New York’s Alumni will give AUB a cancer center, other valuable contributions

December 2003

NEW YORK -- They came from across the US, Lebanon and beyond. Some traveled thousands of miles, others a couple of hundred, a fortunate few just a few blocks. But far or near, they all came with one primary objective: to celebrate their Alma Mater, the American University of Beirut.

Organized by AUB’s Alumni Association of North America, the 11th national convention held in midtown Manhattan on the weekend brought together hundreds of alumni, friends, faculty, the AUB’s top brass – from the administration and Board of Trustees - and Lebanese, Arab and international experts to participate in panel discussions and less formal exchanges of ideas.

The guest list for the convention, which was entitled “Shaping the Middle East: The Impact of AUB,” was a virtual who’s who in AUB’s past and present. From David Dodge, the great grandson of founder Daniel Bliss, and Ann Kerr, a Board of Trustee member and the widow of slain president Malcom Kerr to doctors, businessmen, leaders and academics from across the US and Canada, all reminisced about their memorable days in Beirut in general, and on the magnificent AUB campus in particular.

“It’s an opportunity for alumni who care about AUB to come together, reunite, hear about their Alma Mater, celebrate their association and loyalty, and hear about what’s going on,” said AUB vice-president for development and external affairs, W. Stephen Jeffrey. “That’s what it’s all about.”

It was, apparently, also an occasion to give back to Lebanon and AUB, even from non-alumni. On the sidelines of the convention, the Naef K. Basile Foundation pledged to donate to AUB the funds necessary to establish a cancer center for adults.

Named after Naef Basile, a New York-based medical doctor who never attended AUB, but who, since the early 1970s, began putting money aside – and convinced others to do the same - with the intention of one day giving back to his country of origin.

Although Basile died in 1995, before his death he realized that a comprehensive cancer center was what Beirut most needed. His family subsequently established the foundation and pledged to fulfill his dream.

“My dad always did a lot for Lebanon,” said his daughter Theresa Basile, who was born and raised in the US and is a member of the board of the foundation. “And my mom, who is president of the foundation (and who is American) wants very much for this to happen.”

The foundation will donate an initial $2.7 million for the renovation of floors for both in and out patient facilities and equipment, and an additional $3 million when the center opens for the provision and access of cancer treatment to patients who might otherwise not be able to afford the care.

For those attending the three-day event, such announcements were a welcome note of support to an institution they had gathered to commemorate.

Fundraising, after all, was a major objective of the convention, along with reuniting with fellow alumni and discussing current events, said Wael Chehab, the head of the alumni association’s New York metropolitan chapter and the convention chair.

For Chehab, hosting the event was also a way of welcoming the AANA back home, to where it originated informally in 1925 “when a group of 25 alumni met in Brooklyn to reconnect to their Alma Mater.”

And those “important current issues” made up the breadth of subjects covered, albeit tersely, in such a brief time: medical health sciences, engineering, traditions and innovations in the humanities and arts, politics and social change, and business and financial trends.

The marathon list of events was equally dizzying, in keeping with the hurried pace of New York city, from simultaneous receptions on Friday night and simultaneous breakfasts Saturday morning followed by a day of panel discussions punctuated with a luncheon and keynote speech by Rima Khalaf Hunaidi, the assistant Secretary-General and the Director of the Regional Bureau for Arab States at the United Nations Development Program, and culminating with Saturday night’s gala dinner featuring presentations to honorees and speaker Ambassador Edward Djerejian, the director of the James A. Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University. – Courtesy of The Daily Star