As Missiles Strike Home, American University In Beirut’s Suliman School Refuses To Shut Down

When Poets&Quants spoke with Yusuf Sidani last year, the dean of the Suliman Olayan School of Business at the American University of Beirut described a university that had learned to function in extraordinary circumstances.

“We’ve been operating in crisis mode for years,” Sidani said in March 2025, pointing to Lebanon’s financial collapse, the Beirut port explosion, the Covid-19 pandemic, and regional conflict that repeatedly forced the school to improvise ways to keep classes running. 

A year later, the conversation begins with the same question – and the same underlying reality:

Is everyone safe?

A CAMPUS OPERATING UNDER FIRE

“For faculty and staff and students, from what I know, yes,” Sidani tells Poets&Quants Tuesday, March 4 in a conversation from the school’s campus in the Ras Beirut neighborhood of Beirut overlooking the Mediterranean Sea.

But the conflict – a renewal of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah in the wake of the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran – has already left a mark close to home. A former university colleague was killed in an airstrike along with members of her family, he says.

“That was the first shock that we got.”

Yet amid the violence and uncertainty, the Suliman School is doing what it has done through decades of instability – continuing to teach.

“We’ve been there before,” Sidani says. “It’s a kind of déjà vu.”

LEARNING FROM LAST YEAR’S WAR

If there is one lesson the school has absorbed over the past few years, it is the importance of planning for disruption.

Last year, when hostilities intensified in the region, the Suliman School needed several weeks to organize committees and processes to keep classes running.

This time, those mechanisms were ready.

“We already have our academic continuity teams in place,” Sidani says. “We’ve already had the initial meeting.”

That preparation reflects lessons learned from previous crises. In the earlier P&Q interview, Sidani described how the school had developed hybrid teaching systems that allow students to continue their studies even when they are displaced or unable to reach campus. 

Those tools are again proving essential.

Classes can shift online quickly, and faculty are prepared to teach simultaneously to students attending remotely and those able to come to campus.

The goal, Sidani says, is not only academic continuity but also emotional stability.

“Sometimes when people come to campus,” he says, “they can have a different mindset – come to the library, meet friends, be in a different environment.”

For students living under the stress of conflict, that can matter as much as the coursework.

DISPLACEMENT & DISRUPTION

Even with classes continuing online, the war has disrupted the lives of many within the Suliman Olayan School community.

Several faculty members have been forced to leave their homes because of nearby strikes or security risks.

“I know of three faculty members who had to leave their homes,” Sidani says. “They had to go to hotel rooms or friends’ apartments.”

Staff members have also been displaced. One relocated temporarily to Lebanon’s mountain regions, while another was still searching for alternative housing.

The university is working to support those affected, but the disruptions underscore the reality of operating a business school in a conflict zone.

Sidani recalls recently seeing an Associated Press video that captured a commercial jet departing Beirut’s airport as smoke from nearby explosions rose in the background.

For him, the image was an apt metaphor.

“That’s how we operate,” he says.

A REGION AGAIN ON EDGE

The renewed tensions in Lebanon come amid escalating hostilities across the Middle East, with cross-border strikes and retaliatory attacks raising fears of wider conflict. International news organizations including Reuters and the Associated Press have reported airstrikes in Beirut’s southern suburbs and rocket fire across the Israel-Lebanon border, events that have displaced civilians and disrupted daily life in parts of the country.

Despite the uncertainty, Beirut’s international airport continues operating, with flights from Middle East Airlines still departing even as explosions have been visible in the distance – an image that has circulated widely in global media coverage.

For Sidani, that juxtaposition reflects the environment in which the university operates.

“Our campus is in Beirut,” he says. “We hear the bombing. Many of our faculty and staff come from areas affected by it.”

A GLOBAL STUDENT BODY – BUT FEW IRANIAN STUDENTS

Despite its location in a volatile region, the Suliman School remains a global institution. While about 80% of students are Lebanese or of Lebanese origin, roughly 8% to 9% come from abroad. Scholarship programs bring students from across Africa, while others arrive from neighboring countries in the Middle East.

The faculty is similarly international, with professors from Europe, North America, Southeast Asia, and across the Arab world.

But Iranian enrollment today is limited.

“In terms of students, I don’t believe we have Iranian students,” Sidani says. “Very few.”

Historically, the school once enrolled more students from Iran, particularly before the 1980s, reflecting the institution’s long-standing regional reach.

“Our impact cuts across the whole region,” Sidani says.

160 YEARS OF SURVIVING HISTORY

The American University of Beirut has endured nearly every upheaval the region has experienced since the 19th century.

Founded in 1866, the university predates the creation of the Lebanese state.

“We were here when the Ottoman Turks were here,” Sidani says. “When the French mandate came. Our independence was in 1943 – we are older than Lebanese independence.”

The institution continued teaching through Lebanon’s civil war, Syria’s political influence over the country, and the Israeli invasion in 1982.

That history shapes how Sidani views today’s crisis.

“We want to continue,” he says. “This is another phase, another calamity impacting the region.”

EXPANDING IMPACT BEYOND THE CLASSROOM

Sidani became dean six years ago during a period when Lebanon was already grappling with economic collapse and political turmoil.

The experience convinced him that business schools in fragile environments must play a broader role.

“We need to do more than just educating people,” he says. “We need to impact business practice and public policy.”

That vision led to the launch of the school’s Business Practice and Policy Initiative, aimed at connecting academic research with real-world policy challenges.

One outcome is Y-IMPACT, a program designed to train young people to influence public policy through research, policy briefs, and community initiatives.

“Youth are very much in touch with the needs of their communities,” Sidani says. “They have something to tell us.”

LOOKING OUTWARD TO DUBAI

Even as the school manages instability at home, it is expanding abroad.

Just days before the latest escalation, the American University of Beirut announced a new academic and executive hub in Dubai. The Suliman School of Business will be leading with the Executive MBA at the Dubai International Financial Centre.

Dubai, Sidani says, was an obvious choice. The city is a major hub for trade, finance, and business education – and home to a large network of AUB alumni.

“We have a very strong alumni base there,” he says.

The conflict – which has engulfed Dubai and other major centers throughout the Middle East – may slow progress temporarily, he says, but planning continues.

“We’re still working on it,” Sidani says.

‘A FORCE TOWARD PEACE’

For now, the priority is simpler: keeping the school functioning and its community safe.

Sidani says universities and colleagues around the world have reached out to offer support. He hopes higher education can ultimately play a role in helping the region move beyond conflict.

“I really hope that higher education can be a force toward peace,” he says.

For the Suliman School of Business, that means continuing its mission – even under the most difficult circumstances.

“You cannot solve problems with war,” Sidani says. “We need solutions that bring people together.”

And until those solutions arrive, the classrooms of Beirut will remain open – online if necessary, in person when possible – continuing a tradition of education that has survived for nearly 160 years.

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