Seeing Arabs through an American School: A Beirut Memoir, 1998-2001

International College in Beirut, Lebanon, serving 3500 Arab students from pre-school through high school, is the largest American private school abroad. The author was appointed president in 1998, the first resident American head following Lebanon's 16-year war. In a setting of Isareli air attacks, Hezbollah resistance, Syria's occupation and local sectarianism, the author's mandate was to revive the school's American attributes. The school's lack of control of its main campus, governance by a far- removed board, and allegations that the author was a CIA agent complicated his task. Despite everything, the school is a model for disseminating nonsectarian education in the Arab world.