As you know, I have stayed in touch with my Christian Brother friends at Bethlehem University ever since we first became acquainted at Christmas when I visited the university, the first established on the West Bank, during my 10-day Christmas visit to Bethlehem. And you know from my Friday column that on that day, June 19 the university graduated 572 young people, bringing to 11,388 the number of students who have graduated since the university opened its doors on October 3, 1973.

Today, I’d like to give you a little of the history of the university and a look at some of its very special students and grads. Throughout the column I am posting photos of last Friday’s graduation ceremony that were sent to me by Elias Halabi, Development and Public Relations Assistant at Bethlehem University. I had written to Bro. Jack Curran to ask if they could arrange for me to have some photos, since I could not be at the ceremony in person. So, thank you Bro. Jack and Elias!

As the web site tells us, Bethlehem University can actually trace its roots to 1893 when the De La Salle Christian Brothers opened schools in Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Jaffa, Nazareth, Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt.

During the historic visit of Pope Paul VI to the Holy Land in 1964, Palestinians expressed their desire to establish a university in their homeland. After consultation and study, and in the midst of the post-1967 war era which resulted in the West Bank and Gaza being under Israeli military occupation, it was in 1972 that the Apostolic Delegate, Archbishop (and later, Cardinal) Pio Laghi, formed a committee of local community leaders and heads of schools in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, to establish an institution of higher learning which would offer a broad and practical university education in arts and sciences to meet the needs of the Palestinian society.

With the support of local educational leaders and the cooperation of the Vatican’s Congregation for Oriental Churches and the De La Salle Christian Brothers and their colleagues who have conducted schools in over 80 countries of the world since 1680, conducting universities in the United States since 1853 and schools in the Middle East since 1893, Bethlehem University officially opened its doors on October 3, 1973, becoming the first university in the West Bank.

The University is located on 8.67 acres of De La Salle Brothers property on Fréres Street at the highest point in the town of Bethlehem. Beginning with 112 students during its first year in 1973, sixty-three students graduated at the first full graduation ceremony in June 1977. The enrollment of the University increased steadily reaching 1,000 in the Fall of 1981, over 2,200 by Fall 2000, and establishing a record high of 2,599 in the Fall 2006 semester. The University expanded its facilities to meet the needs of the growing student body: Library in 1978; Mar Andrea Women's Hostel in 1979; Science Wing in 1980; Social and Cultural Center in 1990; the Institute for Community Partnership in 1991; Bethlehem Hall for the Nursing and Education faculty in 1995; Turathuna: Palestinian Cultural Heritage Center in 2000; and Millennium Hall for the Arts and Business Administration faculty in 2002.

The highly academically qualified and dedicated Palestinian faculty and staff along with their international colleagues of lay men and women, De La Salle Christian Brothers and members of various religious orders of sisters and priests, grew to meet the developing needs of teaching, research, community service and administration at the University. The Education Faculty and the Institute for Hotel Management and Tourism were among the University's first distinctive programs. The Faculties of Arts, Science, Nursing and Business Administration also grew in response to the needs of the community as did the Institute for Community Partnership, offering continuing education and professional development programs.

A story I would love to highlight today, one told to me by Bro. Jack Curran the last time he was in Rome, is that of Raphaela Fischer Mourra, who earned her Bachelor’s degree in English from BU in 2007 and in June of this year completed her Masters in Journalism from Georgetown University with highest honors.

Thanks to the financial support of a generous donor to Bethlehem University, she enrolled in Georgetown University, got her degree and, like other BU graduates before her, she will return to Bethlehem University as a faculty member in August 2009 to help develop a journalism program. Raphaela, who is married with a young child, was recently profiled in a Georgetown University News feature:

”The short memoir Mourra wrote for class was startling. Her father, Harry Fischer, was a German doctor who volunteered to come to Palestine. He became the first Christian killed during the second Intifada that began in 2000. Raphaela, her father, her Palestinian mother and siblings dodged bullets during the most intense fighting and hid in a tiny refuge area. But when some neighbors cried for help after their home was bombed, her father ran out to help them and was hit by a rocket. ‘Harry’ was the last word uttered by my mom before going into complete silence,’ Raphaela wrote for the class. ‘…we understood everything. And everything meant nothing. Nothing was left of him. We became fatherless.” She ends the essay by talking about her father’s funeral, which was attended by more than 10,000 people.”

Bro. Jack suggested the two of us meet when I was in the Washington area twice this past spring but that was not to be. I’ll have to return to Bethlehem to meet Raphaela and perhaps sit in on her journalism class!

There are so many heartwarming stories of grit and determination and dreams at BU and I’d like to bring you one more.

For Marcelle Kuttab Khoury, Friday’s graduation was the culmination of a nearly 20 year journey to pursue her bachelors degree. She began classes at Bethlehem University in 1987. Then the first Intifada began, and Israeli military closed the University for three years. She returned when it reopened in 1990, but the continuing turmoil and life’s circumstances intervened, and Marcelle withdrew almost two years into her four-year Business Administration program.

“But finishing was always something inside me,” Marcelle says in a profile on the university website. “It was my dream.” In the meantime, she worked in the Red Cross during the Intifada and later for World Vision. Already married, she also began raising four children. Despite having a career and family, she felt that, “It’s not enough to work; really, I wanted to complete my degree. … When you lack education, you lack a lot of things in your character.” In addition, she believes that “people pay more attention to your opinions when you have a degree to back them up.”

As her children grew up and began school, Marcelle saw an opportunity to resume her own studies. “When my youngest child entered school,” she remembers, “I said, ‘I want to do something for myself’.” Marcelle doesn’t regret the path her life has taken. “Being a mother and staying at home for a period of time strengthens your character,” she says. It prepared her to be patient, to survive without sleep and to make sacrifices for the things that matter. She also believes her Bethlehem University education is important in her relationship with her children. Being a student herself, she feels a new sense of connection with her children. “I know what my daughter will experience in the University,” she says, “what problems she might face.” She and her chidren share school stories. She says her own studying has improved the level of family interaction. “It is the quality, not the quantity, of time with them that’s important.

And finally, on June 19, 2009, Marcelle realized the dream she began in 1987!

Congratulations to Marcelle! Welcome home, Raphaela!

Write to Joan at:
joansrome@ewtn.com