsof welcome atTYPO.GRAPHIC.BEIRUT05

2A view of the confer-ence audience, IrwinAuditorium

3Part of the TYPO.GRAPHIC.BEIRUT05Exhibition

4The work of RezaAbedini

5The work of the LAUgraduating students

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VOL. 7.1 5

6J. F. Porchez, key-notespeaker

7Yasmine Taan, GraphicDesign CoordinatorR first row

8Graduating GraphicDesign studentsflanked by YasmineTaan (L, Coordinator)and Drs. Mona Knio(R, Chair) and SamiraAgacy (R, Dean)

9The hospitality of theGraphic DesignProgram is well known

10-11Our students proudlyshowing their work

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to present their work to a wider public and to practic-ing graphic designers. Exhibited projects includedposters, animations, booklets, packaging, and give-away items. A catalog of the student projects wasdistributed during the exhibition.

“AMNESIA2025” was the title of the Fall MajorTheatre production of the Arts & CommunicationDivision (Beirut). Performed between January 8 and16 in Gulbenkian Theatre, “AMNESIA2025” was acollective creation directed by Nagy Souraty. It wasinspired by texts written by Etel Adnan, PhilippeDucros and Mohamed Kacimi. The artistic teamincluded (besides others) Nagy Souraty, HalaMasri, Mona Knio, Dima Dabbous-Sensenig andAhmad Oueini. The cast consisted of 22 actors andaround 40 crew-members from the “Acting,” “Theatrein Performance” and “Technical Stagecraft” classes.In the words of Nagy Souraty, ““AMNESIA2025” is anexperimental performance. It is not based on a spe-cific script. It is inspired by different writings. It doesnot follow a specific plot. We started exploring con-cepts and ideas. Texts came in later in the process ofcreation. The ideas we explored are memory, history,the past, the present, the future, time, death, survival,fire...We tried to project ourselves in the future, in theyear 2025. We thought we could, through thatprocess, understand or justify the present times. Wefound ourselves projected in the past. A past we tendor pretend to forget. We realized that our past wasbound to haunt our future. We tried to burn our mem-

ory, but we realized that it was burning us. We endedup with ashes. As we worked, we found ourselvesdeconstructing the work, deconstructing texts, decon-structing characters, deconstructing ourselvesthrough the deconstruction of memory, had it beencollective or individual.”

Equally successful was the Spring Major Theatre pro-duction presented by the Arts and CommunicationDivision (Beirut) from May 19 through 29 inGulbenkian Theatre: “On the Margin of Kalila WaDimna,” based on the text written by Youssef El Khaland directed by Lina Abyad. Although the followingsynopsis might not give it away, the show wasaddressed to all audiences: “During a class, a teacherwas explaining to her very young students the originsof the fable. She invokes Aesop, Jean de la Fontaine,Kalila Wa Dimna, and ends up citing a Lebanese con-temporary author who, in a concise narrative, gavevoices to animals. Suddenly, two rabbits chased by anoddly-dressed woman burst into the room: “I am OumSaiid, a character from Mr. Youssef El Khal’s book!”The teacher leaves the class hysterically in search ofthe Principal. The book's characters rushed to tell thechildren their stories: Oum Saiid and her invading rab-bits, the foxes posing as the vineyard owners whobagged the fruits, the owl who died for not being ableto coexist with the other birds, the fly that pesters theSultan’s mare and whose extermination will cost himhis entire staff…” These stories were written duringand inspired by the civil war in Lebanon, but they are

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1-2Amnesia2025

VOL. 7.1 7

clearly universal.

In collaboration with the Center of LebaneseAmerican Heritage, Nuwar Diab, HumanitiesDivision (Beirut) organized a symposium on AmeenRihani at LAU Beirut campus, January 12, to bring toa close the celebratory events that took place at uni-versities across Lebanon in the context of the unveil-ing of the bust of this Lebanese writer-philosopher atBoston’s Tufts University. Papers were read by LAUPresident Dr. Joseph Jabbra, Novak Assaf, LatifZeitouni and Nuwar Diab. The symposium waswell-attended. It featured photographs of AmeenRihani’s house in Freike, a video clip of Rihani and anexcerpt of one of his speeches (see p.8).

The Humanities Division (Beirut), in cooperationwith the Goethe Institut, organized a lecture/discus-sion (in English and Arabic) with German authorMichael Kleeberg and Lebanese writer AbbasBeydoun on February 1 in Irwin Hall. The discussionwas moderated by Assaad Khairallah. Mr. Kleeberglives in Berlin and works as a writer and translatorfrom French and English. He has translated work byMarcel Proust, Joris-Karl Huysmans and John DosPassos. His most recent book is The Crying Animal:Lebanese Travel Diary. Mr. Kleeberg is the winner ofthe 1996 Anna Seghers Prize and the 2000 LeonFeuchtwanger Prize. Abbas Beydoun is a writer andpoet, author of more than 9 volumes of poetry andnumerous articles and essays. Selections from his

work have been translated into German. The maga-zine Banipal published English translations of hispoems in October 1998 and Summer 2000 (see p.8).

As part of the “Distinguished Lecturer Series,” and inconjunction with AUB’s Center for American Studiesand Research and AUB’s Anis Makdisi Program forLiterature, the Humanities Division (Beirut) invitedcultural theorist Djelal Kadir for two lectures inFebruary. Professor Kadir is the founding president ofthe International American Studies Association andcurrently the Edwin Erle Sparks Professor ofComparative Literature at Penn State University. He isalso a Senior Fellow of SYNOPSIS, the EuropeanSchool of Comparative Studies. His many publicationsinclude Columbus and the Ends of the Earth: Europe’sProphetic Rhetoric as Conquering Ideology and TheOther Writing: Postcolonial Essays in Latin America’sWriting Culture. The first lecture, given in AUB’s WestHall on Tuesday, February 22, was on “The Siege ofBagdad: Imperial Tall Tales and History in Miniature.”The second lecture was entitled “Terrorism: A Pleafor the Willing Exercise of Disbelief” and was deliv-ered in Irwin Hall Conference Rooms (Beirut) onThursday, February 24 (see p.9).

On Tuesday March 15, distinguished professorGeorge Saliba was the guest of the HumanitiesDivision (Beirut) with an illustrated lecture on“Arabic Science in Renaissance Europe.” ProfessorSaliba, a prominent faculty member of the Arabic and

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3-4On the Margin of KalilaWa Dimna


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Professor George Saliba during his witty andfascinating presentation

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The audience of students and scholars (standing room only)was clearly intrigued by professor Saliba’s revelations

10L to R: ValérieCreusot, Iman

Humaydan-Younes,and Ken Seigneurie

at “Voices ofWomen during the

War”

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L to R: Valérie Creusot and ImanHumaydan-Younes

1From L to R: Mr. HenriZgheib, Dr. Jamil Jabre,Latif Zeitouni, Dr. UrsulaNovak Assaf and NuwarDiab at the AmeenRihani Symposium

2Ameen Rihani posters

3L to R: MichaelKleeberg, AssaadKhairallah and AbbasBeydoun

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VOL. 7.1 9

Islamic Science Department at Columbia University,New York, is the author of eight books and more than90 articles, including the path-breaking Rethinking theRoots of Modern Science: The Role of ArabicManuscripts in European Libraries and The Originsand Development of Arabic Scientific Thought. A largeand very interested audience consisting of studentsand faculty from the Natural Science and theHumanities Divisions, and many non-LAU related peo-ple, much appreciated his witty and cogent presenta-tion on the often unsuspected or wrongly unrecog-nized contribution of Arab scientists to Renaissancescience.

