American University of Beirut – Mediterraneo to officially open this week

The official commencement ceremony of the American University of Beirut– Mediterraneo (AUB Mediterraneo) is due to take place in Paphos on Wednesday, 6 September.

According to the city’s Municipality, the establishment of AUB Mediterraneo is part of the global strategic vision of the American University of Beirut, which was approved in June 2020 by the Board of Trustees and developed over three years with the aim "to ensure future success, relevance and sustainability of AUB over the next decade and beyond."

The official opening ceremony of AUB Mediterraneo will take place at the Paphos Innovation Centre, at 6pm on Wednesday, 6 September.

The event will be attended by the Minister of Education, Sports, and Youth Athena Michaelidou, the President of the Board of Trustees of the American University of Beirut Philip S. Khoury, other members of the Board, the President of AUB Fadlo R. Khuri, the Mayor of Paphos Phedon Phedonos, Ministers and Members of Parliament, the Rector of the American University of Beirut – Mediterraneo Wassim El Hajj, the Deans of AUB Mediterraneo Alain Daou (School of Business), Salah Sadek (School of Engineering) and Malek Tabbal (School of Arts and Sciences) and other guests from Cyprus, Lebanon and the United States.

The students enrolled at AUB Mediterraneo for this year's first academic year were selected from among 500 applications submitted from a wide and diverse group of countries including Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Cyprus, Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Nigeria, Rwanda, Zambia, South Africa, Tanzania, Sudan, Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Thailand.

AUB Mediterraneo begins its operation with five undergraduate and two graduate programmes: Philosophy, Politics and Economics (BA), Psychology (BS), Computer Science (BS), Industrial Engineering (BS), Business Administration (BBA), Business Analytics (MS), and Engineering Management (MS). The university plans to expand its academic programmes and increase its number of students to 2,000 within the next 10 years.

According to a statement from the Municipality, referring to the opening of AUB - Mediterraneo, AUB President Fadlo R. Khuri said, "I am sure that many years from now, when the modern history of the American University of Beirut is written, the extension to Paphos will it is seen as an affirmation of the university's deep humanitarian values and wide range of services and excellence, and even more proof of our commitment to serve the people of Lebanon and the wider Mediterranean as faithfully and effectively as we have for the past 158 years."

It is noted that the American University of Beirut was founded in 1866 and bases its educational philosophy, standards and practices on the liberal American model of higher education. It is a research-based and teaching-focused Higher Academic Institution. It has 780 full-time teaching and research staff and 7,800 students.

The American University of Beirut currently offers more than 120 programmes at both the undergraduate (Bachelor) and graduate (MD and PhD) levels. It has a Medical School and provides medical training to students from across the region at its own Medical Centre, which includes a 365-bed full-service university hospital.

AUB Mediterraneo in Paphos has been approved by the US Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE) as an affiliate campus of the American University of Beirut (AUB).

AUB operates under a Charter granted by the New York State Department of Education (NYSED) which registers the university's degree programmes and has approved AUB Mediterraneo as AUB's sister campus.

All departments and programmes of AUB Mediterraneo are certified by The Cyprus Agency of Quality Assurance and Accreditation in Higher Education (CYQAA) and approved by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Cyprus. By relevant decision of the Council of Ministers, AUB Mediterraneo has also been included as a Cypriot university in the official list of Higher Institutions operating in our country.

(Source: InBusinessNews)