Who’s Teaching at ETSU

WHO’S TEACHING AT ETSU? Dr. Amal Khoury Dr. Amal Khoury

As a little girl in Beirut, Lebanon, Amal Khoury could not remember what her home country was like before civil war erupted when she was 5 and continued through her teens. She recalls leaving school when bombings began in the middle of the day and running to a shelter to wait for her parents to pick her up. She did homework by candlelight and waited in long lines for rationed necessities like bread and gasoline.

“My father was kidnapped from our home while we were watching, and there was nothing we could do about it,” she said. “My sister was shot at in the back of our car. Death – destruction – were all around us. Those were very difficult and sad times, but they were also times that taught me resilience and perseverance in difficult situations.” Later, after a stint at the University of Florida, Khoury and her husband, Chad, moved to the Tri-Cities in 2006 with their children.

In 2007, Khoury joined the ETSU College of Public Health and established the Department of Health Services Management and Policy. She also worked with Dean Randy Wykoff and colleagues in establishing the first accredited school of public health in Tennessee. Later, she founded and directs the Center for Applied Research and Evaluation (CARE) in Women’s Health.

Despite these odds, and with the support of her family, she completed her high school studies and went on to earn a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in public health at the American University of Beirut.

“Public health was not a common field at the time, but it was a field I was attracted to because of the community impact public health professionals can have.”

Desiring further education, Khoury traveled to the United States to pursue her doctorate at Johns Hopkins University. During her first year, she had no financial aid. After a full day of classes, she worked until midnight, then got up to do the same the following day. By the end of that year, though, the school recognized the quality of her work and offered her a full scholarship. She became an avid researcher, traveling the country conducting research in women’s health and presenting her findings, and received federal funding for her dissertation research.

“Before long, I was on this incredible path and fell in love with academia,” she said. “Upon graduation, I moved to Mississippi, although a lot of my colleagues wondered why I was ‘leaving the country.’ But I had visited the Deep South and connected with the living conditions in the rural areas. The challenges and barriers to health care were not very different from where I grew up. I saw the opportunity to make a difference in the poorest state in the country.” And she did. The research Khoury and her team conducted and the resulting campaign to promote breastfeeding among women throughout Mississippi became a model used in other states.

While she does not teach as much now due to her other responsibilities, Khoury finds inspiration in classroom dialogue and challenging students to do their best, even while juggling school with work and other obligations, just as she once did.

“As faculty, we can lecture and present information, but students come alive when they have opportunities to discuss concepts, debate, and connect lived experiences with the education they are receiving,” she said. “Seeing them engage in discussions and appreciate each other’s differences while learning from one another – that’s inspiring.”

Khoury and her colleagues challenge students and have high expectations of them. “My students may not like me during the semester, and that’s fine as long as when they’re in practice, in an internship, or interviewing for a job, they’re able to see the value of their education.”

Khoury hopes her students take away a commitment to lifelong learning.

“Learning does not end when you get your degree,” she said. “In college, students learn how to critically think, how to analyze, how to separate fact from fiction. It’s important they know how to seek reliable information and how to grow through lifelong learning and engaging in diverse experiences.”