In May 2016, the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences at the University of Maryland appointed May Rihani — international pioneer in girls' education, women's rights advocate, and niece of Ameen Rihani — as the new Director of the George and Lisa Zakhem Kahlil Gibran Chair for Values and Peace.
Kahlil Gibran Collective · 7 May 2016
May Rihani — Director, George and Lisa Zakhem Kahlil Gibran Chair for Values and Peace, University of Maryland (2016–2019).
The College of Behavioral and Social Sciences at the University of Maryland appointed May Rihani as the Director of the George and Lisa Zakhem Kahlil Gibran Chair for Values and Peace in May 2016. In this role, Ms. Rihani designed events centred on promoting peace and breaking down the barriers to peace, taught courses on related topics, and produced and promoted scholarship and writing in these areas — continuing and expanding upon the remarkable foundation established by the Chair's founding incumbent, the late Professor Suheil Bushrui.
"As director of the Gibran Chair, I hope to create a deeper understanding of topics affecting the global scene today — examining peace, the role of women, and the pursuit of common ground," Ms. Rihani said at the time of her appointment. "These are themes that the Lebanese poet Kahlil Gibran explored in his works, and they are terribly relevant to our times."
May Rihani is the author of nine books — five in English and three in Arabic, with two additional English books co-edited — as well as numerous articles. Her English works address the issues of girls' education, women's empowerment, and global human development. Her Arabic books are a collection of free-verse poetry focused on love, language, Lebanon, and global common ground. Her memoir, Cultures Without Borders: From Beirut to Washington D.C., chronicles her extraordinary career across four decades of international development work in more than forty countries across the Middle East, Africa, and Asia.
A graduate of the American University of Beirut, Ms. Rihani completed executive courses at Harvard University and MIT. She served as Senior Vice President at FHI360, the Academy for Educational Development, and Creative Associates International, and as co-chair of the United Nations Girls' Education Initiative (UNGEI) between 2008 and 2010. In 2013 she contributed to the CNN docudrama Girl Rising, produced by Ten Times Ten, which aired globally and raised awareness of the challenges facing young women around the world. She served as Gibran Chair Director until her retirement on 31 December 2019.
Ameen Rihani (1876–1940) — Founding Father of Arab-American Literature, and May Rihani's uncle.
May Rihani hails from a family deeply revered in Arab-American literary history. Her uncle, Ameen Rihani (1876–1940) — acclaimed writer, intellectual, and political activist — is widely regarded as the Founding Father of Arab-American literature and one of the most influential Arab thinkers of the twentieth century. His friendship and intellectual partnership with Kahlil Gibran was one of the most significant in either man's life.
Gibran found in the older Rihani a true kindred spirit, describing him as a great poet and addressing him in correspondence as al-mu'allem — "the teacher" — and signing himself "my brother in art and my co-worker in the realm of God's law." It was Rihani who first illustrated Gibran's early Arabic works, and who — by publishing The Book of Khalid in 1911, the first Arab-American novel in English — helped plant the seed from which The Prophet would grow twelve years later.
The George and Lisa Zakhem Kahlil Gibran Chair for Values and Peace was established at the University of Maryland in 2009, designed to explore Kahlil Gibran's life and works and, through them, address the moral and social determinants of public justice and peace. The Chair's founding incumbent, Professor Suheil Bushrui — the world's foremost authority on the works of Kahlil Gibran, and an internationally cherished scholar, author, poet, critic, translator, and advocate for peace — passed away on 2 September 2015. His legacy was well served by the appointment of May Rihani as his successor, and the Gibran Chair continues its work at the University of Maryland. For more information visit gibranchair.umd.edu.
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