Impact Stories

“AUB is part of my heritage,” says Andre Dirlik (BA ’61), noting that his grandfather’s younger brother, Constantine Nehmeh Tabet, his father, Loris, as well as his sister, Claude, were all AUB alumni. It was also at the American University of Beirut that he met his late wife, Raja Ghandour (BA ’60), who passed away on March 4, 2020.

While students at AUB, Andre and Raja spent a lot of time on a particular bench close to Jafet Library. “It is on this bench that we both used to comment on our courses, evaluate our professors, discuss the politics of the day, exchange information about ourselves, and enjoy the magic of the campus grounds,” remembers Dirlik. (A plaque on the bench reads “Andre and Raja courted here, 1958-1961.”) It was also on that bench that they made plans to elope to Canada, which they did in 1961. They settled in Montreal where Andre earned his master’s (1964) and PhD (1971) degrees and Raja did graduate studies in library sciences at McGill University. Andre taught at College Militaire, the youngest Quebec university, and founded its Department of Military and Strategic Studies.

Dirlik has fond memories of “the magic of the campus grounds,” which, he says, one felt as soon as one entered the AUB main gate. He also remembers the wonderful interactions he and Raja had with classmates from around the world. “We were all exposed to each other – and to the ‘AUB way,’” he adds. What is the AUB way? “For me,” Dirlik explains, “AUB paves the way to modernity. It is a place of learning that has been important to all who have become acquainted with it.” Dirlik says that it was at AUB that he was introduced to a different way of thinking in which logic blended with imagination. He also learned to express his thoughts clearly while exploiting the versatility and rhythm of the English language. He says that these abilities helped him to embrace the opportunities that life offered him in Canada.

Memories of the years spent on campus also increased Dirlik’s appreciation of his ancestral identity. “That is what Raja and I discovered when we got to Montreal and so we began experimenting daily with a kind of conscious schizophrenia,” he says. It is so that future generations will have that same opportunity that Dirlik recently established the Andre Dirlik and Raja Ghandour Endowed Scholarship, which benefits women students at AUB. “They will be the mothers of the next generation,” he explains.

“Lest we forget, it was the Anglo-Saxon founders of the Syrian Protestant College who laid the ground in the 1860s for students to enter the new age. Soon, the college, which was renamed AUB, started receiving students from all over Lebanon, the Arab world, and globally thus making the campus a very diverse place. We were fortunate to have been exposed to that atmosphere – as will be those who follow in our footsteps.” Dirlik hopes that young people will do what he and Ghandour did and think about how they want to live their lives. In addition to his gift to support upcoming generations of AUB students, Dirlik has also established the Andre Dirlik and Raja Ghandour Library Fund, in part as a tribute to his late wife who helped to establish the undergraduate library at McGill University and later headed McGill’s prestigious Library of the Institute of Islamic Studies.

“We are deeply grateful to Dr. Andre Dirlik for his extraordinary gift which will enable future generations of students to enjoy the same opportunity that he had – and values so dearly,” said Associate Vice President for Development, Alumni Relations, and University Events Salma Oueida. “His donation is also a wonderful way to celebrate the legacy of his late wife at AUB, which was her alma mater as well.”