The end of the Saga: IC’s long journey ends

Imad Taher with his grandson, Imad, at the elementary school inauguration in 2013

The end of the Saga: IC’s long journey ends

On June 11, 2019, a crowd gathered on IC’s Ras Beirut campus to celebrate the inauguration of the new Middle School and Preschool.

Speeches were given. Guests looked awed. Wonderful buildings. Lucky students. They clapped. Among them, sat Board member Imad Taher. He had just delivered an overview of the buildings. He too listened to the speeches and clapped. He looked around the crowd. Very few knew. Very few realized that the evening’s celebration was hardly about bricks and mortar. If only they did know. Taher smiled.

The long saga had come to an end.

It was in 1989 that Taher was asked to join the Board. He was living in Nigeria at the time when the phone rang. It was his sister. “Someone from IC called up asking for you,” she said. “Maybe they want money.”

That someone turned to be IC’s then president, Gerrit Keator. Join the Board and come fundraising with us. Taher accepted. It was his Alma Mater after all. Little did he know back then, that he would end up paying a pivotal role in the survival of IC in the Ras Beirut campus.

IC’s history is an epic story of sorts. A school is established by a Protestant missionary in the cosmopolitan city of Smyrna, Turkey. WWI. Fire. Nationalism. School moved to Beirut. It found another home. Or so IC thought.

But that was where the problem was: it hadn’t.

After it merged with AUB’s Prep School in 1936, IC thrived attracting students from all over the Arab and African world.

But by the 1950s, AUB was beginning to hum and haw. It needed space to expand. Sorry, but we need the campus back. IC must go.

And so in 1956, the two were officially separated by a presidential decree. IC was now an independent entity. The search for a new campus site began.

In 1962, an ideal spot was found: ≈690,000 m2 land in picturesque hills of Meshref, in the Chouf district about 25 km to the south of Beirut which overlooked the sparkling Mediterranean sea.

This was to be IC’s home. Plans went effect. A famous American architect Edward Durell Stone was hired. Stone was making waves in the architectural

world with his use of the “International Style” in his designs. He was noted for his designs of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., the Pepsico World Headquarters, the University at Albany campus and Beirut’s very own Phoenicia Hotel in the city center.

IC was going to become an architectural treasure, thought Taher, who at the time was working at a local architectural firm and got a sneak peek at the blueprints.

On October 21, 1971 the Meshref campus was inaugurated.

The new campus boasted six classroom buildings, a student center building and one dormitory building for boarders for both boys and girls. In addition to three green football fields, three asphalted volleyball courts, three basketball courts and three tennis courts.

“It was 20 times as big as IC campus we have now,” said Taher. “The buildings were grand and sleek.”

And this was only phase I. For now, the Meshref campus will accommodate the secondary school students only. The rest of the student body will move to the new campus as the construction progresses.

By now, IC had been given a soft ultimatum: leave by 1980 - please. IC agreed. It was ample time to finish the Meshref campus. 1975. Turns out that the ideal spot for IC was also the ideal spot for various militias. With a heavy heart, IC vacated Meshref.

It was now effectively back in Ras Beirut. Back to square one.

The school made another attempt to leave in 1978 when it bought the former British Community School in Bshamoun. The new campus was already custom designed for elementary school students and easily accessible from Beirut. For now, elementary school students - who have been attending classes in rented ACS classrooms - could commute. A master plan was drawn up. More students will be transferred to Bshamoun as construction advances. 1980. AUB waited. But IC wasn’t ready yet.

Finally, in a letter to AUB president Dr. Calvin Plimpton Chairman, an obviously frustrated IC Chairman of the Board, John Griswold, wrote that “much has been made of the June 1980 target date for IC’s departure. Due to the above considerations and the more important damaging effect of the war in Lebanon, such a target date becomes meaningless. Furthermore, any other such target date for the future becomes, at this time, equally unrealistic. We are faced with conditions which are totally unpredictable and, therefore, beyond our control. Since 1975, the sheer survival of IC then and now has only been possible through the continued use of the Ras Beirut campus.”

