Bulletin - American University of Beirut

Students sample NGO’s “civic message”.
West Hall area came alive in the first week of May as NGOs
and community engagement centers conducted donation
drives, bake sales, and a series of presentations for two
days, during the second AUB Volunteering Fair: For a Better
Community.
Held on May 4 and 5 to help civic service groups connect
with the AUB community, the annual volunteer fair was
hosted by the Center for Civic Engagement and Community
Service (CCECS). The fair allows a select number of NGOs
that have collaborated with CCECS and university community
partners to use this popular space on campus to spread
their civic message.
This year’s event gave participants the opportunity to
give half-hour presentations about their organizations followed
by Q&A sessions.
“We also invited two other universities with civic engagement/community
service activities/projects to the fair,
and the USJ (Saint Joseph University) and their Operation
7th Day (Operation 7ème Jour) took part. The idea was to
open venues for cooperation with other universities who
are doing the same thing,” said CCECS Director Mounir
Mabsout.
Outside West Hall where stands were set up, a violinist
played, infusing the area with a peaceful mood.
AUB Volunteering
Fair 2010: For a
Better Community
Passers-by could stop at stands for sweets or to pick
up leaflets and brochures containing information on civic
work. They could also learn the NGOs’ achievements, projects,
and future plans.
“The NGO directors were very happy to be given the opportunity
to inform students about themselves and to know
about the work of other NGOs, which they did through this
fair. They feel they have made contacts for further future
work,” said CCECS project coordinator Olga Majzoub.
NGOs were not the only parties impressed with the
fair; AUB centers too expressed their appreciation for the
event and its organization.
“The fair was very productive. . . providing community
service opportunities for medical students. The good fruits
of this fair are being harvested now: SCORP (Standing
Committee on Refugee Project) has established contact with
Special Olympics NGO and we are going to supply them
with medical students to help the doctors check up on the
participants in the Olympic games. The event will take place
in Saida this Sunday, May 16, and we are all excited about
it!” said National Officer on Human Rights and Peace for
AUB’s Lebanese Medical Students’ International Committee
Khairat Al-Habbal.
Concurrently with the fair, donation drives took place
during the week. Books were collected for free public libraries;
blankets, clothes and utensils as well as money were
collected for Roumieh prison; and money donations were
also made to buy malaria nets for African children.
Students dig out innovative solutions from
household items for this year’s IBDAA
Coinciding with International Biodiversity Day was AUB’s
very own student poster exhibit on May 21, 2010, highlighting
ways that can both preserve biodiversity while finding
solutions to common problems.
Bad smells, fungus, cigarette smoke could be completely
eradicated with household items such as cinnamon,
charcoal, and thyme. Similarly, hair collected
from beauty salons could serve to clean up an oil
spill, and the miswak plant could replace traditional
toothbrushes and toothpaste…
These are just a few examples of the dozens of projects
which more than 300 students from a variety of disciplines
took part in.
Dubbed IBDAA (Arabic for innovation and an acronym
for International Biodiversity Day at AUB), the poster exhibit
is an annual event that has been attracting bigger participation
and a bigger audience each year. Held this year between
West Hall and College Hall and organized by Ibsar, the
Continued
Teaching about nature and helping students appreciate its value.
Nature Conservation Center for Sustainable Futures at AUB,
the exhibition aimed to teach students about nature and
help them appreciate its value by learning “how to perceive
it, how to conserve it, and how to use it sustainably.”
Participants consisted of students from several science
and non-science courses, including chemistry, biology,
Technology in the Classroom
Those who experiment with technology in teaching “are all
pioneers,” Provost Ahmad Dallal told participants at the
Academic Computing Center’s Eighth Faculty Seminar on
Teaching and Learning with Technology. “You are leading
us,” he added, thanking all those going out of their way to
put knowledge of technology into teaching and learning. In
the future, he said, increased emphasis will be placed on
essential classroom technologies. “All universities,” Dallal
said, “are moving in this direction.”
Provost Dallal’s remarks came at the beginning of the
ACC seminar in College Hall on May 26, 2010. AUB is ready,
he insisted, to determine some mechanism for rewarding
technology users for the demanding work involved in inaugurating
technologies in the classroom.
ACC Director Rosangela Silva provided a timeline of the
center’s accomplishments since the last seminar in 2009: a
new web site with a virtual faculty lounge, a jump in course/
section use of Moodle (AUB’s learning management system)
from 3 to 70 percent, a Moodle server for individuals
outside the University (courses offered to National Bank of
Kuwait and Nissan Gulf), introduction of Lime Survey, a free,
user-friendly methodology for students, staff, and faculty to
create surveys on-line; a paper-saving campaign to decrease
unnecessary downloading and printing, and Mahara (expertise
in Arabic), an on-line personal portfolio to be available
at the end of summer.
Several AUB teachers from different disciplines described
their experiences with blended learning, a combination of
face to face (F2F) and on-line teaching: Faculty of Health
Sciences Professor May Massoud, Sara Khaddaj of Electrical
and Computer Engineering, the English Department’s
Zane Sinno, clinical bioethitist Thalia Arawi of the Faculty
environmental health and civil engineering, graphic design,
mythology, English, and ceramics. The artistic contributions
from the ceramics course showed some abstract representations
of environmental destruction. One work of art called
“Nature” consisted of three sculptures; one represented the
heart of nature with stitched-up scars indicating the damage
inflicted on earth by humans.
Other projects also included a microbiology study
carried out at the Jeita Grotto to show signs that the ecological
balance there has been upset. For instance, there
are already traces of E. coli in the caves, probably due to
sewage disposal, and phototrophic bacteria which would
not naturally be found in such a dark environment.
Other students found that adding zero valent iron to
drinking water could neutralize the effects of certain harmful
chemicals that might be present.
Dallal: Teaching with technology experimenters «are all pioneers.»
of Medicine, and Professor Salma Talhouk of Landscape
Design and Ecosystem Management. ACC’s Hossein Hamam
described the first 100 percent on-line course offered at AUB
in spring 2009-10 by engineering management Professor
Walid Nasrallah in conjunction with the ACC.
The teachers shared similar experiences and highlighted
advantages and disadvantages of blended learning
in courses in environmental health, engineering lab, English
for international business, medical ethics, and plant biology.
Almost all found flexibility in time constraints beneficial but
emphasized the enormous amount of time necessary for
vital course redesign. All praised the independence, selfconfidence,
and critical thinking generated in students.
One even suggested that the student produced in a
blended learning course resembles the ideal student described
in the University’s mission statement. Zane Sinno
said, “Blended learning enhances the venues and possibilities
for a collaborative learning environment both between
students and between teacher and student,” creating a
“‘work-in-progress’ atmosphere in and outside the classroom,
making the course more vibrant and the material more
interesting.”
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