And on Thursday March 31, Vahid Behmardi was invit-ed by the Humanities Division (Beirut) to speak (inArabic) on “The Phenomenon of Crimson Light inMa’arri’s Siqt al-Zand.” Dr. Behmardi is an assistantprofessor of Arabic at AUB. His publications include acritical edition of Kazim al-Rahti’s Risalat al-Suluk fial-Akhlaq wal-A’mal, The Genesis of a Genre: Badi al-Zaman al-Hamadhani and his Maqamat as well asnumerous articles on Arabic and Persian literature.

In the context of the “Role of Literature inContemporary Society” lectures series, theHumanities Division (Beirut) invited ImanHumaydan-Younes and Valérie Creusot for alecture/discussion on April 27 in Irwin HallConference Rooms. The topic was “Voices of Womenduring the War.” Iman Humaydan-Younes is the author

of two novels (Toot Barri and B Mithil…Mithil Beirut).Also a sociologist, she works mainly on the questionof those who remain missing in the aftermath of theLebanese civil war. Valérie Creusot lives in Pariswhere she works as a professor of Arabic and linguis-tics. She has translated numerous novels originallywritten in Arabic into French and she is currentlyworking on a French version of Toot Barri. The lec-ture/discussion (in Arabic) focused on whether theundeniably powerful voice of Lebanese women in the“Independence 05” movement can be traced back tothe Lebanese civil war and how this voice, as repre-sented in Arabic-language novels, can effectively berendered in translation.

Again as part of the “Role of Literature inContemporary Society” lectures series, theHumanities Division (Beirut) hosted prominentLebanese novelist and journalist Hassan Daoud onMay 31, in the Irwin Hall Faculty Lounge. Mr. Daoud’stalk (in Arabic) was on “Living with (and within)Words.” He is the author of eight novels, the mostrecent being Makyaj khafif-lihadhihi al-laylah (“LightMake-up for This Night;” 2003). Mr. Daoud’s latestnovel is due to be published this summer. Several ofhis books have been translated into French, Englishand German.

At the invitation of the Humanities Division (Beirut),Dr. Mary Kawar, Senior Gender Specialist of theInternational Labor Organization based in Beirut, lec-

4Faculty and studentslistening to Djelal Kadir

5Djelal Kadir

6Professor Kadir’s audi-ence included graduatestudents, faculty andDean S. Aghacy

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tured on “A Global Vision for the Institute forWomen’s Studies in the Arab World” on May 30 inIrwin Hall’s Conference Rooms.

On Tuesday April 26, the Institute for Women’sStudies in the Arab World (IWSAW) organized alecture by Dr. Martina Rieker on “Transnational Theoryand Women’s Studies in the Middle East Region” inIrwin Hall’s Faculty Lounge. Dr. Rieker is assistant pro-fessor of history at the American University of Cairoand associate director of AUC’s Institute for Genderand Women’s Studies.

The Natural Science Division organized its 3rd

International Conference on “Research Trends inScience and Technology” (RTST2005) on LAU’s twincampuses (March 7-9) (http://www.lau.edu.lb/news-events/conferences/rtst2005/intro.html). No fewerthan 110 distinguished speakers and participantscame from the USA, UK, Canada, Austria, Germany,France, Italy, Ireland, Bulgaria, Russia, China, Japan,India, Egypt, Algeria, Turkey, Jordan, Syria, Iran,Kuwait, and the UAE, as well as a good number fromLebanon. A definite highpoint was the presentationon “Membrane Channels” by Dr. Peter Agre (USA,Chemistry Nobel Prize Laureate in 2003) in the SelinaAuditorium, Byblos (March 9). Dr. Agre lectured on thediscovery of aquaporins and on the role of scientistsin defending human rights. The 15 parallel sessionscovered a wide range of subjects, such as “ChemicalSynthesis,” “Physics – Quantum Mechanics,”

“Science Education,” “Artificial Intelligence,”“Nanotechnology/Material Science,” “Supra-Molecular Chemistry,” “Drug Design/Drug Delivery,”and “Genomics.” The organizing committee includedDrs. Ahmad Kabbani (Chair), Soula KyriacosBoustani (Co-Chair), Ramzi Haraty (Finance andRegistration Chair), and Yolande Saab. The confer-ence was co-sponsored by the CNRS.

On the occasion of the publication of Bin Laden in theSuburbs: Criminalizing the Arab Other, by ScottPoynting, Greg Noble, Paul Tabar and Jock Collins,the Education & Social Science Division (Beirut)organized a panel discussion in the Faculty Lounge,Irwin Hall (Beirut) on February 28. Participants includ-ed Saadi Nikro (NDU), Ray Joureidini (AUB) and fromLAU Sami Baroudi (Education & Social Science),Dima Dabbous-Sensenig (Arts &Communication) and co-author Paul Tabar(Humanities, Education & Social Science). Thebook Bin Laden in the Suburbs addresses the questionof racism and its relationship to national belonging,i.e., with emphasis on the Australian (Sydney)/Arab(Lebanese) relationship and, more specifically, theemergence in post-9/11 Australia of the “Arab Other”as the principal “folk-devil” of today. Incorporatingmany interviews, the timely publication of this book isnot a minor event, judging from the positive reviews ithas already received.

In April, Swedish cartoon development specialist and

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1Nobel Laureate PeterAgre at RTST2005

2The RTST Conferenceorganizers and partici-pants surrounding NobelLaureate Peter Agre

3L to R: Paula Habre, MayAbboud, Mr. Ericsson,Mona Nabhani

VOL. 7.1 11

TV producer Erling Ericsson held a workshop inSheikh Zayed Hall (Beirut) on “Developing CartoonFilms and Language Acquisition.” The workshop wasdesigned to train teachers in cartoon making and touse animated films as a pedagogical tool to helpchildren convey their thoughts, ideas and linguisticknowledge. Participants (first teachers, then children)developed a story in groups and created the artworkand the animation. May Abboud and Paula Habreanimated the workshop. On April 7, the last day,Future TV was present to film the event.

The Education and Social Science Division(Beirut) and Levant Distributors organized the “16th

Annual Exhibit of Educational Books and Resource”,May 12-16 in the Faculty Lounge, Irwin Hall.

On Saturday May 14, the Education and SocialScience Division (Beirut) organized the “11th

Annual Global Education of the Child” conference inIrwin Hall Auditorium. Speakers included Drs. HughBusher and Paul Cooper (both from LeicesterUniversity). Representatives from local schools pre-sented case studies of school improvement inRawdah High School, International College, Al-Kawthar School, the Catholic schools and Hariri III.

The School of Business (Byblos) in associationwith the Regional Chapter of the Middle EastEconomics Association (MEEA) organized the “7th

International Conference on the Economics and

Finance of the Middle East and North Africa.” Theconference was held in Byblos on May 30-June 1,and the organizing committee included Drs. ArmenPapazian, Elias Raad, Rima Turk and SalpieDjoundourian. (Dr. Djoundourian is the Directorof MEEA’s regional chapter). This conference hasbecome an annual event that the School ofBusiness engages in and an integral part of itsoperation. The previous six conferences covered top-ics such as unemployment, poverty, income inequali-ty, banking, financial markets, health, environmentand welfare. The 2005 edition focused on economicgrowth, finance, development, international trade,fiscal reforms and restructuring, women in the laborforce, poverty, liberalization and performance, pro-ductivity and efficiency in production in the MENAregion. Participants came from the US, France,Germany, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, United ArabEmirates, and Lebanon (the list might have beenlonger but for the regional uncertainties). Most pre-sentations were empirical and had policy prescrip-tions; as such, the conference drew the attention ofLebanese economists, local community leaders andpolicy makers.

