As Antonine University (UA) prepares to roll out its 2025–28 institutional strategic plan, a high-level Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) seminar held on October 6 and 7, 2025, at the Hadat–Baabda Main Campus marked a major stride toward embedding continuous quality improvement at the heart of its different units. Organized for the Antonine School of Business (ASB), the two-day seminar, which was attended at its opening by the Rector, brought together the Secretary General, vice rectors, academic and administrative staff members from the ASB, and stakeholders from multiple offices, namely the Office of Strategic Initiatives and Quality Assurance, the Office of Student Affairs, the Office of Institutional Research, and the Institutional Projects Coordinator, in a forward-looking dialogue on the University’s path ahead. This diverse participation exemplified UA’s holistic approach, in which quality is understood as a shared institutional responsibility rather than an isolated faculty concern.
The ASB, a key academic pillar within the University, is entering a new phase of consolidation and international visibility. As part of UA’s broader commitment to excellence, the ASB will initiate the AACSB accreditation process, reflecting its maturity and readiness to benchmark itself against the world’s most respected business education standards and to contribute to the University’s overarching drive for continuous improvement and institutional distinction.
The seminar was expertly facilitated by Ms. Sarah Vaughan, a distinguished higher education advisor and external Senior Advisor for Quality Enhancement at ICN Business School, France. With over three decades of experience in senior leadership roles (spanning both faculty and professional support services), she has built an extensive portfolio in program design, learning innovation, internationalization, strategic planning, and initial and maintenance accreditation processes for national and international bodies such as AACSB, the Association of MBAs (AMBA), and the European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD). Ms. Vaughan also serves as an AACSB mentor in the Middle East, sits on several international advisory boards, and leads accreditation visits for French, Swiss, Belgian, and European accreditation bodies.
Throughout the sessions, Ms. Vaughan succeeded in demystifying the complexities of accreditation and quality assurance and encouraged attendees to view them as levers for transformation, knowledge sharing, and societal impact. The discussions unpacked how accreditation frameworks (especially AACSB’s) are intrinsically linked to a faculty’s mission, strategic priorities, and indicators of success. This approach underscored a guiding philosophy that accreditation is not an external checkbox, but rather a dynamic instrument for institutional growth.
By the close of the second day, the seminar had achieved several key outcomes: a refined common language around quality assurance and accreditation that dispelled ambiguity and misconceptions; a renewed spirit of shared ownership among university units, from governance to student services, in driving continuous improvement; and a clear roadmap for follow-up workshops, working groups, and accountability checkpoints.
Moreover, the visible presence of university leadership throughout the seminar sent a strong signal that the journey toward excellence is collective and supported from the top. For UA, this encounter was a moment of reaffirmation that the pursuit of quality is, above all, a pursuit of meaning. As the University prepares to enter a new strategic cycle, the lessons of the AACSB seminar stand as a reminder that lasting transformation starts from within: when reflection turns into conviction, and conviction into collective action.