Loading ...AUB gets a $2 million grant from philanthropy giant, the Mellon Foundation
By correspondent T.K. Maloy
BEIRUT – The American University of Beirut announced Monday that it was it was recipient of a “generous grant” of approximately $2 million from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
The grant will be used for the establishment of a “Center for Arts and Humanities.” The university said that this grant is thus far the largest Mellon Foundation commitment to the school’s ongoing goal of becoming a regional leader in the humanities and arts. The university is already well known for its medical school and its engineering departments, among others.
Many students and parents also report that AUB has become a representation of diversity and non-sectarian admission policy, changing the way the new generation of Lebanon and MENA young people communicate with each other without critical comment of religious, political party or ethnic sect, instead making friendships based on the person and not the their sectarian background.
“Given the radical transformations underway in the region, the humanistic role of AUB is more critical than ever,” said AUB Provost Ahmad Dallal, “This new center will provide an alternative Middle Eastern site for the production of humanistic knowledge rooted in local and regional cultures. The Center will occupy a pivotal position in mediating and articulating both inter regional and East-West cultural dialogues in a way inaccessible to similar centers in the U.S or Europe, and will be the natural regional and international partner for collaborative arts and humanities projects.”
According to a university press release. over the next five years, the grant will fund 15 faculty fellowships and 10 postdoctoral fellowships in addition to writers and artists in residence. Also it will help fund “high-profile public arts events, regional collaboration with scholars and universities, and other program activities and exchanges.”
The school’s Arts and Humanities Initiative, “which has been generously supported by the Mellon Foundation since its inception in 2012” will build on the AUB’s regional leadership in liberal arts education.
“As one of the leaders of liberal education in the region, AUB is well positioned to advance creativity and to promote freedom of expression, tolerance, diversity, and dialogue,” said Eugene Tobin, a senior program officer at the Mellon Foundation.
“The decision to establish a Center for the Arts and Humanities reflects the University’s core educational and research mission, and its far-reaching commitment to the region’s societies and their rich cultural legacies,” said AUB President Peter Dorman.
Source: www.marcopolis.net