• The American University of Beirut witnessed, on Saturday, May 23, the first women's vocational conference, organized by the University's alumnae under the guidance of the adviser Mrs. Kerr, and attended by some two hundred girl students from all parts of Lebanon and from among the candidates for admission to the University.
The conference's program continued the whole day long, and a group of specialists, women and men, took part in providing the vocational guidance talks. In the morning session there spoke in succession: Mrs. Edvick Jureidini Shayboub, Amin al-Haddad, Professor Stanley Kerr, Miss Mary Maz, Dr. Edith Morse, Dr. George Khayyat, and Dr. Jamal Karam Harfush.
In the afternoon session there spoke Mr. Shukri Shammas, Mrs. Churchill, Miss Nelly Ayoub, Mr. Leslie Leavitt, Dr. Salwa Nassar, and the two artists Marit Charlton and Salwa Rawda Shoucair.
These talks were followed by circles for discussion, inquiry, and the putting of questions. Guidance films were also shown on some of the women's professions. The students took advantage of their presence at the University to become acquainted with its departments, its library, and its museum. Thus this conference, the first of its kind at the University, served its purpose of preparing the stu
dents to gain a comprehensive idea of university life and of the various fields of women's specialization at the American University of Beirut.
• On May 22, on the great athletic field of the American University of Beirut, the third annual folk-dance festival was held. The aim of these festivals is to revive and encourage folk dancing and folk music in school circles.
A number of schoolgirls and schoolboys took part in presenting the various dances; each school dressed its pupils uniformly, and the result was a model of sound taste.
While we praise the commendable efforts made by the women and men in charge of this popular artistic festival, headed by Mrs. Wallace, we cannot but call their attention to the necessity of confining these efforts to school pupils alone. The traditional "dabkeh" dance, which we cherish and greatly desire to keep in its perfection, came off poorly, because it was entrusted to a strange group of grown-ups who improvised it at the last minute;
The committee that was to consider the artistic and literary competition was on the point of issuing its results to the readers, men and women, when a number of new drawings reached the administration, opening the door anew. We therefore announce, to whom it may concern, our final resolve that the coming issue shall contain the new drawings together with the result of the competition.
we would have preferred that a team of our own pupils perform it and give it its due of precision and good presentation.
The Young Women's Charitable Association held, on the stage of the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts at Beit Chabab, on Sunday, May 24, 1953, a ceremony of speeches on the occasion of the first anniversary of its founding, under the patronage of Her Ladyship Mrs. Zalfa Chamoun. There spoke at this ceremony His Grace the pastor of the diocese, Bishop Francis Ayoub, praising the works of the association; then Dr. Touma Assaf, physician of the association's dispensary, setting forth the works of the dispensary and the noble services it renders the town; then woman's greatest champion, Mr. Jirji Niqula Baz, and the Reverend Chorbishop Youssef al-Hayek, and the president of the association, Mrs. Matilda Shaoul al-Hayek; and finally the deputy of the Metn, Mr. Michel Doumit, who paid fragrant tribute to the sons of the town of Beit Chabab and their activity in the various fields of learning and industry. All the speakers earned the audience's thanks and its appreciation for the champions of charitable works.
May God take by the hand those who carry on the association's works, that it may continue with firm step toward its ideal aims, with success and good fortune as its allies in its humane and social mission.
• On the occasion of the anniversary of the birth of Henri Dunant, founder of the international Red Cross, the Lebanese Red Cross society held on the eighth of this May, as is its custom every year, a distribution ceremony for needy Lebanese families, whose number reached one thousand; each family received a portion of bread, eggs, sweets, and other things.
The distribution took place at the office of the Lebanese Red Cross in the presence of Madame Kabira