In the context of the same MEEA conference orga-nized by the School of Business (Byblos), a publicpolicy session on “Economic Challenges FacingLebanon after the Parliamentary Elections” (part ofthe lecture series on the Lebanese economy) washeld on May 31. Speakers (in Arabic, with simultane-

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4Erling Ericsson duringthe workshop

5-6The organizing commit-tee, speakers and par-ticipants at the “7th

InternationalConference on theEconomics and Financeof the Middle East andNorth Africa”


ous translation) included Mr. Carlos Eddé (Leader ofthe Lebanese National Bloc, with “A Project for aModern Lebanon”), Dr. Makram Sader (SecretaryGeneral of the Association of Banks in Lebanon, with“The Monetary and Banking Challenges”), and Dr.Khater Abi Habib (General Manager and Chairman ofthe Board of Directors of Kafalat S.A.L.—the NationalInstitute for the Guarantee of Deposits—with“Implications for Small and Medium SizeEnterprises”). The session was chaired and moderat-ed by Dr. Wassim Shahin, Dean of the ByblosSchool of Business.

Following the success of last year’s “ShakespeareGlobe Education” workshops in Beirut with London-based Senior Practitioner Mr. Adam Coleman, theEnglish Speaking Union in conjunction with the Arts& Communication Division (Beirut) and the BritishCouncil organized this year a longer program of work-shops that took place in Gulbenkian Theatre, February21-27. This year’s workshops on improvisation dealtwith the themes of conflict resolution and love/mad-ness in Hamlet, Othello, The Merchant of Venice,Romeo and Juliet and Midsummer Night’s Dream. Theworkshops were open to high school students, univer-sity students, artists and independent participants.

The Arts & Communication Division (Beirut) alsosponsored a “Mask Workshop” in three sessions con-ducted by Dr. Lina Saneh, actress and stage director(March 4-6, in Gulbenkian Theatre). A four-session

“Storytelling Workshop” was held concomitantly inIrwin auditorium by storyteller Nemer Salamoun (whois also a playwright, theatre director, actor and cre-ative provocateur).

AMICAL, or the American International Consortium ofAcademic Libraries, is the first consortium dedicatedto expanding and strengthening information andinstructional facilities at American universities out-side the US. Its 2nd meeting was held at LAU (Beirutand Byblos) in conjunction with the LAU Libraries,June 1-3. Session topics were “The Role of Librariesin Information Literacy,” “Current and Future Trends inResource Sharing,”E-Books,” “ProfessionalDevelopment Issues,” “Information Literacy,” and “APlan for Creating a Union Catalog.” Foreign speakerscame from the US (Wheaton College and the Collegeof New Rochelle), the American University of Cairoand the American University of Paris. Participants hadthe opportunity to tour the new LAU Riyad NassarLibrary at the Beirut campus, the AUB campus andlibrary, and the LAU Byblos campus as well as therenowned ancient city of Byblos.

On June 29, the Humanities Division (Beirut) hostedNajla Hamadeh. Dr. Hamadeh is a prolific author inthe fields of gender studies, philosophy of psycho-analysis and civic and educational matters, and shehas taught philosophy and cultural studies at LAU andAUB for many years. She lectured on "Gender StudiesAppropriate to the Middle East."

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3The complete group ofAmical 2005 surround-ing Mrs. Aida Naaman(Director of Libraries,Beirut) in front of thebrand-new LAU Libraryin Beirut

4Najla Hamadeh in IrwinHall Conference Rooms

5LAU’s Junior Choir atPlanet Discovery

6Yasmine Taan speakingat the CUMULUSConference, Lisbon

7-8Walls in Lisbon

1-2Mask workshop

VOL. 7.1 13

Arts & CommunicationSchool of Arts & Sciences

Leila Dabaghi’s LAU Choir and Junior Choir partici-pated in the activities to celebrate “Peace and Unity inLebanon” that were held Downtown Beirut, April 9-13.They performed a concert addressed mainly to childrenand their parents at Planet Discovery.

This April, Ramez Maluf was invited to WashingtonDC to address, separately, the Council on ForeignRelations, the United States Institute of Peace, TheInternational Reporting Project of the Johns HopkinsSchool of Advanced International Studies, and theWoodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. OnApril 22 he was invited by the Stanley Foundation toaddress the Council on Foreign Relations in Iowa City.During his US visit, Dr. Maluf was interviewed by JimZogby and Jean Abinader for their television program“Viewpoint with James Zogby,” and by Newsweek’sInternational Editor Fareed Zakaria for his televisionprogram “Foreign Exchange.” In the wake of his visit tothe United States, Dr. Maluf was also interviewed byNational Public Radio and contacted by the CarnegieEndowment publication Foreign Policy to write an arti-cle for the celebrated magazine. His “Memo to KarenHughes” appeared in the July edition.

On March 4, Ramez Maluf presented a paper on“Religious Programming on Al Jazeera” at a conferenceon “Media and Belief in an Interdependent World”

which was held at the American University in Paris.

Yasmine Taan, Graphic Design (Beirut), attended aDoctoral Supervision workshop organized by CUMULUSin Lisbon, May 23-25. CUMULUS is the EuropeanAssociation of Universities and Colleges of Art, Designand Media. With more than 70 member institutionsfrom Europe, China, Japan and Australia, it is startingto become a global association. The aim of the work-shop was to promote doctoral programs in the generalframework of design research studies. LAU’s GraphicDesign Program can join CUMULUS as an officialmember upon the recommendation of two establishedDesign Schools who are already members, and Ms.Taan is actively working to achieve this quality label.Immediately following, on May 26-29, CUMULUS andIADE/UNIDCOM organized a conference for art anddesign researchers on “Pride and Predesign: TheCultural Heritage and the Science of Design,” also inLisbon (www.iade.pt/cumulus). The aim of the confer-ence was to evaluate the links between the culturalheritage and the projectual culture. Ms. Taan present-ed a paper entitled “The Transition from Calligraphy toArabic Typography: A Dilemma.”

Ms. Taan also distributed LAU Graphic Design stu-dent catalogs as well as the TYPO.GRAPHIC.BEIRUT05conference booklets at the International Design

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Schools Fair which was held at the Pombal Palace,Lisbon (May 27). These materials were so well receivedthat a number of Design Schools have expressed inter-est in student exchange programs with LAU’s GraphicDesign Program (Beirut).

Nathalie Fallaha, Graphic Design (Beirut), wasappointed by Jean-François Porchez, vice-president ofthe Association typographique internationale (ATYPI) toprepare a report on the latest typographical activities inLebanon and Palestine. Likewise, Yasmine Taan wascharged with preparing a similar report for the Lebanonand Syria region.

Bassam Lahoud contributed a ground-breaking chap-ter on the Arab reception of the Danish philosopherSøren Kierkegaard to a book on Kierkegaard’s interna-tional reception to be published by the University ofCopenhagen. In conjunction, Mr. Lahoud was invited tolecture, in June, on this very novel subject in an interna-tional conference at St. Olaf’s College, Minnesota. St.Olaf’s College is home to the Kierkegaard Library.

Dima Dabbous-Sensenig contributed a chapter “’Lostin Translation’ dans le monde arabe” to the book UneTélévision sans service public, ed. Jérome Bourdon, aMédiaMorphoses “Hors Série” publication by theFrench National Audiovisual Institute INA (pp. 135-43).

The Arts and Communication Division (Beirut) orga-nized its annual Drama Festival (July 22-29). LAU pre-sented no fewer than seven pieces: “La Corbière,” “TheSame Old Story,” “The Sandbox,” “The Actor’sNightmare,” “Explosions,” and two plays in Arabic. TheLebanese University (1st Branch) was represented with

“Oh mes Théâtres” and “Aim.” The play “Catacombes”was presented by the American University of Beirut.Regional troupes performing in Arabic included theJordanian University, Philadelphia University (Jordan),Bahrain University, The High Institute for PerformingArts (Tunisia) and The High Institute for Fine Arts inNabel (Tunisia). Two European schools added interna-tional flavor to the Festival: The Utrecht School of theArts (Netherlands) with “Simulation” and a Polishtroupe with “A View-Card from the Country.”

