March 2 was the launching date for the new program in Tourism Management developed at an MBA level with Institut Universitaire Kurt Bosch in Switzerland and New York College in Greece. The launch was made through a dinner at Le Royal hotel under the patronage of the Minister of Tourism, Mr Jo Sarkis. Over 150 professionals from the tourism industry including the sectors of hotels, restaurants, travel agencies, airlines, attractions, festivals as well as media representatives attended the dinner. The President of New York College, Elias Foutsis, the Director of Continuing Education at IUKB, Jean-Pierre Rausis, the charge d’affaires at the Greek embassy and a representative of he Swiss ambassador also attended.

Several addresses were delivered. AUT President Ghada Hinain insisted on the necessity to start a serious and long-term cooperation between the university, the Ministry of Tourism and the industry so the revival in tourism is covered from all aspects. She insisted on the factor of pride behind every initiative aimed at promoting tourism and asked all professionals involved in this sector to remain proud of Lebanon.

Rausis pointed at the important role of Lebanon in the area and expressed confidence that the EMBA program is bound to be successful as it has been in Athens, Thessaloniki, Prague, Tirana and Skopje.

The address of the Minister of Tourism was delivered by Antoine Issa El Khoury, head of the Hotel section at the Ministry. He said that hopes in the recovery of Lebanon are high and that all efforts should be deployed for that objective, praising AUT for such an initiative. He believes the teaming up of Switzerland, Greece and Lebanon in an academic endeavor to serve the tourism sector is bound for success. “It is, sure”, he said, “that the Lebanese will benefit greatly from the expertise brought to them via this program”.

The dinner allowed for a detailed explanation of the program by director of graduate studies at AUT, Jean-Claude Abi Saab assisted by the head of hospitality studies at New York College, Nikos Mistriotis. The program, he said, is a 15-month program taught by local and foreign faculty at Le Royal hotel. Three of the seven modules will be taught twice a week over 8 weeks each and the remaining four will be taught through intensive 4 day-residencies by faculty coming from Switzerland, the US, France and Greece. Details on each module were given by both academicians and brochures were handed to all.

The dinner was also the occasion to watch a performance of techno dabke by Rajana Veda Dance Group and to recognize the great singer Wadih Safi for his life-time achievements and to pay tribute to Nouhad Damous, the former director of Dekwaneh Hotel School.

 

 

AUT President Ghada Hinain was the recipient of an award for excellence granted to AUT by Amity Business School in New Delhi on February 23, 2007. The award was presented at the conclusion of the 9th international business summit and research paper conference, whose theme for this year was Harnessing Happiness for Global Economic Growth Through Innovation, Competitiveness & Transformations. 

The Summit was attended by over 160 universities, educational agencies and bodies, and business/media organizations from the Far East, Europe, the Middle East, Australia, and the US.  88 papers and 5 panel discussions took place from February 21 to 23 and most of the attendees in this conference were Chancellors, Vice and Pro Chancellors, Presidents, and Vice Presidents of universities and colleges, Directors of institutes and centers as well as CEO’s/Managing Directors/owners of business and media organizations. 

AUT was one of four universities from around the world to be recognized by Amity Business School, a private multi campus university that has over 46000 students and  well recognized and written about in international business magazines.  

AUT President had a chance to meet with the Chancellor, Dr. Atul Chauhan and with Dr. Raj Singh (pro-vice chancellor), Dr. R.K. Dhawan, Senior Vice-President for international Affairs, Arun Sacher, General Manager for industry interaction consulting, and other senior staff at the university. Collaboration in research and education between AUT and Amity was at the center of the discussions. 

The award comes as the culmination of efforts by AUT to create a significant change in the teaching community in Lebanon and the Arab world by adopting active learning, moving to application-based curricula and by being active in disseminating the human rights culture in the Arab world

 

 

Students of Fundamentals of Design II  presented the works they have done for the project undertaken with the Municipality of Byblos to render the walls of the City more beautiful. Head of Byblos Municipal Council, Gino Kallab  attended the presentations held at AUT Crystal Room on February 8 to select the designs to be implemented in the first phase along the Byblos Club walls downtown Byblos. Both he and the Municipality engineer, Zaher Abi Ghosn expressed admiration for the students work and it was decided that the Municipal Council will select 7 out of the 16 projects and that the students will supervise the work themselves.

Another Arts students presentation took place on February 12 as of 2 pm at AUT Crystal Room. This showed the senior projects of Graphic Design students enrolled in the State University of New York program. The presentations were taped by AUT’s Audio-Visual arts students and sent to New York for review by SUNY instructors.