All of us who graduated from AUB need to pay it forward
January 18, 2021
“During these tough times, we need to support good institutions in Lebanon like AUB,” explains May Rihani (BA ’68) when she is asked why she recently made a planned gift to AUB. “If we Lebanese graduates don’t help AUB and Lebanon, then who will?”
Rihani has done a lot to help AUB and Lebanon over the years – as an active alumna (she served as president of the AUB Alumni Association of North American from 2004 to 2006) – and through charitable gifts to support AUB priorities including student scholarships. She recently made a bequest to her alma mater to support the Albert and Loreen Rihani Endowed Scholarship, which she established in July 2020. “I was always planning to include AUB in my will, but I felt like it was important that I formalize everything in 2020,” she says.
For Rihani, AUB is “part of the fabric of our family.” Her grandfather (Saleem Schoucair), mother (Loreen Schoucair Rihani), and uncles (Fuad and Wadie Schoucair) all graduated from AUB. She and two of her brothers, Amin and Ramzi, are also AUB graduates. “My father was born in the US and graduated from Columbia University. After he moved back to Lebanon, he married my mother,” says Rihani. “My father too felt this strong connection to AUB. My parents were friends with many AUB professors. We grew up knowing that it was the university we would attend.”
Rihani is grateful that her parents wanted them to attend AUB. “The university contributed so much to who I am,” she says. Looking back, she points to the quality of the education she received as being most important, but it’s not the only thing she values. “AUB was also a crossroads where the Lebanese, Arab, and American/western cultures met,” she remembers. Many of her friends at AUB were Lebanese; others were from Palestine, Iraq, Jordan, Pakistan, and Kenya. Another cherished memory from her time at AUB was “Speaker’s Corner.” “It was a place where any student could stand up and talk about any issue they wanted,” she remembered. “We loved that freedom.”
Rihani says that she is in touch with alumni all the time who are desperate to help Lebanon. “All of us who graduated from AUB need to pay it forward. When you make a bequest to AUB,” she continues, “you support Lebanon, the Arab world, and the next generation.”