On June 30, Dr. Laila Farah was hosted by the Arts &Communication Division (Beirut) in Irwin Hall. Dr.Farah spoke to a general audience on the timely topic“Between the Visa and the Checkpoint: Doing GenderResearch in the ‘Homeland.’”

The Arts and Communication Division (Beirut) host-ed a theatre production written and performed by Dr.Laila Farah, July 12, in Gulbenkian theatre. Laila Farahis an LAU alumna and a Lebanese-American feminist-performer-scholar. In this show, which she has per-formed in the US, she critically examines institutionalracism as enacted by the US government in terms ofsecret evidence, race- and gender-determined profiling,legislation, and general demonization of Arabs andArab-Americans. The performance chronicles threeautobiographical accounts of her journeys to and fromthe Middle East and includes poetry by Haas Mroue,Suheir Hammad, and Laila Hallaby.

LAU-Beirut's chorale, directed by Leila Dabaghi,and a small group of the Junior Choir gave two perfor-mances of a “Mostly Mozart” concert on July 14-15, inIrwin Hall.

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VOL. 7.1 15

Education & SocialScience

President Joseph G. Jabbra has added to hisimpressive list of publications by co-editing with O.P.Dwivedi a compilation of essays on globalization.Published in 2005, Administrative Culture in a GlobalContext is a 297-page book with chapters on adminis-trative culture and values as well as case studiesfrom the US, UK, Europe, Asia, Africa and LatinAmerica. The chapter on the Middle East was co-authored by Dr. Jabbra, a political scientist with alegal background, and his wife, Dr. Nancy Jabbra, ananthropologist and expert on women’s studies. Theauthors seek to raise questions about whether inter-nationally recognized models of globalization, notablythe American cultural paradigm, can be made applica-ble worldwide and what administrative challengesthat poses for governments. According to a summaryof the book, the editors “believe diversity in thoughtand action is more desirable than the self-proclaimeduniversal paradigms originating in the West and willultimately lead to a just and sustainable world.” Dr.Jabbra, who is author or co-author of 10 books, is awidely published scholar who firmly believes inresearch. “Being an administrator in academia doesnot preclude my continued fascination with researchand writing,” he said, adding that all faculty membershave a responsibility to pursue such interests along-side their teaching duties.

On January 26, Rima Bahous and Mona Nabhaniattended a conference on “School Improvement andSocial Justice” at the University of Leicester. Theypresented a paper entitled “School Improvement forSocial Justice: Lebanese Case Studies.” The confer-ence was sponsored by the Society for EducationalStudies, in collaboration with the British Educational

Research Association (BERA)-Social Justice SIG.

Rima Bahous and Nahla Nola Bacha co-edited theProceedings of the 2nd Regional English Conference onLanguage and Change which took place at LAU’sBeirut campus, December 2003 (Beirut: Librarie duLiban Publishers, 2005). For more details of this con-ference, please refer to Faculty Gazette 6.1/2, p. 4.

Irma-Kaarina Ghosn presented her paper “Empathywith children's literature in primary school ELT” in asymposium on “Materials Development” at the con-ference organized by the International Association ofTeachers of English as a Foreign Language in Cardiff,April 2005.

During his sabbatical semester at ColumbiaUniversity, Fawwaz Traboulsi taught two courses:“Problems and Prospects of Democratization in theArab World” and “Representations of Identity andViolence in the Art and Literature of theContemporary Arab World.” He also delivered twoinvited lectures: “The 30th Anniversary of theLebanese Civil War” at Columbia University’sDepartment of Middle East and Asian Languages andCultures, and “Who Wants Democracy in the MiddleEast” (the Emile Bustani Seminar) at theMassachussets Institute of Technology. And withElias Khoury, Dr. Traboulsi participated in a paneldiscussion on “The Recent Developments in Lebanon”at the Kevorkian Center, New York University.

Fawwaz Traboulsi published two books (in Arabic):Patronage, Economic Relations and Sectarian Balancein a Town of the Western Biqa (Beirut: Riyad el-

3 4

1-2Shakespeare workshop(see p. 12)

3-4Storytelling workshop(see p. 12)


Rayyes Books, 2005) and Writings in Popular Culture(Beirut: Dar al-Kounouz al-Adabiyyah, 2005).

Ketty Sarouphim gave a paper entitled“Developmental Influences on Conduct Disorder inChildren: An Ecological Perspective” at the “39th

Middle East Medical Assembly Conference” whichwas held at AUB, May 19. The conference was co-sponsored by the American University of Beirut andthe Cleveland Clinic Foundation. It was attended byphysicians, psychiatrists and psychologists fromLebanon and the region, and it addressed issuesrelated to neurology, musculoskeletal systems andpsychiatry.

Sami Baroudi published a hefty article entitled“Lebanon’s Foreign Trade Relations in the PostwarEra: Scenarios for Integration (1990-Present)” in thejournal Middle Eastern Studies 41 (2) 2005, 201-25.The principal argument developed is that “in the post-war period (1990-present) Lebanese governmentshave striven to overcome the devastation caused bythe war (which also severed many of Lebanon’s linksto the outside world) and restore growth to thenational economy, largely by seeking closer ties withthe Arab and European economies and greater inte-gration into the global economy.”

Walid Moubarak served on the Ph.D. dissertationcommittee of Rachid Chamoun. The dissertationtitle was “The Urban Hub: Towards the Resurrectionof Beirut,” and the degree was granted by UnionInstitute and University, USA, in March. In the contextof an exchange program between the Université deParis-Sud and LAU, Dr. Moubarak was a VisitingProfessor at the Faculté Jean Monnet (UniversitéParis-Sud) and the American Graduate School ofInternational Diplomacy, April 17-May 2, where heoffered an intensive graduate seminar on “MiddleEast Foreign Policy” to 32 students from 12 differentnationalities.

Walid Moubarak also had two TV appearancesearly this year. He appeared with Elias Aoun in“Strategia” on ANB on “Domestic Factors in USForeign Policy in the Middle East” (January) and withMarcel Ghanem in “Kalam el Nass” on LBC on theinternational investigation committee after the assas-

sination of PM Rafic Hariri (March). Dr. Moubarakpresented a paper on “ Collective Memory: So wedon’t go back to the war frontlines in Lebanon” at aworkshop organized by the Lebanese Institute forCivil Peace in Lebanon and other NGOs, at the BeirutCommodore Hotel, April 6. He also participated in around-table discussion of the Report of the SecretaryGeneral of the UN on the issue of “Larger Freedom,”at ESCWA (Beirut, July 8). It merits note that Dr.Moubarak was elected member of the Board ofTrustees, American University of Kuwait. He is also aHarvard World Mun initiator, whose guidance helpedLAU students in International Affairs and Economics(Byblos and Beirut) win first place diplomacy awards.Our students competed against 1300+ students from130+ universities.

The Social Science faculty, Byblos (Elie Samia,Marwan Rowayheb and Walid Moubarak assupervisor) obtained funding from UNIFEM to conducta study on “Women in Politics in Lebanon: Indicatorsof Success.”

In May, Iman Osta presented a paper entitled“Challenges to Mathematics Teacher EducationPrograms for the Secondary levels” at the “15th ICMIStudy Conference” on the theme of “The ProfessionalEducation and Development of Teachers ofMathematics” which was held in Àguas De Lindòia,Brasil.

Dr. Osta also published “Technology tools for mathe-matics teaching and learning” in Technologies forEducation for All: Possibilities and Prospects in theArab Region, ed. W. Haddad (Academy forEducational Development, 2005) 29-33. And with M.Debs and M. Jurdak as co-editors, Dr. Osta publishedthe Arabic-language volume Education andInformation Technology in the Arab Countries. Issuesand Trends (Lebanese Association for EducationalStudies, 2005). Iman Osta contributed three chaptersto this book: “Obstacles hindering the use of ICT ineducation in the Arab countries” (287-311), “ICTs inmathematics education: Studies from developed anddeveloping countries” (357-381), and with R.Majdalani and Melissa Stockman, “The LocalWireless Network: Wireless Campus Project in theLebanese American University” (463-477).