But any hopes of remotely vacating were dashed in 1982 during the Israeli invasion when war jets zoned in on the golden dome which topped Bshmoun’s new swimming pool. It was to be inaugurated that very day. Somehow, IC managed to use the campus for another year but the whole area had become a danger zone.

Students were moved back to Ras Beirut and squeezed in the mostly unlikely places. Emergency classrooms were set up in the library, the cafeteria, ERC offices, and the basement of AUB’s men’s dormitory. Additional classrooms were rented from ACS.

It was at this point that any attempts to move IC to another location basically stopped. A more pressing problem was the elementary school.

As luck would have it, then IC president, Alton Reynolds was approached by the owner of the building which housed the British Embassy at the Cornishe. Would IC be interested in purchasing it?

On December 17 1985, Meshref was sold. The former British embassy was officially purchased. Bshamoun campus was up for sale. 1989 rolled around and Imad Taher joined the Board. “We weren’t thinking anymore ‘will IC survive’?” he said. “We were thinking will Lebanon survive?”

Some members of the Board were advocating moving the school out of Lebanon. In fact some offers of affiliations

bshamoun Campus 1978

“I cannot think of IC in another location. IC belongs where it is now. After 73 years of barely any development on campus, we were finally able to start radically transforming the campus.” – Imad Taher

had already come in. Then IC Chairman Bill Turner refused as did, among others and quite vehemently, Imad Taher.

“IC belongs to Lebanon, to Ras Beirut,” he argued. “Moving IC somewhere else? It will not be IC anymore.”

The 1990 Taif accord ended the war. IC did indeed survive. But, thought Taher, for how long? AUB’s position still had not changed: it wanted its property back.

Perhaps more savvy that the earlier missionary-like board members, the new generation of Trustees made inquiries. The result: there was no official written agreement in 1936 nor was there one in 1956, when the two separated. Taher desperately tried to find some kind of document but to no avail. Finally, he travelled to the US to seek Constantin Zurayk who served as AUB’s Acting President in the 1950s. “We didn’t want a secondary school as part of the university,” Zurayk told Taher. “It wasn’t our job to run a secondary school and we needed the space. Yes, we wanted IC to move out.”

Moreover, he told Taher, AUB even helped out in securing a large loan for the Meshref campus.

Obviously, things didn’t go as planned. The Bshamoun campus itself was sold just after the war. Taher himself initiated the sale. With the construction boom in the area, the location of the Bshamoun campus as a school for IC was no longer ideal. Effectively, IC had nowhere to go.

There was one last - rather feeble - attempt. There was a vacant land just across the Ras Beirut campus for sale. But the school, now under the presidency of Robert Ober and just coming out of the war, didn’t have the funds. The land was soon snapped up by developers.

Now what? Now nothing, said Taher who had become the head of the Building and Grounds Committee. “We are staying where we are,” he said determinately. “Our future is at Ras Beirut. This is where IC started. This is where the IC spirit is and these are the demographics for IC. Ras Beirut represents an intellectual environment around IC and AUB. It represents a mix and a diversity which is part of IC’s missions. The only place we can have this diversity is in Ras beirut. Nowhere else.”

But emotions aside, the legalities of the affiliation were decidedly hazy. What exactly was the status of IC vis-ā-vis AUB?

Certainly not partners and since IC wasn’t paying rent, it wasn’t a customerclient relationship. So were we squatters then? “We had to seek permission for any alterations,” he said. “Let alone our plans to build a gymnasium, an elementary school and other things.”

The answer was always no. It was stifling. AUB obviously was sticking to its plans: we want our campus back. Kindly vacate.

By now it was 1999 and the relations between the administrators of the two institutions had gone a little sour. And so, accompanied by board member Fouad Maalouf, Taher held some ‘mending relationship’ lunches and meetings with AUB administrators. At the same time, Robert Ober met with then AUB president John Waterbury.

