University celebrates new Al-Sadik Faculty of Law and Public Administration

Birzeit University has a new face: its new Riad Tawfik Al-Sadik Faculty of Law and Public Administration was officially inaugurated on April 5, 2017, in the presence of Chairman of the Board Hanna Nasir, university president Abdullatif Abuhijleh, members of the Board of Trustees and university administration, as well as a number of Palestinian officials.

Al- Sadik, a Palestinian businessman, granted the university an amount of $4 million for the construction of the faculty. The 5,200 square meter building has four floors and consists of a number of classrooms, lecture halls, legal training rooms, public halls and breakout spaces.

Chairman Nasir expressed his gratitude to Al-Sadik for funding the construction of the building, pointing out that support for construction projects at the university enhances its capabilities and strengthens its role in graduating qualified generations that contribute to state-building.

For President Abuhijleh, the new building is a milestone in the university's evolution. He assured that this new building is one step in its quest to attain its academic mission. The faculty was inaugurated a few days after the start of the Law and Economics Master's program, which provide students the opportunity to develop their academic and research skills by studying in independent sciences.

Businessman Al- Sadik was born in the village of Deir al-Qasi in the Galilee in 1943. Al-Sadik was deported with his family to Lebanon in 1948, joined the American University in Beirut and earned a bachelor's degree in civil engineering. He began his career in Saudi Arabia, where he worked in the Ministry of Transport. For a brief period, he was promoted to the post of chief engineer of the Eastern Province in Saudi Arabia.

Today, Al-Sadik owns and chairs the Board of Construction Machinery Management Center, a company specializing in construction machinery. He is the owner and president of the five-star Grand Millennium Hotel in Dubai. He holds Emirati citizenship. Al-Sadik is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Institute for Palestine Studies and the American University in Sharjah. He also chairs the Resource Development Committee at the American University in Sharjah, and is vice president of the Board of Governors of the Pearl Initiative.