Alumni & Friends
BOLDLY AUB: We did it, but we’re not done yet!
by MainGate Staff
Spring – 2022
The impact of BOLDLY AUB: The Campaign to Lead, Innovate, and Serve can be seen throughout campus: in the thousands of students who are receiving financial support, in expanded student services, in increased funding for student and faculty research, in renovated student residence halls, and in outreach initiatives benefiting our community.
It seems like a lifetime ago that trustees, dignitaries, alumni, and friends gathered at the Charles Hostler Student Center on the AUB campus for the official launch of the BOLDLY AUB fundraising campaign. It was January 16, 2017, the end of a year-long celebration of AUB’s 150th anniversary. In his welcoming remarks that evening, the chairman of the AUB Board of Trustees, Philip S. Khoury spoke eloquently about “AUB’s great legacy and how crucial it is not just to sustain this legacy, but to build on it.” He went on to speak about the three pillars of the BOLDLY AUB campaign: leading, innovating, and serving.
“We lead through knowledge creation, through openness, through diversity, and a commitment to sustainability. We produce thought leaders and community leaders with the passion and drive to effect significant and meaningful change. We innovate with ‘firsts’ in a wide range of disciplines from medicine and engineering to nutrition and the humanities . . . But perhaps most importantly,” he stressed, “we serve. We serve the communities around us near and far through outreach initiatives and regionally relevant research and the exceptional medical care we provide.”
In his speech, President Fadlo R. Khuri spoke about the power of education, which he described as “the single most significant human construct that we have. It is no exaggeration to say,” he continued, “that nothing on earth compares with its power to generate positive changes. In the harshest conditions, it is the best means toward improvement, for individuals and communities.” He went on to describe AUB as “an institution that has always been about relevance, resilience, and impact. Supporting, mentoring, advancing, and nurturing today, and tomorrow’s, best and brightest so that they can change the world. After 30 years have passed, I want all of us still here to be able to look back in the knowledge that we did everything we could to arm these citizens of tomorrow to make sure that there is a better world.”
At the end of his speech, President Khuri declared the BOLDLY AUB campaign “formally open.” The financial goal of the BOLDLY campaign was ambitious: to raise $500 million in five years. President Khuri then made a stunning announcement: alumnus, trustee, business leader, and philanthropist Maroun Semaan and his family had made a gift to
the university to name the Maroun Semaan Faculty of Engineering and Architecture in perpetuity. Khuri then asked Chairman Khoury and the AUB Board of Trustees to increase the goal of the BOLDLY campaign to $650 million, which they did – immediately.
The response of AUB’s Board of Trustees is indicative of its extraordinary support for AUB – and for the BOLDLY AUB campaign. More than 41 percent of the money that has been raised is from trustees and/or their affiliates. As Khoury noted in his message in the 2020 Contributors Report, “Their commitment and dedication to our university is inspiring – and invaluable.”
No one at the Hostler Center on January 16, 2017, or at the BOLDLY AUB campaign launch in New York City on March 16, 2017, could have imagined how timely the BOLDLY campaign would be or the challenges that Lebanon and AUB would face during the next five years – the economic and financial collapse of the country, the pandemic, and the August 4, 2020, explosion in the Beirut port. Through it all, the BOLDLY AUB campaign continued. Some of the priorities changed – from capital projects to student scholarships, assistance for patients seeking care at the medical center, and urgent needs in the community, for example – but the campaign continued. The university was able to respond more quickly and more generously during recent years in part because of the success of the BOLDLY AUB campaign – the $200 million that was added to the endowment, the more than 467 donor-funded scholarships that were established, the money that was raised for the medical center, etc.
Not only did the BOLDLY AUB campaign continue, but it achieved its financial goal – and ahead of schedule: $654 million was raised as of June 2021. (As of January 2022, the original end date for the campaign, AUB has raised $673 million.)
Back in January 2017, the plan had been to end the five-year campaign with a global celebration – and then sit back and take a break. Given the extraordinary challenges in Lebanon and at AUB, the AUB Board of Trustees decided instead to extend the BOLDLY AUB campaign for at least another two years. “President Khuri and the Board of Trustees felt strongly that because of the urgent needs in our community, the campaign needed to continue,” explains Imad B. Baalbaki, vice president for advancement and business development.
The priorities? “Our students, our faculty and staff, our patients, our community,” says Baalbaki. “We launched the BOLDLY AUB campaign so that we can continue to lead, innovate, and serve the people of Lebanon and the region for generations to come,” says President Khuri. “Thanks to our extraordinary global family, that’s what we have been doing. It is what we will continue to do. So much has changed in recent years, but our commitment has not changed. All of us at AUB are humbled by the generosity of our alumni and friends who step up time and time again in support of our abiding mission: to serve the peoples of the Middle East and beyond.”
Impact Numbers
Increase in financial assistance to AUB students: from $55 million in 2015 to $89 million in 2021
Number of donor-funded scholarships established during the BOLDLY campaign: 467
Amount of gifts and pledges for scholarships: $160.5 million ($79 million for current scholarships, $81.5 million for endowed)
Amount of gifts and pledges added to the AUB endowment during the BOLDLY campaign: $204 million ($173 million has already been received)
Amount raised as of January 2022: $673 million as follows:
Academic Priorities: $207 million
Student Diversity & Life on Campus: $198 million
Healthcare Priorities: $235 million
Capital & Infrastructure Priorities: $18 million
Some other facts and figures
• Number of gifts/pledges: 49,922
Number of donors: 20,258
Percentage of first-time donors: 75 percent
Donations received from 85 countries
Top 3 countries in amount of donations: Lebanon, US, UK
Top 3 countries in number of donations: Lebanon, US, UAE