VOL. 7.1 17

March 18-28, Nabelah Haraty organized a writingworkshop with Mary Kay Harrington, Director of theWriting Skills Program at California Polytechnic StateUniversity, San Luis Obispo. Ms. Harrington gave BeirutEnglish instructors a hands-on workshop on "How tomotivate students to write," paid classroom visits andgave the faculty concerned her feedback regardingteaching methods. She also met and discussed with two“Fundamentals of Oral Communication” classes. Theworkshops were attended by LAU English faculty and by12 participants from other institutions in Lebanon. Muchinformation was shared among the participants, andMs. Harrington helped evaluate courses and coursematerial. This successful project was a joint effort byLAU, the US Embassy and the US State Department.

Nuwar Diab participated in the “12th Annual TeacherTraining Workshops” organized by the TeacherTraining Institute with a workshop on “Using PeerEditing to Improving Writing in the LanguageClassroom” (see p. 25).

On April 12, Ray Muawad gave a lecture titled “Beirutas Depicted by a Gentleman of the 14th-15th Centuries:The Account of Saleh Ibn Yahya, Emir of the Gharb,” inIrwin Faculty Lounge (Beirut). From the Middle Agesonwards, the Emirs of the clan Buhtur of the Gharb,originating in Mount Lebanon, were responsible forBeirut’s defence; Saleh Ibn Yahya was one of the lateremirs and his account provides a rare insight into thetradition of a rural clan adapting to life in Beirut. Dr.

Muawad holds a Ph.D. in History and taught at USJ aswell at the Collège de France; she now teaches CulturalStudies at LAU-Beirut.

Kristiaan Aercke’s translation, with critical introduc-tion and notes, of Flemish-Belgian modernist writer Paulvan Ostaijen’s satirical play “Intermission” was the cen-tre-piece of a special issue of the Canadian Journal forNetherlandic Studies (CJNS) 24 (2) 2005. With the pub-lication of this translation, the complete oeuvre of themost important Belgian writer of the first half of the 20th

century is now available in English. The CJNS issueincludes a special introduction by the editor, BasilKingstone (University of Windsor, Ontario) and criticalessays on “Intermission” and van Ostaijen’s work ingeneral.

Jay Gupta‘s article entitled “Freedom of the Void:Hegel and Nietzsche on the Politics of Nihilism –Towards a Critical Understanding of 9/11” was accept-ed for publication in the next issue of Telos: A QuarterlyJournal of Critical Thought.

Nahla Nola Bacha published the article “AcademicVocabulary: A Corpus Analysis Approach” in theInternational Journal of Arabic-English Studies (6) 2005.

Paul Tabar published a paper entitled 'The Cultural andAffective Logic of the Dabke: A study of a Lebanesefolkloric dance in Australia" in the Journal ofIntercultural Studies 26 (1-2) 2005, 139-157.

Humanities

2 3 41

3-4From L to R: K. Seigneurieand Ray Muawad in theIrwin Hall Faculty Lounge,April 12

1Iman Osta presentingher paper in Brazil

2Ketty Sarouphimanswering questions atMEMA Conference


Faisal Abukhzam, in collaboration with MikeLangston (University of Tennessee), reports the fol-lowing items, some of which are part of the work hedid with Nagiza Samatova (OakRidge National Lab).He presented “Fast, Effective Vertex CoverKernelization: A Tale of Two Algorithms'' at the“ACS/IEEE International Conference on ComputerSystems and Applications” in January in Cairo (pub-lished in the Proceedings, with M. A. Langston and W.H. Suters). In March, Dr. Abukhzam was co-author,with N. E. Baldwin and N. F. Samatova, of the paper“On the Relative Efficiency of Maximal CliqueEnumeration Algorithms, with Application to High-Throughput Computational Biology'” at the“International Conference on Research Trends inScience and Technology” which was held at LAU,Beirut (in the Proceedings). In July, Dr. Abukhzampresented a paper at the “International Workshop onAlgorithms and Complexity” in Durham, England:“Linear-Time Algorithms for Problems on PlanarGraphs of Fixed Disk Dimension'” (in the Proceedings,with M. A. Langston). With M. Langston and H.Fernau, he co-authored the paper “AsymptoticallyFaster Algorithms for the Parameterized Face CoverProblem” which H. Fernau presented at the sameDurham conference.

It is also worth mentioning that Dr. Abukhzam wasawarded a grant of $11,550 by the OakRidge NationalLab (ORNL) to conduct research on "Graph-TheoreticalMethods for the Analysis of Biological Data." Thisproject is funded by the US Department of Energy(DOE).

Nashat Mansour co-authored the Arabic Glossary ofDevelopment Terms, published by UN-ESCWA (2004).His contribution focused on information and communi-cation technology terms. More recently, he published(with R. Zeineddine) the article “SQIMSO: Qualityimprovement for small software organizations” in theJournal of Computer Science 1 (3) 2005, 316-22. Dr.

Mansour also served on the scientific committee ofthe “16th IRMA International Conference ManagingModern Organizations with Information Technology”which took place in San Diego, in May.

Nashat Mansour read four papers at conferences inthis period (all in the Proceedings): “Testing web ser-vices” at the “ACS/IEEE International Conference onComputer Systems and Applications” in Cairo(January; with R. Siblini); “Comparison of neural net-works for intrusion detection” at the “Research Trendsin Science and Technology” Conference held at LAU,Beirut in March (with M. Shehab and A. Faour);“White box testing of web applications” at the“International Conference on Information Technology”in Amman in May (with M. Houri); and “Simpleapproach to testing web services based applications”at the “Innovative Internet Community SystemsConference” (LNCS, Springer) in Paris in June (with A.Tarhini and H. Fouchal)

Haidar Harmanani, with Rony Saliba, published “AnEvolutionary Algorithm for the Allocation Problem inHigh-Level Synthesis” in Journal of Circuits, Systemsand Computers 14 (2) 2005. Dr. Harmanani also hadtwo conference papers published in Proceedings,namely “Power-constrained system-on-a-chip testscheduling using a genetic algorithm” (with HassanSalamy) which was presented at the “3rd IEEENortheast Workshop on Circuits and Systems” (NEW-CAS2005) in Quebec (June), and “A hybrid distributedtest generation method using deterministic and genet-ic algorithms” (with Bassem Karablieh) at the “5th IEEEInternational Workshop on System-on-Chip for Real-Time Applications” (IWSOC2005) in Banff, Alberta(July).

With Rony Saliba as second co-author, HaidarHarmanani also published the article “AnEvolutionary Algorithm for the Allocation Problem inHigh-Level Synthesis” in Journal of Circuits, Systems,

Computer Science & Mathematics

VOL. 7.1 19

and Computers” in World Scientific Publishing 14 (2)2005.

Ramzi Haraty had a chapter “TransactionManagement in Multilevel Secure KernelizedDatabase Systems” published in the Encyclopedia ofDatabase Technologies and Applications (Idea GroupPublishing, 2005) as well as the chapter “SecurityIssues in Distributed Transaction Processing Systems”in the Encyclopedia of Information Science andTechnology (Idea Group Publishing, 2005).

In the first half of 2005, Dr. Haraty also published fivejournal papers: “A Comparative Study of ElGamalBased Cryptographic Algorithms” in the Journal ofTheoretical and Applied Computing; “T-Stem – ASuperior Stemmer and Temporal Extractor for ArabicTexts” in the Journal of Digital InformationManagement; “RSA-based Cryptographic Algorithms”in the International Journal of Infonomics; “AbjadHawwaz: An Off-line Arabic Handwriting RecognitionSystem” in the International Journal of Computers andApplications (ACTA/IASTED); and “Indexing ArabicText” in Intelligent Systems, a special issue of theJournal of Computational Methods in Science andEngineering.

