Founders Day in Beirut…

I had the honor and pleasure of serving on this year’s faculty selection committee for the Founders Day student essay contest at the American University of Beirut. Students were invited to write about a time when they learned something important from an unexpected source. At today’s Founders Day ceremony, first-prize winner Majd Salim Nassan read his essay, “Never Forget Passion” (about being a Syrian student adrift in Beirut), and Dr. Marwan Muasher, former foreign minister of Jordan and current vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, delivered his keynote address on the importance of diversity, pluralism, and liberal arts education in creating social change and stability in the Middle East. “There is no reason why AUB cannot serve as a collective Mandela, Gandhi, or King,” he said.