IC mourns the loss of Ali Ghandour

In Memoriam

A Giant Steps Down: IC mourns the loss of Ali Ghandour

It is with great sadness that we announce the passing away of Ali Ghandour ‘50 on August 29, a longtime friend and generous supporter of IC. Only last November, he proudly watched as IC inaugurated the Ali Ghandour Center for Leadership, Diversity and Civic Engagement - a pioneering initiative that offers full scholarships to selected secondary students from marginalized communities and trains them in civic engagement while simultaneously engaging nonscholarship students in community-based learning.

Funded by the Ghandour family, the Center - a first for schools in the Middle East region - would mark Ghandour’s last philanthropic endeavor before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and the country entered a state of economic and political turbulence. IC is very proud that his very last act was to pave the way to creating much-needed agents of change in the country.

But then Ghandour was always an agent of change himself. He was an activist who believed that he could change the world. The son of a humble tramway conductor and cobbler, Ghandour was born and raised in Beirut. His father, Ismail, would drive the tramway past the IC gate every day. He had one dream: for his son, Ali, to attend the school. And so Ismail worked double shifts, and Ali attended IC.

A brilliant student, Ali went on to earn an Aeronautical engineering degree from New York University (NYU). In 1954, he joined the Lebanese Civil Aviation Authority as Head of Aviation Safety. Two years later, he joined forces with Carlos Arida to establish LIA, Lebanese International Airways, one of the first private airlines in the Arab World. In 1962, politics compelled him to relocate to Jordan, where King Hussein asked the young entrepreneur to establish a new national airline for the kingdom: ALIA, the Royal Jordanian Airlines.

In addition to his philanthropic work, Ghandour was a champion of education in the Arab world. He was a member of the Board of Trustees of AUB since 1979 and chaired the Advisory Board of the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University from 1979 to 1990. He was chairman of the board of the AUB University for Seniors from 2011 to 2016. During the Lebanese civil war, Ghandour forged an arrangement with leading Jordanian universities to offer seats to 220 outstanding Lebanese students under his sponsorship.

Ghandour received many awards including the Grand Cordons of the Order of Al Nahda of Jordan; Grand Decoration of Honor in Silver with Sash for service to the Republic of Austria; Tanda Kehormatan, Indonesia; Commandeur de l’Ordre National du Merite de la Legion d’Honneur, France; Commendatore dell-Ordine Al Merito della Republica Italiana, Italy; the National Order of the Cedars, Lebanon; the 2014 WAAAUB Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award; and the shield of the International College. He was a board member of the Queen Noor Al-Hussein Foundation, the Royal Endowment for Culture and Education, and the Royal Society of Fine Arts. Ghandour always credited IC with shaping his character and was eager to give back to his alma mater. His daughter, Amal, is a longtime member of the school’s Board of Trustees and Chairwoman of the Educational Policy Committee. Ghandour is also survived by his wife Iltaf, and children Asma, Fadi, Raghida, and Iman. Ghandour’s strong and lasting legacy will forever be carried by the generations of the Ali Ghandour Center’s graduates as they return to their communities empowered to make impactful changes. The IC Board of Trustees, administrators, faculty, and staff send their deepest condolences to the Ghandour family.