An American university in Beirut

Not all things American are met with hostility in the Middle East — quite the contrary, actually, when it comes to education. Dr. Joseph G. Jabbra, president of the Lebanese American University, stopped by The Times last week to discuss his Beirut-based school’s role in the region — and how universities that offer a distinctly American education could transform the Middle East.

Tim Cavanaugh: Lebanon is such a strange case. What do you have to be mindful of on the campus these days?

Joseph G. Jabbra: Well, I’ll tell you: As a president of an institution, I’d like very much to keep the institution out of politics, and we have been successful so far. We are for everybody, we are to give the opportunity to everybody, but we are not going to become politicized. People who come and say, “Well, how about John Doe, how about Mary Smith, how about this.” I say, “We have a process.” We, really in the past two and a half years, three years, we institutionalized the institution . . .

If the person you’re talking to me about happens to be the most successful, the most qualified, we’ll welcome them with open arms. And politicians have really responded in a very, very positive way . . . So my major challenge is to keep the university out of politics, and we’ve been successful so far because we don’t take sides, we offer education to anybody who seeks it — good education.

Cavanaugh: Are there any issues around, I mean, is anybody calling women of the college — women either shouldn’t be allowed at the college or they should have to wear a veil at the college?

Jabbra: No, no, none of that.

Cavanaugh: Anything like that?

Jabbra: None of that. You know, it’s really a microcosm of society because you go on campus, and you see students with their western attire and students with their, you know, local indigenous attire sitting together and talking about things and learning about things. So it’s really a fascinating place where people come together from a variety of backgrounds — be they religious, political or what have you — but they come together, to sit down together and to learn together, and that’s a major, major difference that we’re making . . .

Cavanaugh: The university’s background is American, and you’ve mentioned doing some work with [Universite] Saint-Joseph. Are there sort of different American and French approaches to the world . . .?

Jabbra: I’ll tell you what — and because, you know, I studied at Saint-Joseph myself — you know, the French system has been very, very tough and, so to speak, was an elitist system. You know, you swim or you sink on your own.

What really appeals to me — and I’m a product of both systems — the American system, is the ability of the system to give a second chance to people, and that’s very, very important. And that doesn’t take away from the excellence that American higher education has. I speak about this everywhere I go. And to my mind, really, the American higher education as a system, despite its shortcomings, is still the best in the world. I believe so strongly in that.

Cavanaugh: Best in terms of . . . ?

Jabbra: Quality of education that a students gets, the self-confidence that it gives to students, the ability of making sure that students at the college level or at the graduate level feel at home with what they’re doing. They know they have to do the work, but they know they can get all the help they need; it is available to them. They can go meet with their professors any time and go knock on the door and say, “Professor, tell me why you are in this profession . . .”

Cavanaugh: Anything with “American” in its title is thought, at least over here, to have a target attached to it these days . . . How does that play out on the campus?

Jabbra: I think it plays out in a very, very positive way not only on campus, but in Lebanon and in the entire region, because . . . getting an American education is very attractive to people in the region, very much attractive to people in the region.

Cavanaugh: Lebanese all think Americans are dumb.

Jabbra: Well, I’m not sure I would say that. You know, let’s go along with that, you know, although I disagree with it. Nevertheless, nevertheless, and this is something that is really, I think, we Americans don’t pay a lot of attention to: Despite what people say about America, everyone wants to learn English, everyone wants a degree from an American institution. Now explain that . . .

Cavanaugh: Are we going to see a more neo-liberal kind of view coming out of colleges like yours in the future?

Jabbra: You know, it’s very hard to tell; I don’t want to speculate. I think the only thing I can say to you is that we’re going to have more and more people graduating from LAU and [the American University of Beirut] who have a different understanding of, you know, the component elements of society and how society, you know, should really function, and that’s a plus; it’s a plus.

You talk to our students, really, and they talk to you about the responsibility of the government to provide jobs, for example, for the graduates; the responsibility of, you know, citizens; our responsibility toward the environment, for example; our responsibility toward our fellow human beings. Those are, you know, ideas that stem really from the ideals of American higher education, which is very, very important, very important.

And, you know, we tell people, “Look, you know, you come to an American institution, we don’t want to proselytize you. But we are doing is offering you the opportunity to come here to do three things.”

And, you know, I tell students, new students, the first one is, really, to come here and find out who you are, who you are as a human being. Secondly, to find out whose else you are — who do you belong to? Certainly, you know you belong to your parents, but who else do you belong to? And thirdly, you need to be successful at your career, yes, we provide you with that opportunity. But over and above that, what are your responsibilities to the community in which you’re going to live? To the community in which you’re going to work? To the global village?