Ramzi Haraty participated with papers in 3 interna-tional conferences (published in the Proceedings). InJanuary, he presented two papers at the “ACS/IEEEInternational Conference on Computer Systems andApplications” (AICCSA2005) which was held in Cairo:“Attacking El Gamal Based Cryptographic AlgorithmsUsing Pollard’s Rho Algorithm” and “TREX: A TemporalReference Extractor for Arabic Texts.” In March, heread “Eye2See: A Mobil Surveillance System forPocket PC’s” at the “International Conference onResearch Trends in Science and Technology” organizedat LAU (see page 10). And in July, he presented“Modified RSA in the Domain of Guassian Integers” atthe “14th International Conference on Intelligent and

Adaptive Systems and Software Engineering”(IASSE2005) in Toronto. In addition, Dr. Haraty chairedthe special track on “Database Theory, Technology andApplications” at the “Association of ComputingMachinery Symposium on Applied Computing” whichwas held in Santa Fe (March 13-17), as well as the“Storage World-Middle East” conference, which washeld in Dubai (May 29-31).

May Hamdan read her paper on “Assisting Studentsin Coordinating between Equivalent Definitions: TheCase of Exponential Functions” at the “Joint MathMeetings Conference” which was held in AtlantaJanuary 8. Also, Dr. Hamdan’s paper “RadialDistribution of Zeros of Entire Functions and Sectionsof their Power Series of Entire Functions” (co-authoredwith F. Abukhzam) was published in Comptes RendusMathématiques (27) 2005, 8-13.

Samer Haber participated in the successful “12th

Annual Teacher Training Workshops” organized by theTeacher Training Institute at LAU-Beirut (see page25) by conducting two workshops on “Iteration,Fractals and Chaos: A Workshop of DynamicalActivities” (April 7 and 14). Dr. Haber also presentedthe paper “Taylor Series: From Calculus to NumericalAnalysis” at the “7th International Conference onTechnology in Mathematics Teaching,” which was heldin Bristol, 26-29 July.

In its previous issue 7.2, the Faculty Gazette reportedon the cooperation agreement that was signed recent-ly between the Computer Science andMathematics Division (Byblos) and the PolySTIMLaboratory at the École Polytechnique de Montréal(EPM). In the context of this agreement, LAU studentsNicole Baz and Roula Ghannoum were awarded ashort-time grant by EPM to pursue an Internship inMontréal between July and August. Their project isentitled “Contribution to the Design of an ElectricalStimulator Dedicated to Avoid the Obstructive Apnea.”


Samira Korfali presented a paper entitled“Floodplain soils as storage systems for river metalpollution” at the “International Conference onResearch Trends in Science and Technology” (RTST2005) which was held at LAU-Beirut (March 7-9; see p.10). Because of her known expertise in the field, Dr.Korfali was also invited to serve as reviewer for man-uscripts submitted to the Water ResourcesManagement Journal.

Samira Korfali also read a paper entitled “Speciationof metals in bed sediments and water of QaraaounReservoir, Lebanon” at the “23rd Conference of theSociety for Environmental Geochemistry and Health”at the University of Paisley in Scotland (April 4-6). Inthe context of this conference, Dr. Korfali took part intwo workshops in Scotland. She visited DumbartonCastle to study “geological volcanic formation of the

castle” in order to provide an overview of the geologi-cal and environmental context of the site and views ofthe inner Clyde Estuary that encounter waste dis-charges from nearby industries, and she also visitedBishopton, a now-closed explosives industry sitewhere heavily polluted land is being remediated.

Costantine F. Daher was first co-author, with RitaSlaiby, Najib Haddad, Karim Boustany and George M.Baroody of the paper “Effect of acute and chronicmoderate red or white wine consumption on fastedand postprandial lipemia in the rat,” in the Journal ofEnvironmental Health and Toxicology. Also, Dr. Daher,with Jamil Abou-Khalil and George M. Baroody, co-authored the paper “Effect of acute and chronic grape-fruit, orange and pineapple juice intake on blood lipidprofile in normolipidemic rat,” in the journal MedicalScience Monitor.

Natural Science

1The conference participants, featuring on the first row, Ms. Dana Al Mullahfrom Kuwait, Dr. Imad Abou Jaoude from Lebanon, Mr. Marwan Assaf from

Lebanon, and Mr. Mazen Darwazah from Jordan, and Dr. Josiane Fahed Sreih2

Dr. Joseph Jabbra, President of LAU speaking at the opening ceremony

3A view of the participants, featuring

participants from Saudi Arabia

4Some participants coming from Jordan featuring

from left to right: Dr. Nisreen Shawi, Mr. FirasMalhas, Mr. David Ashhab

5A view of the audience

“Strategic Management for Family Firms in Crisis: Creating System’s Thinking”/ School of Business (p. 24)

VOL. 7.1 21

Ghassan Dibeh was on sabbatical leave this Springsemester. He spent the first part of the sabbatical atthe Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciencesat the University of Cambridge, working on mathemati-cal models in finance and economics. While at theInstitute, he presented a seminar entitled"Nonlinearities and Time Delays in Economic andFinancial Modeling." He also published the paper"Target Zone Dynamics where the fundamental followsa SDE with periodic forcing" in the Institute PreprintSeries (No. NI05009). Dr. Dibeh spent the second partof his sabbatical at the World Institute forDevelopment Economics Research at the UnitedNations University (WIDER-UNU) in Helsinki, where hedid research on postwar Lebanon. A paper followingfrom this research, "The political economy of postwarreconstruction in Lebanon," will appear in theInstitute's research papers series.

Ghassan Dibeh also had two recent journal publica-tions: "Speculative dynamics in a time-delay model ofasset prices" in Physica A: Statistical Mechanics andits Applications 355 (1) 2005, 199-208; and "AKaleckian model of business cycle synchronization" inReview of Political Economy 17 (2) 2005, 253-267.

Salpie Djoundourian presented a paper entitled“Environmental Activism and Industry Response in aDeveloping Country” at the “2005 Annual Meeting ofthe Public Choice Society” which was held in NewOrleans on March 10-13. Dr. Djoundourian also pre-sented a paper entitled “Efficiency Performance ofCommercial Banks in Lebanon” (co-authored withElias Raad) at the ECOMOD-MEEA joint InternationalConference “Economies of Middle East and North

Africa: Past Perspectives and Future Challenges,”which took place at the Free University of Brussels(June 2-4, to be published in the Proceedings).

Dr. Djoundourian reviewed Samir Makdisi’s recentlypublished book The Lessons of Lebanon: TheEconomics of War and Development (2004) in theReview of Middle East Economics and Finance, 3 (1)2005, 87-90. And the study “Determinants of Longevityand Success in Lebanese Family Businesses: AnExploratory Study,” co-authored by SalpieDjoundourian and Josiane Fahed-Sreih, willappear shortly in Family Business Review, which ispublished by the Family Firm Institute.

Josiane Fahed-Sreih presented a paper entitled“Allocating Decision Making Structures during Crisisand Protecting the Family Business” at the conferenceon “Crisis Management and the Reinvestment ofFamily Assets” held at LAU, March 17 (see p. 24). OnApril 15, she presented a paper, “A New GovernanceMechanism: Evidence from Lebanese Family Firms,” atthe “5th IFERA Conference” organized by the IESESchool of Business in Barcelona (published in the on-line Proceedings).

Dr. Fahed-Sreih also authored the article “ChallengesFacing Family Businesses in the Middle East” in theBusiness Journal for Entrepreneurs 5 (1) 2005, 111-123as well as a commentary on the FFI case series “Oops,I almost forgot to mention…” in Families in BusinessMagazine (March/April) 2005, 16-17. Furthermore, Dr.Fahed-Sreih is currently editing the “Family BusinessNewsletter in Lebanon and the Middle East,” a publi-cation of the Institute of Family and

School of Business


Entrepreneurial Business (Byblos).

