Surrounded by proud family members, friends, and faculty, sixty students from the LAU School of Pharmacy received their white coats on October 28, 2026, at the LAU Byblos campus, marking their entry into the first of three professional years toward the Bachelor of Science in Pharmacy.

In his address, LAU President Chaouki T. Abdallah reminded the students that the coat marks “a public promise” to take their learning seriously and place patients at the center of their work. “May you become pharmacists whose knowledge inspires confidence, whose judgment builds trust, and whose kindness makes it easier for people to ask for help,” he said. “Nobody expects you to have every answer today, or even when you graduate. But the habits that will define you as professionals begin now.”

Dean Naser Alsharif invited parents, siblings, and friends to stand and be recognized before challenging the students to see themselves as future leaders and citizens, drawing on Lebanon’s landscape to frame his advice.

“Pharmacy school will have its mountains,” he said. “Success is not about avoiding challenges, but about finding the courage to overcome them.” He urged the class to be like the cedar, “rooted in compassion, ethics, and integrity, and strong when pressured to compromise your principles,” and reminded them that “excellence in pharmacy is measured not only by what you know, but how you carry yourself.”

For President of the Order of Pharmacists of Lebanon Abdulrahman Merkbawi (BS ‘06), the evening was a return to the very hall where he once sat as a pharmacy student. “One day, a patient will stand in front of you, and that patient will trust you with their medication, with their health, and sometimes with their life,” he told the class. “That trust is the real meaning of a white coat.” He encouraged the students to hold on to this moment until they meet their first patient, remembering that “behind this white coat, there must always be a pharmacist who cares.”

Class representatives Zeinab Mobarak and Youssef Zoukra then spoke on behalf of their peers. “Looking around this room, I know that each person receiving a white coat has a different story of how they got here,” said Mobarak. “Today, those stories meet.”

Zoukra spoke to the resolve that had carried the class this far. “No matter how long the road is, we will get there,” he said. “When faced with challenges, we persevere and do not fall easily.”

Following the speeches, the students were called to the stage one by one to receive their white coats and take the Pledge of Professionalism. For many in the audience, the determination the speakers had described all evening took shape when Valentina Hmouda, who has pursued her pharmacy studies on a wheelchair since her first year at LAU, was called forward. Her father, overcome with pride, wheeled her across the stage in a moment that deeply moved the audience.

For Hmouda, the ceremony ranked among her most treasured memories, alongside the moment she learned she had been accepted into the program. “The university helped me a lot,” she said, adding that the challenges she met along the way have never stood in her path. “I’m not giving up. I have to pursue my dream.”

Her plans extend well beyond the professional years ahead. After earning her bachelor’s degree, she hopes to pursue a Doctor of Pharmacy in the US. “Eventually, I’m going to open my own company, a medical company,” Hmouda said.