The Daily Star, Lebanon
June 28 2004
AUB celebrates 135th commencement
More than 1,400 students receive their degrees
By Rana Wehbe
Special to The Daily Star
BEIRUT: The American University of Beirut held its 135th annual
graduation commencement Saturday evening at its Beirut campus, as
1,456 students were given their degrees.
For the second year in a row, the commencement exercises were split
into a main ceremony, in which AUB President JohnWaterbury awarded
the degrees, followed by individual ceremonies for each faculty where
the diplomas were distributed by the respective deans.
The main ceremony began at 6.30pm with the candidates’ procession to
the AUB green field. Waterbury then addressed the audience, which
included representatives of President Emile Lahoud, Speaker Nabih
Berri and Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, and in addition to several
ministers and MPs, university trustee council members, and parents
and friends of the graduates.
In his speech, read first in Arabic and then in English, Waterbury
expressed sorrow that this year’s ceremony took place in “a
background of violence and destruction,” and that, this year, as in
past years, the university “releases its graduates into a regional
and international minefield.”
He said he hoped the graduates would “succeed in what the previous
generations have failed to do; that is, changing the game in which we
have all become the losers.”
At the end of his speech, Waterbury introduced AUB honorary doctorate
holder and ceremony speaker Vartan Gregorian as a man who had
succeeded in building a tremendous life from the land of Lebanon.
For his part, Gregorian addressed the audience by sketching out his
own life.
Lebanon, as he described it, is not only a land of opportunities, but
also “a land of diversity, tolerance, and freedom of speech and
thought.”
The last word was reserved for the vice-president of the University
Student-Faculty Council, Hassan Mohanna, who spoke on behalf of the
graduates.
He described studying at AUB as “the greatest chance that Lebanese
youths could get to coexist and communicate with youth from the
region and all over the world.”