American University of Beruit

It's good to be back in Beruit!  One of my favorite parts of the city is the American University of Beruit (AUB) campus. Last Friday we got a tour from an AUB student, Toufic.  The AUB campus is 69 acres on the Mediterranean, and is home to over 100 types of plants, not to mention, it is a cat sanctuary!


 

A Lantana Flower
(Thank you Mikey, the Ornamental Horticulture and Landscape Design grad, for telling me what this is.)



 

The Wall and Trees around 3 sides of AUB
(the Mediterraean is on the 4th)

A special vetranerian lives on campus and attends to the health of the cats. If you are caught hurting a cat you will get in trouble, and can even be expelled.
 

One AUB Family

AUB is know for it's beautiful (astroturf) soccer field,  complete with a clay running track around the outside. 

The AUB Soccer Field on the Med

Students' least favorite part of the campus is the unending amount of stairs between Upper and Lower Campus.  When Toufic was taking us to see them he said, "Now I'm going to show you something that proves the devil exists."  We were all wondering what on earth he could be talking about... a weird stone?  a weird animal?  Nope.  A staircase that spans a whole mountainside, one that some students have to walk up and down multiple times a day.  There are 105 steps, and every year the candidates for Student Body President promise to put in an elevator.  Toufic says it's practically an AUB tradition for the Presidential candidates to promise to do something about the stairs and then never do it.



The Devil's Stairs

  AUB was founded by Christian Missionaries 145 years ago.  The Main Gate has part of a verse, John 10:10, inscribed in both English and Arabic.   


The AUB Main Gate



The English Inscription on Main Gate

AUB ranked as one of the top 350 universities in the world and as the 7th best in Africa and the Middle East.  AUB gradutates become leaders and businessmen all over the world, making it not only a beautiful campus but an influential one.