contents
    Summer 2002,
vol. 44, No. 1/2
 
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President Waterbury address the audience
  John Waterbury Opens Commencement Exercises and Introduces Main Speaker    
  -Graduating students, parents, members of the faculty, your excellencies, colleagues and friends.
     On the occasion of commencement, I have greeted you in the appropriate order of priority. Students: you are the center of this ceremony because of the great and successful efforts you have made over the past few years to reach this moment when you will engage with the real world. That world is not very pretty and, in some ways, not very welcoming. But it is full of promise and potential. I hope AUB has given you the skills to deal with that world, but, more important, you will need the maturity to work patiently, ethically, and steadily to transform it.
     Parents: you have sacrificed for this day. You have supported your children morally and materially, and you can look on with pride as they celebrate their achievements. Without you none of what we celebrate today would have been possible.
      Faculty colleagues: you are the core of this great University. It is your quality and hard work that brings great students to us. We must never forget that you are at the heart of all that we undertake.
      Ladies and gentlemen, it is a great honor and privilege for me to introduce our commencement speaker, Mr. Abdlatif al-Hamad.
      He has been the Director-General and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development since 1985. In this capacity, his efforts have focused primarily on promoting development in Arab countries, mobilizing the productive potential of the Arab people, encouraging scientific research and technological advancement, and establishing		 long-standing partnerships with international development institutions.
      Mr. al-Hamad was Minister of Finance in the government of the State of Kuwait from 1981 to 1983. During that period, he chaired the World Bank and IMF annual meetings. From 1961 to 1981, he was the Director-General of the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development. From here he dedicated himself to mobilizing resources for development in Arab, Asian and African countries, to establishing traditions of efficient and speedy response to projects, and to launching action aiming at increasing economic prosperity and promoting social equity.
      Abdlatif al-Hamad is a trustee and member of the board of directors of several international development organizations, and was chairman of a Task Force on Multilateral Development Banks. He is a member of AUB's International Advisory Council. He is a member of several higher education and research institutions, and has published numerous papers on financial, economic and development problems. He graduated from Claremont McKenna College in California, and did graduate work in International Affairs at Harvard University.
      At a time when our region is afflicted with violence, instability, and destruction, Abdlatif al-Hamad continues his quiet, decades-long work of promoting inter-Arab cooperation and development. Graduating students of AUB, Abdlatif al-Hamad has worked and is working for your future. All of us here owe him a great debt of gratitude. Please join me in welcoming him to our podium.

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