President's message

Dear Colleagues,

I wish to take this opportunity to extend my gratitude to the entire University community, faculty, students, staff, and administrators, for readily willing to participate in the challenging accreditation exercise in which LAU is currently engaged. My sincere thanks also go to the members of the Accreditation Steering Committee and sub-committees for agreeing to lead and coordinate our accreditation efforts. We are involved in a very exciting, rewarding, and historic process. It is exciting because it gives all of us the opportunity to participate in an endeavor that will, I am certain, take LAU to the next level of excellence. It is rewarding, because it will, I am confident, culminate in an unprecedented sense of achievement, and it is historic because our success will, I am convinced, be a milestone in the ascending evolution of LAU.

Our success in obtaining accreditation for our institution will depend on many factors: full understanding of the accreditation STANDARDS; profound grasp of our mission and our vision as an institution of higher education, and how mission and vision inform everything we do; deep comprehension of our new strategic plan upon which rests a great deal of the accreditation exercise; conscientious gathering and meticulous analysis of relevant data; honesty in presenting ourselves, our academic and co curricular programs, recruitment, retention (advising and financial aid are big part of it), and graduation of students, evaluation of students' learning outcome, governance, allocation of resources and outcome, our finances, and our administrative procedures, processes, and rules.

The mandate of the Accreditation Steering Committee is to weave together , after thorough engagement of, and meticulous consultation with, the LAU community, all of the above in a well thought out self study which will point to our strengths, our weaknesses, and our plans and actions to become a stronger institution. I have faith in all of you and in your ability to take up the challenge, and add accreditation as another most valuable diamond to the LAU crown. I salute you all and thank you in advance for your hard work and commitment .

Joseph G. Jabbra