End of Academic Year Message
Dear LAU Community,
I thought it appropriate and necessary to share some uplifting developments with you as AY 2022 - 2023 draws to a close.
All the developments I will be sharing with you came to fruition as a result of your hard work and deep commitment. Let me say it at the onset: The credit is yours but the benefits, go so much farther. The ultimate beneficiaries are our students and our patients. They are the reason we are here and will always be.
We end AY 2022 - 2023 on a healthy note with our business model well on its way to recovery after the bold decision that we made to shift our tuition base to dollars. Gone is the nightmare of multiple currency rates, and the duality of having receivables in one currency and payables in another. We were the first university in Lebanon to do this, and the first to reap its benefits mainly in terms of stability and sustainability. No less significant a benefit is our ability to integrate much easier into the international academic and professional scene.
I am grateful to you all for your support which enabled us, inter-alia, to do justice to our people through a more equitable compensation scheme. You deserve no less and hopefully more. Efforts are underway in that direction. This is but one part of a broader talent management strategy we will be implementing.
Academic year 2022 - 2023 also marked two very successful fundraising events, New York in September 2022, and Beirut in March 2023. Between the two we raised upwards of $1.8 million that were split between financial aid and cancer patients support.
Our drive to break out of Lebanon in pursuit of “LAU without Borders” policy is closer than ever to realization. Our efforts to start satellite campuses in the MENA region and in NY city are well underway. What is important is that this is being pursued in order to strengthen and enhance our presence in Lebanon. Stated differently, we are going abroad in order to become stronger at home. We will become stronger academically, financially, and as healthcare providers.
This past academic year also saw LAU score two significant firsts for the country: An industrial Hub on the Byblos campus, and activating the Makhzoumi Center on the Beirut campus. Add to this, our Bio-Equivalence Center which is on an accelerated path and promises to be a game-changer for the Lebanese Pharma industry. The LAU consultancy group in the making is another fruit of our toil this past year. AY 2022 - 2023 can best be described as the year when we laid the foundation to the LAU of the future.
Speaking of the pharma industry naturally leads to another major achievement of LAU during the past academic year. We are now major players in the healthcare industry with two major hospitals and a network of campus clinics. All are integrated within “LAU Health” which is a new concept whose time has come. We are now at the forefront of the healthcare delivery sector and the best is yet to come.
This speedy account of AY 2022 - 2023 will be incomplete without highlighting developments in our academic division. We now have the country’s first two online graduate programs with a global reach. We successfully replenished our faculty and physician ranks, new capacity building efforts are underway in policy analysis, and the NY center is turning itself into a micro campus. A network of links to regional universities is taking shape, and the effort to renew our NECHE accreditation is afoot.
The scorecard for AY 2022 - 2023, also includes several innovations conceived during the year and are now being prepared for implementation. The list includes an LAU Leadership Program, a Healthcare Provider Management Program, a Sustainability Office, a Center for Public Good, and an Office for Professional Ethics and Standards. I will be sharing information about these programs with you in a separate message.
AY 2022 - 2023 will also be remembered as the year when LAU irreversibly leaped into a path towards global visibility as evidenced by international rankings. This is only the beginning of a course that will see us rubbing shoulders with major league comprehensive universities anywhere in the world.
AY 2022 - 2023 will live on in the annals of LAU as the year when we collectively made a bold decision to put the crisis years behind, turn the page, and surge on towards a future on par with our ambition and commensurate with our aspirations. We mastered the will, galvanized the resolve, and determined to host the future. We stand united, work together, and push as one team in the direction of making LAU a sustainably great university.
The next AY 2023-2024 will see most of the achievements listed here bear more fruit, start creating the desired impact, and trigger the strategic transformation they are meant to effect.
Thank you for all that you do, and much appreciation for the Herculean effort you make. I am so proud of you. Together we will prevail.
Michel E. Mawad, M.D.
President