In January, Rock-Antoine Mehanna was an invitedguest-speaker at the Ph.D. program in FinancialEconomics at the University of New Orleans and at thePh.D. program at Southern University, USA, where hegave seminars and lectures on “Business Strategiesand Policies in the Middle East” and “InternationalCompetitiveness and Business Development inDeveloping Markets.”

Dr. Mehanna recently published the article “Do SunniTrade More than Shi’a? An Empirical Investigation” inThoughts on Economics 14 (3-4) 2004, 21-36. WithHannarong Shamsub, Dr. Mehanna is the co-author of“Interdependence of Fiscal Decentralization andEconomic Development: A Vector AutoregressionAnalysis” in the forthcoming issue of Global Business& Economics Review. It is worth mentioning that hewas recently re-elected Vice- President of the Academyof International Business, Southwest Chapter, USA fora second term and that in March, he was nominatedfor the “2005 Outstanding Educator Award” by theFederation of Business Disciplines, in Dallas.

Michel Soto Chalhoub participated in the “ArabYouth Conference,” which was held on 3-5 June 2005at the Regency Palace Hotel in Adma, Lebanon. Theconference was organized by Lions International andattended by speakers from the USA and the Arabworld. Dr. Chalhoub’s paper was on “LeadershipDevelopment: Youth and the Art of Leading.” He pre-sented a new model based on his latest leadershipresearch, analyzing the relationship between leader-ship and the sources of power and authority, and the

basis of leading without controlling; he included afacilitated session with professionals and studentsfrom various Arab countries on the nature of leader-ship, its concepts, applications, and the potential dif-ferences in perception of leadership across the region.

Michel Soto Chalhoub also addressed a group ofArab industrialists, owners and managers on the sub-ject of “Managing Succession: Passing on the CEO’sBaton,” focusing on the transition from family-owned,family-managed business to a corporate entity withsocial responsibility. The subject was presented in aworkshop in March. Management succession planningand corporate social responsibility, being of utmostimportance to a large number of businesses in theMiddle East, are prerequisites to the sustainablegrowth of the enterprise and the community that sur-rounds it.

Jim Finlay, Mark Neal, Alexandru Catana, and DoinaCatana co-published "The Influence of CulturalBackgrounds on Perceptions of Manager andSubordinate Relationships in Romania, Lebanon andOman: A Preliminary Cross-cultural Investigation, " inRainhart Lang (ed.), The End of Transformation?(Munich, 2005) 181-210.

John McGill won the annual photography contest ofWild Discovery Travel & Tourism. The “Beirut PhotoContest” prizes ceremony took place on February 5 atAUB. All participants’ photos were displayed. Dr.Ghassan Abou Chacra, representing the Minister ofCulture, spoke on the importance of such cultural activ-ities that highlight Lebanon’s rich cultural heritage. Mr.McGill’s prize included tickets to Paris.

1-2Michel Soto Chalhoub,center

1 2

VOL. 7.1 23

Elie Haddad was on sabbatical leave this Springsemester as a visiting scholar at the University ofPennsylvania, where he is doing research on 20th-cen-tury theories of architecture. In February, Dr. Haddadpresented a paper on “Architecture and Politics inLebanon 1950-2000” at the “Savannah Symposium onArchitecture and Regionalism,” Georgia. In March, hewas invited by the MIT/Agha Khan Program, by BallState University and by the University of Pennsylvania(in April) to lecture on “Architecture in Lebanon: FromModernism to Contemporary Trends.”

Elie Haddad recently also had two articles publishedin international journals: “Reconstruire la ville aprèsla guerre civile” in Faces (dated Fall 2004) and“Projects for a Competition: The Souks of Beirut” inUrban Design International (12, dated 2004). His arti-cle “Beirut/Unlimited City” is forthcoming in the 8th

volume of the journal 306090, a theme-issue on thesubject “Autonomous Urbanism.”

Samer Saab published “A Discrete-time StochasticIterative Learning Control Algorithm for a Class ofNonlinear Systems” in Control and IntelligentSystems Journal, 33 (2) 2005, 95-101. Dr. Saab alsopresented the paper “Optimal Selection of theForgetting Matrix into an Iterative Learning ControlAlgorithm” at the “13th IEEE MediterraneanConference on Control and Automation” (MED 2005)which was held June 27-29 in Limassol (in theProceedings). Dr. Saab served as an Associate Editorof IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology(beginning January 2005) as well as for the “13th IEEEMediterranean Conference on Control andAutomation.”

Camille Issa, with Ziad Kmeid, published the article“Advanced Wood Engineering: Gluelam Beams” inthe Journal of Building and Construction Materials 19(2) 2005, 99-106.

The School of Pharmacy proudly announces that its students scored a 100% success rate in the NationalBoard Exam for Pharmacy.

School of Engineering & Architecture

School of Pharmacy

21 3


Flashes from Centers and Institutes

In May, Nashat Mansour under the aegis of theSoftware Institute organized a training session on“Microsoft enterprise security solutions.” This activitywas attended by 27 participants from Lebanese soft-ware development firms.

Also in May, the Institute for Peace and JusticeEducation collaborated with the Lebanon ConflictResolution Network to organize a retreat for 16 LAUstudents from the twin campuses. During the retreat,students developed skills of interpersonal communica-tion and conflict resolution. Student response was verypositive, and a follow-up meeting was held in June.The Deans of Students, Drs. Tarek Na'was and MarsSemaan, coordinated the selection of students and alllogistics of the event.

In July, the Institute for Peace and JusticeEducation organized a 2-day conference to launchTowards a Culture of Peace through Teacher Education,a handbook for workshop facilitators. The handbookwas developed by Irma-Kaarina Ghosn in collabora-tion with a team of local and regional educators. Thedevelopment and production of the handbook, which isavailable in both English and Arabic, was financed by

a grant from the USIP.

Irma-Kaarina Ghosn, Director of the Institute forPeace and Justice Education, was invited by theUnited States Institute of Peace to deliver a day-longworkshop on introducing Peace Education into the uni-versity and school curriculum at Dead Sea, Jordan(July). The audience included professors from five Iraqiuniversities and representatives from the Ministry ofHigher Education.

The Institute of Family and EntrepreneurialBusiness at the School of Business (Byblos) held aworkshop on “Strategic Management for Family Firmsin Crisis: Creating System’s Thinking” on March 16,2005, which was led by Dr. David Pistrui, Professor ofEntrepreneurship and Family Business Management atDe-Paul University, Chicago. The Institute also orga-nized a Conference on “Crisis Management and theReinvestment of Family Assets” on the ByblosCampus, March 16-19. The conference was wellattended, with speakers from Kuwait, Jordan,Switzerland and the USA. And New York-based crisismanagement consultant Gary Brooks led a seminar on“Profit Improvement, Crisis Management and the

2Institute of Family andEntrepreneurial Businessconference on "StrategicManagement for FamilyFirms in Crisis"

1Participants in the 2-dayconference of theInstitute for Peace andJustice Education

4 5 6

VOL. 7.1 25

Reinvestment of Family Assets.” (see p.20)

On May 19-21, the Institute of Family andEntrepreneurial Business (School of Business,Byblos) organized an Arabic-language conference onthe theme of “Women in Business: EncouragingEntrepreneurship.” The conference was sponsored bythe US group “Church Women United” and aimed ateducating women in entrepreneurship and businessethics. Opening words were spoken by Drs. JosianeFahed-Sreih (Director of the Institute), WassimShahin (Dean of the School of Business, Byblos),Leila Nimah (VP for Student Affairs), and Mrs.Andrée Emile Lahoud, First Lady of Lebanon.

