NEWS

Doha, QATAR – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar (SFSQ) held an Alumni Suhoor at the W hotel tent last Thursday to kick off the university’s 2011 alumni programming.  The event brought together 50 Georgetown alumni from both the Qatar and Washington DC campuses, with current SFSQ professors also in attendance.

"It is wonderful to be able to bring our alumni community together to celebrate Ramadan. One of the things we are discussing tonight is how we can continue these gatherings throughout the year," commented Charles Nailen, Executive Officer for Outreach & External Relations at Georgetown University in Qatar.

The Alumni Suhoor is the first in a series of alumni-oriented events planned for the upcoming academic year, and marks the beginnings of a local alumni club for Georgetown. 

“As our alumni community continues to grow,We are currently working to formalize the creation of a club here in Qatar, so that we can hold more events like this and other special lectures for our alumni members,” added Nailen.

“Having an Alumni Suhoor is an excellent way to reconnect with former classmates. In the communal spirit of Ramadan, we get to share again that sense of community we had on a daily basis as students,” said Basil Mahfouz, who graduated from SFSQ in 2011.

"Celebrating each other's accomplishments and reliving memories from our past becomes especially difficult with our full work schedules; I am very happy that Georgetown is allowing us the venue to maintain this effective channel of communication," added Mahfouz. 

Alumni of SFSQ have interned or worked at a wide variety of local and international organizations in recent years, including ExxonMobil, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, UNESCO, Qatar Charity, Rand, Islamic Development Bank, Qatar Financial Center, the United Nations, Qatar Central Bank, Qatar Red Crescent Society, ExxonMobil, Reach Out To Asia, Al Jazeera International, Brookings Institution, and World Bank.

Graduates of Georgetown’s Qatar campus are part of a special community of more than 150,000 Georgetown alumni in leadership roles around the world. Alumni hold leadership posts in academia, the arts, business, government, legal, medical, and non-profit sectors throughout the world.