Adult Education: Lebanese American University: A Century of Presbyterian-related Higher Education in the Middle East

Sunday, September 29, 2024
10:40 – 11:30 a.m.
Classroom 6 and Zoom

Presented by Rima Zaitoon and the Rev. Bob Stoddard

In 1924, two women Presbyterian missionaries founded the American Junior College for Women in Beirut, Lebanon, when higher education for young, Arabic-speaking women was otherwise rare or nonexistent. A century later, that small college has evolved into today’s Lebanese American University (LAU) with over 8,500 women and men seeking to improve themselves and the global community through a uniquely enriching American education. Bob Stoddard and Rima Zaitoon will share that history and discuss the daunting challenges the University faces in keeping that Presbyterian legacy alive in tumultuous Lebanon and ongoing war in the Middle East.

As LAU’s Vice President for Global Advancement, Ms. Rima Zaitoon heads the Development Team in New York and manages LAU’s worldwide Centennial fundraising campaign. A senior-level fundraising professional for more than 20 years, she has served academic institutions in the U.S., the MENA region, and worked with various consulting firms. Ms. Zaitoon holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the American University of Beirut and certificates in Accounting and Economics from the Economics Institute (University of Colorado), Securities, Market Analysis (New York University), and Accounting from the American Institute for Banking.

After retiring as a LAU vice president in 2005, the Reverend Robert Stoddard traced the school’s origin to the first school for girls in the Ottoman Empire founded in 1834 by missionary wife Sarah Huntington Smith. His book, Sarah and Her Sisters: American Missionary Pioneers in Arab Female Education 1834 to 1937, published in 2019, recounts the school’s first century of history from a small Congregationalist grammar school for girls to a Presbyterian American Junior College for women. He has a Bachelor of Arts from the College of Wooster and a Master of Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary. A member of New Castle Presbytery, Bob regularly worships at Westminster.

Zoom link: bit.ly/wpc-adult-ed-zoom

See the Adults page for more adult education and small group opportunities.