Looking to the Palestinian Future: Al-Quds Bard Holds Second Commencement
Addressing the graduates and the crowd of family and friends who gathered to celebrate, Dr. Abu Kishik acknowledged the great achievement of the Al-Quds–Bard (AQB) partnership, noting, “We live in one of the most challenging countries in the world in what might be our most trying times. Even in an ideal situation, to accomplish a partnership of this sort one must enjoy great courage, considerable perseverance; one must have the patience to develop new and budding partnerships; and most important, one must have the open-mindedness and foresight to imagine the endless possibilities of such a collaboration as Al-Quds–Bard.” He spoke of deepening the partnership through establishing a future Palestinian center for language and thinking.
President Botstein expressed intentions to expand the teaching of sciences and engineering in the liberal arts program, as well as to offer Arabic to nonnative speakers. To the graduates he said, “This is the most difficult place in the world in which to prove the proposition that language is as powerful as violence, so we all must collaborate to use the power of language to eliminate the violence.”
Valedictorian Luai El Ghoul summed up her academic experience at AQB by saying, “I have learned that if we dedicate ourselves there is virtually no limit to what we can do and achieve. I have learned to be strong and daring when the situation gets rough. And the most important thing I have learned here, is literally how to think.”
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Al-Quds – Bard College holds its second graduation ceremony
Speech of valedictorian Luai El-Goul
Language & Thinking session on the strength of mind and body in creativity
Post Date: 01-28-2015