3 minute read
The Fourth Founders’ Day Reunion
Our founders would surely have been proud for, again, their “descendants” have held their 4th reunion. This time it was right here at IC.
Four schools from Turkey, Greece and Bulgaria met in May to brainstorm ways to keep our ‘sister’ schools connected.
The founding father of the schools was the American Board Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM), Protestant missionaries who established schools and universities throughout the region in the 1800s.
But the Ottoman Empire’s demise led for a struggle for Turkish selfdetermination and schools were subjected to heavy restrictions. The role of ABCFM and its missionaries dwindled considerably. With the establishment of the Turkish Republic in 1923 and the US depression in 1929, some of the Board’s schools eventually either shut down permanently or relocated to other countries. Some, however, remained.
As the years passed and as they adapted to their new environments, the schools lost touch with one another. In IC’s case, after it accepted an invitation by then AUB President Dr. Bayard Dodge to come to Beirut and take over the Preparatory School, it severed all ties with Turkey. IC became a Lebanese entity completely.
It took 76 years for IC’s sister school, the American Collegiate Institute, to reconnect with IC. In 2012, IC received a surprise letter asking for a reunion in Izmir (Smyrna), Turkey – IC’s original birthplace.
It was a meeting like no other, for IC had brought along some of its students. A special permit allowed them inside IC’s old school grounds – still intact since it shut down in 1934. It had been turned into a NATO army base and great efforts had obviously been taken to keep it as it was. The ten IC students had become the center of attention and even more so when they climbed on to the stage and sang IC’s Alma Mater. It was the same theatrical stage that had witnessed choirs, lectures, performances and prayers. Many onlookers cried.
“You’re back,” had cried one woman.
IC and its sister schools had apparently had many joint activities together. But, out of the 15 schools that were originally established by the Board, only seven schools survive today: International College (Beirut), American Collegiate Institute (Izmir), Anatolia College (Greece), Pierce (The American College of Greece), Tarsus American College, Uskudar American Academy (Turkey) and the American College of Sofia.
It was five of those who met at IC in May – each determined that now they had found each other, they would stay together. A special presentation by guest speaker Dr. Reverend Habib Badr, an American-educated Senior Pastor of the National Evangelical Church of Beirut, traced the roots of
OnCe TOGeTher, ALwAyS TOGeTher
the missionary schools and how they evolved throughout the years.
The one-day meeting consisted of intensive brainstorming sessions to find ways to keep the schools connected. Joint choirs, theatre productions, films, and athletic competitions are in the pipelines. Efforts are currently underway to produce a joint logo and possibly a joint school song.
