From the Editor – Fall 2020/Winter 2021

Dear MainGate readers,

Campus looked surprisingly unruffled on my first return 10 days after August 4. Traces remained of a massive cleanup. Lower campus—OSB, Hostler, and the Irani Oxy Engineering Complex—had borne the brunt of the pressure wave, along with the Medical Center. The glass-and-steel ACC looked, well . . . like a bombsite. Upper campus damage was subtler, but equally affecting. The wave had barreled along Bliss Street, splintering solid doors at my Old Pharmacy office, and at the Museum, where a showcase of priceless glassware lay in smithereens on the marble floor. Why did it have to be the glass? Mercifully, there was no other casualty among AUB’s renowned archeological collection.

More symbolic, being an authentic emblem of our university, was the stained-glass oculus of the south transept rose window in Assembly Hall, sucked out by the blast wave. For 99 days, it left a perfect, airy circle that transformed the former chapel’s daytime ambience with a dazzling shaft of unfiltered sunlight. Our cover photograph shows the brand-new oculus, gifted by a generous benefactor, waiting to be installed on November 11. A moment of restoration, but also reflection on how Beirut, and its American University, was once again being tested in ways few other cities, or institutions, are ever tested.

Like the natural lighting that bathed AUB’s 154th Opening Ceremony in September (pre-recorded, because of COVID-19), we were heartened by the many ways in which our community came together after the catastrophe of the Port Explosion. We dedicate this edition of MainGate to all of those who stepped in, the doctors and nurses, teachers, mental health professionals, artists, engineers and architects, food specialists, businesspeople, students, and many others. They stepped in where Lebanon’s failed government should have been. First by grabbing brooms and rubble sacks, then by staying for the long haul to help their devastated neighbors and all of society on the road to recovery.

As MainGate magazine, and our e-newsletters: President’s Perspective and AUB@Work evolve in response to these changing times, we would like to hear from you. Please let us know what you think. A print magazine or a digital magazine? Story ideas or comments? Please send your thoughts to maingate@aub.edu.lb with the subject line, “MainGate Suggestions.”

With hope for a better year ahead,
Martin Asser, Executive Editor