As I have said before, I had been invited to speak almost everywhere in America: major universities, small colleges, world affairs councils and city clubs – even military and navy academies. The one big exception was, until now: Yale. I was never invited to talk at Yale.
In the last two months I gave a speech at Duke’s in Durham, North Carolina; Gorge Mason’s at Fairfax, Virginia; and finally at the Middle East Institute in Washington. However, yesterday, I headed, to the most prestigious and oldest of all American Universities.
I took the plane to Hartford, Connecticut - and was then driven by car to New Haven where Yale occupies most of the town. This is very similar to the layout of Cambridge and the famous relation between town and gown.
I started my day with a meeting with the Vice President where we discussed possibilities of establishing a partnership between Yale and one of the major Syrian universities, as well as offering some scholarships to students from Syria to come and study at this renowned center of academic excellence.
Following that, I had lunch with a group of academics and administrators from Yale, including Professor Ellen Lust an acclaimed political scientist.
After a fascinating visit to the university’s richly endowed library, the Council on Middle East Studies hosted me at the Macmillan Center for a public speech and a discussion of the Obama vision toward the Middle East. In the evening, I went to dinner with more academics from Yale, most notable among them was Professor Harvey Weiss, an expert archeologist, who has worked in Syria for decades.
Today, I had lunch with a number of academics from Yale at Sam Gejdenson’s fabulous house where I met his art loving wife Betsy. All that happened before taking the train to Boston to attend a meeting at the MIT dedicated to discussing ideas about establishing an innovation center in Syria with the full support of the MIT.
Needless to say, that yesterday, Monday the 4th of May marked Saree’s completion of the second week of his life. It was the first night that I slept away from my new baby.
