A new academic year begins with timetables, classrooms, and new responsibilities. At Antonine University (UA), it also begins with something less measurable but just as essential: finding one’s place within a community.
From September 7 to 11, 2026, the Welcome Week 2026 brought new and returning students together across the Hadat–Baabda, Nabi Ayla–Zahle, and Mejdlaya–Zgharta Campuses for five days of discovery, interaction, sport, wellness, entertainment, and shared experiences.
Under the theme “Fuel Your Power: Drive, Strive, Rise,” and in partnership with the Automobile and Touring Club of Lebanon (ATCL) and Rally Plus, this year’s edition transformed the language of motorsport and the road ahead into an invitation for students to take an active role in shaping their university journey.
Across its various activities, the week carried one idea from the starting line onward: university life is something students are called to enter fully, not simply pass through.
Finding Their Way Around UA
Starting university means taking in a new environment all at once: new spaces, new faces, new expectations, and greater independence. The Welcome Week created room for that transition to happen through interaction rather than instruction alone.
The week began on Monday, September 7, with a soft opening across all three campuses, where games and activities gave students an easygoing first opportunity to reconnect, meet new faces, and settle into the rhythm of campus life. Throughout the week, Sunbula, UA’s mascot, joined the different activities, adding a familiar presence to the encounters, celebrations, and shared moments that shaped the Welcome Week.
Students then explored the services available to them, met the administrative teams who would accompany them throughout their studies, discovered student clubs, and connected with fellow students. Faculty and alumni circuits further opened the academic community to them, creating opportunities to look beyond course names and classrooms toward the people, experiences, and possible futures connected to their chosen fields.
Together, these encounters introduced first-year students to wider life of the University, while giving returning students an opportunity to reconnect and begin the year with renewed energy.
Different Ways to Move Forward
The motorsport-inspired theme gave the Welcome Week its visual identity, but its meaning extended well beyond speed.
Throughout the three campuses, the program invited students to engage at different rhythms and in different ways. The Endurance Grand Prix turned sport into an exercise in energy, cooperation, and perseverance, while wellness sessions, given by UA’s Counselor, Ms. Micheline Sammour, encouraged students to go at their own pace, offering an important counterpoint to the pressure that can accompany the beginning of an academic year. Trivia, personalized keychain activities, and games created lighter spaces for interaction, while the movie night brought students together for a screening of “F1,” accompanied by games and prizes for the winners.
Together, these moments captured the range of university life, from competition and academic discovery to connection, well-being, and simply feeling at home on campus. In that sense, “Drive, Strive, Rise” became more than a theme: a reminder that growth takes different forms and moves at different paces, but always with purpose.
When the Theme Became an Experience
At the Hadat–Baabda Campus, the Adrenaline Rush panel, organized in partnership with ATCL and Rally Plus, brought the motorsport theme into direct contact with professional expertise.
Through conversations, rally-related experiences, and simulation, students encountered motorsport as a field shaped by precision, teamwork, preparation, decision-making, and safety. The initiative also marked new developments in UA’s collaboration with Lebanon’s motorsport community, explored further in the University’s dedicated coverage of Adrenaline Rush.
A Message for the Journey Ahead
The language of the road took on a deeper meaning in the address of UA Rector Fr. Michel Saghbinydelivered across all three campuses. Building on “Drive, Strive, Rise” he invited students to take ownership of their university journey, persevere, and understand growth not only through personal achievement, but also through responsibility toward others.
As explored more fully in the Rector’s Welcome Week message, the metaphor ultimately pointed beyond a single week. UA may provide opportunities, guidance, and a community ready to accompany students, but what they make of that journey remains theirs to shape.
From Welcome to Belonging
The event reached its finish line with The Final Lap, the end-of-week party that brought students from UA’s three campuses together at the Hadat–Baabda Campus. With prizes, entertainment, and music by DJ Chloë Hallak, the evening gave students one final occasion to celebrate together before the campuses settled into the rhythm of the academic year.
The Welcome Week 2026 was made possible with the support of Burgan Insurance Co. s.a.l., Octopus Inscon, Holy Crêpe, Kaffeo, Samsung, KDD Coffee, Fantasia, VOX Cinemas, Bar Anywhere, O Forno, Aura, and RPM Karting, together with UA’s partners, ATCL and Rally Plus. Their contributions helped bring the week’s activities and experiences to life across the University’s three campuses.
From Monday’s soft opening to The Final Lap, what began as a welcome gradually became a first sense of belonging at UA. Through academic, professional, athletic, social, and personal encounters, students connected with the people, communities, services, and opportunities that can shape their journey beyond the classroom.
This approach reflects UA’s commitment to a university experience that brings together student-centered learning, holistic well-being, a strong sense of belonging, and meaningful opportunities for participation. By connecting academic life with wellness, community engagement, and experiences beyond the classroom, the Welcome Week gave tangible form to a wider institutional direction centered on helping students grow, contribute, and find purpose throughout their path at UA.
The initiative also contributed to SDG 3: Good Health and Well-Being, SDG 4: Quality Education, and SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals.
And then, the booths came down. The games ended. The first introductions became familiar faces, and the campuses began settling into the rhythm of another academic year.
That is when the Welcome Week matters most.
Not in how much happened over five days, but in what remained afterward: a student who now knows where to go, someone who found a club worth joining, a conversation that may become a friendship, an experience that opened a new interest, or simply the feeling that an unfamiliar campus had started to feel a little more like their own.
The Welcome Week opened the year.
What students build from there is the story that comes next.