Taher and Malouf laid out their case. One, IC refuses to budge. Two, if IC were to vacate, AUB - by law- would have to pay an evacuation fee worth half the value of land. Three, if AUB was to sue, it is highly unlikely that a judge would throw out 2,500 children on the streets. Four, it has been 73 years of an unspoken rent free arrangement - and will mostly likely remain so for the foreseeable future. AUB is getting absolutely nothing out of IC. The way Taher saw it, there was only one solution: sell the campus.

Meanwhile in New York, IC Chairman Bill Turner was holding his own lengthy discussions with AUB’s chairman.

Everything was set on the table. It was now 2001. The ball was thrown in AUB’s court. Will it accept?

IC held its breath. This was it.

Yes. AUB will sell.

Taher couldn’t believe it. Still, many lengthy negotiations, arguments and heated discussions waited ahead. We will sell you the campus, yes, but not the football field. What? balked IC. What’s IC without the football field. Ok. Then we have to approve your master plans. No, argued IC. That is now our business. More discussions. Some escalated. With every argument, Taher’s heart sank. What if AUB leaves the negotiating table? What if the talks fall through? He knew several of AUB’s board members were against the sale to begin with. What if they convinced the others?

The years passed. Finally in 2009 - 10 years after the arduous negotiations began and after a last hectic week working around the clock as Taher and Walid Daouk in Beirut and Turner and Board Member Dick Ward in New York - AUB and IC came to an agreement. Taher signed the agreement on behalf of IC. AUB President Peter Doorman signed on behalf of the university.

The Ras Beirut campus was now the full and legal property of IC.

IC’s saga had ended.

After 73 years in Beirut, International College finally had a home of its own.

It was a miracle, said Taher. “IC was now secure for the first time. It’s a dream come true. As for me, it was an honor to have been able to contribute to this security. This is where I studied and where I graduated. I feel that I have paid back my school.” I n 2009, right after negotiations with AUB ended, IC launched its Campaign for Excellence fundraising efforts. A US architecture firm, Flansburgh Associates, which specializes in designing schools was commissioned to draw up designs for a new elementary school. On November 4, 2010 ground was broken and construction began.

In 2013, the new Elementary School (consisting of two buildings) at the Ras Beirut Campus were inaugurated: The Hisham Ezzat Jaroudi Building and the Talal and Maha Shair Building. As part of the deal with AUB, the former British Embassy was handed over to the university.

Cutting the ribbon was Imad Taher - Board member and the Chair of the buildings and Grounds Committee - who had been overseeing and approving every step of the construction.

In 2019, a new Middle and preschool were completed on the Ras Beirut campus: The Ziadeh Sawwaf Preschool Building and The Mikati Family Middle School Building. Once again, Flansburgh Associates, who had won a US award for their design of the elementary school, drew up the architectural plans.

Main features of the buildings

Elementary, middle and preschool mesh together

Give impression of cheerful environment

Preservation of IC’s 500 year old carob tree with middle and preschool encircling it.

Enlarged classrooms from 42 sq. meters to 65 squ. meter ( in the middle school)

Highly efficient buildings: low e-glasses, motion sensors, light regulators, etc.

Solar panels in the elementary schools and installations for future solar panels in the preschool and middle school

Building roofs, covered by canopies, to be used as playground or open space.

Water efficient water closets. Runoff water from drains are collected in a reservoir to be used for irrigation.

Parking facilities for 109 cars.

All the buildings have received the Leed Gold Certificate (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design).

Future plans

The old preschool building is currently under renovation and will be used as additional space for preschoolers. Future plans include the complete renovations of Sage Hall, Thomson and Rockefeller and the construction of an administration building. One of the buildings will be used for STEAM, arts and culture program while the other two will be dedicated to the secondary school

A master plan has also been drawn up for the Ain Aar campus which include the construction of various facilities.