The Institute of Family and EntrepreneurialBusiness organized a summer seminar on “Creatingan E-Platform” on the Byblos campus, intended forentrepreneurs who have started businesses and espe-cially in the liberated areas of the South.Transportation was provided to facilitate commutingfrom the South.

The Teacher Training Institute (Director MonaNabhani) organized the “12th Annual Teacher Training

Workshops” in Beirut. The Teacher TrainingInstitute has a history of successful professional inter-action with educators in the Lebanese and regionalcommunities through workshops and conferences. Thisyear’s workshops highlight innovative methods inteaching language arts and mathematics at all gradelevels, introduce differentiated writing instruction forelementary grade levels, and revisit evaluation, coop-erative learning, conflict resolution, and teacher-parentcommunication. These workshops reflect LAU’sstrengths in English and Arabic languages and litera-ture, counseling, dramatics, mathematics and scienceeducation. Teacher-trainers included Rima Bahous,Irma-Kaarina Ghosn, Leila Harmoush, AhmadOueini, Nuwar Diab, Bassam Shakhassir,Kenneth Seigneurie, Mona Shahine, MayAbboud, Paula Habre, Samer Haber, Hiam Zein,Iman Osta, Anita Nassar, Mona Knio, AhmadKabbani, Mona Nabhani and Amira Hachem. Aceremony for distributing certificates of attendancewas held on May 12 in Irwin Hall.

Responding to market needs, the Institute forProfessional Journalists (IPJ) is partnering with dif-ferent international organizations to promote its train-

3-4During the seminar on“Profit Improvement,Crisis Management andthe Reinvestment ofFamily Assets” organizedby the Institute of Familyand EntrepreneurialBusiness at LAU

6A view of the partici-pants at the opening ofthe conference

5From left to right: Dr.Josiane Fahed Sreih,First Lady Mrs. AndréeEmile Lahoud, Dr. LaylaNimah, Dr. WassimShahin


ing services, activities and outreach across the conti-nents. Director Magda Abu-Fadil has addressed sev-eral key media fora, written in diverse publications andpursued sponsors to fund future projects at LAU and on-site.

She delivered a keynote address at "The New ArabMedia & Socio-Political Change in the Arab World"workshop organized in Beirut by the Lebanese Centerfor Policy Studies and Konrad Adenauer Foundation inJune 2005. The speech is available athttp://ipj.lau.edu.lb/outreach/20050601/hazmieh.php.

In May 2005, Abu-Fadil addressed over 400 editors,media executives and leading journalists from 55 coun-tries on "Reporting on the Islamic World" at the“International Press Institute's World Congress & 54th

General Assembly” in Nairobi. The speech's PDF file isavailable athttp://ipj.lau.edu.lb/outreach/20050521/nairobi.php.

IPJ marked World Press Freedom Day in May 2005 byparticipating in UNESCO's "Media & Good Governance"conference in Dakar, Senegal, where Abu-Fadil spokeat the opening session on recent media developmentsin the Middle East and their relation to good gover-nance.http://ipj.lau.edu.lb/outreach/20050503/dakar.php.

Abu-Fadil also wrote an analysis of the Lebanese andArab media's coverage of events following the assassi-

nation of former premier Rafik Hariri for theTransnational Broadcasting Studies Journal's Spring2005 issue. The article is available athttp://www.tbsjournal.com/abufadil.html

She lectured to a capacity crowd at Vienna's PressclubConcordia <http://www.concordia.at/> in April on "TheCedar Revolution: Events in Lebanon and their Effect onDemocracy in the Middle East," at the invitation of theInternational Press Institute<http://www.freemedia.at/>, http://ipj.lau.edu.lb/out-reach/20050411/vienna.php

Experts and students from the Middle East/North Africaregion met to discuss the role of media, women andyouth in a seminar organized by the Olof PalmeInternational Center and the Swedish InternationalDevelopment Cooperation Agency (SIDA) that sets thetone for a wide-ranging development scheme. IPJdirector Abu-Fadil's speech at the event entitled"Media, Women and Youth in the Middle East andNorth Africa" in February 2005 is available athttp://ipj.lau.edu.lb/outreach/20050220/alexandria.php

Abu-Fadil wrote an analysis of events in Lebanon thatwas published in the Cape Town (South Africa) dailyDie Burger March 10, 2005. It was translated intoAfrikaans from English. Abu-Fadil has also made sev-eral appearances in recent months on CNN News, CNNWorld Report, National Public Radio in the U.S.,Australia's ABC radio, and has been interviewed by

1Abu-Fadil with Kenyanfriend

2Abu-Fadil at UNESCOConferece in Dakar

3Abu-Fadil (center 2nd

from Left) at Swedish-sposored seminar inAlexandria

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VOL. 7.1 27

Austrian, German, Danish, French and Lebanese mediaas well as various international cyber outlets to com-ment on Lebanese and Arab affairs.

Mrs. Mona Khalaf, Director of the Institute forWomen’s Studies in the Arab World (IWSAW)attended the 49th session of the “Commission on theStatus of Women” (CSW) that took place in New York,February-March. In the course of the meetings, theBeijing Declaration and the Platform for Action (Beijing+ 10) were appraised. Mrs. Khalaf participated in thehigh-level round-table on “Innovations in institutionalarrangements for promoting gender equality at na-tional level.”

In May, IWSAW staged the exhibit “Veil(s)”, whichaddressed the issue of the veil through a photographicoverview of different parts of the world, a series ofquotations from a wide array of persons belonging to avariety of religious, social, political, educational andcultural backgrounds, as well as many personal testi-monies. The purpose of this, often moving, sometimesdisturbing, but especially: beautiful, exhibit was to pro-mote a better understanding of the veil and to foster aculture of tolerance. Some Cultural Studies facultymembers took their classes to profit from this uniquecollection of photographs and testimonies, followed upwith lively discussion. The same “Veil(s)” exhibit wasdisplayed in the Khan Al-Franj in Saida in June, underthe patronage of Mrs. Bahia Hariri and in cooperationwith the National Society of Saida Festivals. And in

late June, the theme “Veil(s)” was adopted for the 6th

annual IWSAW film festival, in consultancy withBeirut DC. The festival’s program included short filmsby students from universities in Lebanon, a feature filmfrom Iran and documentaries from Iran, Egypt andPakistan.

May 19-20, Mrs. Mona Khalaf, IWSAW Director, par-ticipated in the conference “Women and Human Rights:Conflict, Transformation and Change,” which was heldat the University of Ulster, Northern Ireland, with apaper entitled “The Lebanese Woman in the Post-TaifEra.”

On June 22, a workshop on “Linking Universities andNGOs in the Fight against Child Labor” was held atLAU-Beirut under IWSAW auspices. This project isfunded by the Catholic Relief Service (CRS) and hasbeen conducted by Caritas Lebanon since November2004. The project links NGOs, universities and a gov-ernmental institution: Mouvement social, L’Associationdu foyer de l’enfant libanais (AFEL), the Higher Councilof Childhood in Lebanon, the Lebanese Popular Aid, theLebanese School for Training of Social Workers affiliat-ed with Saint Joseph University, and LAU’s IWSAW.This project is concurrently implemented in Egypt,Jordan, Lebanon and Morocco. The workshop markedthe end of 9 months of co-operation between Lebanon’steam members to identify effective ways of tackling theproblem in Lebanon and to prepare for the regionalmeeting which is scheduled to take place in Cairo.

5Workshop IWSAWagainst child labor

4L-R: President Jabbra,Mona Khalaf, VPAASfeir opening the“Veil(s)” exhibit

6Mona Khalaf andFather Louis Smaha atthe workshop againstchild labor

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3Poster of “Veil(s)”exhibit

1-2Prominent people andvisitors at the open-ing of “Veil(s)”

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the Sta

te of New York

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mag 6-1 section a - lebanese american university

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