Professor Joseph Rahme, one of the primary course instructors of the Study Abroad In Lebanon (SAIL) Programme of the Notre Dame University’s (NDU) Benedict XVI Endowed Chair of Religious, Cultural, and Philosophical Studies in collaboration with The Cedars Institute and the Wole Soyinka Foundation, speaks about the programme, its impact, as well as prospects, in this interview. Excerpts:
The genesis of the Study Abroad In Lebanon (SAIL) program is also the beginning of my friendship with Professor Edward Alam [the second major course instructor]. We met accidentally. My niece was a student of Notre Dame University (NDU), and at the time I was a full-time tenured faculty at the University of Michigan, United States. After earning my tenure in Winter 2000, I began to visit Lebanon every summer. So, during that summer in 2000, my niece told me, ‘Uncle, I know this Jesuit priest, Father Martin McDermott, and there’s a party for him. Do you want to come?” I said of course I would.
So, we went to the party in honour of Father McDermott, and while we were there, my niece saw Dr Alam. She knew him because he was her teacher at NDU. She introduced us. Dr Alam, at the time, was the Director of International Relations at NDU. I was Director of the International and Global Studies Program at The University of Michigan—Flint (UM-F), so my position was both academic and administrative. His job was administrative, but he also had an academic position. We met and hit it off well.
I said why not build a relationship between our institutions? Why not set up a study abroad program by bringing American students to Lebanon and have them take a world history course that we would both teach, and we would get both our institutions, NDU and UM-F, involved. It was a grand idea. Next time when Dr.Alam came to the US, I met him, and we brainstormed the idea and agreed on the logistics. He went back to Lebanon, we exchanged emails, then we got the Memorandum of Understanding ready, and the UM-F Provost at the time, Dr. Renata McLaughlin, signed it. That was sometimes in Spring 2001.
By that time, I already got my tenure and was interested in building ties with Lebanon. I travelled again to Lebanon during summer 2001. What happened when I went back to the US? 9/11 happened! We suspended the programme because the University of Michigan is a public university; the flagship university of the state of Michigan.
It’s a research university and gets funding from the federal, and the state of Michigan, governments. As a result of 9/11, the Federal Government issued a warning stating that travel to Lebanon is no longer advised. I think a Lebanese was among the terrorists and they immediately put Lebanon on the list of countries Americans were urged not to travel to. Given that my university followed the policy of the State Department, we couldn’t proceed with the Study Abroad. It was scrapped.
