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‘Sir George welcomed me with open arms’

At age 96, grateful grad Robert Kouri wants to give back
March 22, 2021
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By Ian Harrison, BComm 01


Robert and his late wife Joan (Bosada) Kouri were active in the Liberal Party of Canada and juggled busy careers, as well as an array of charitable and community commitments.

When Robert Kouri, BSc 48, BA 50, first graduated from what was then known as Sir George Williams College, the institution — which would later merge with Loyola College to form Concordia — had just been granted a university charter.

The year was 1948.

“It was a special time to be on campus,” says Kouri, a past president of Sir George’s alumni association who has made a generous bequest to support the Campaign for Concordia: Next-Gen. Now. “It was much more of a family atmosphere than a college.”

Kouri soon earned a second degree from Sir George and was accepted to McGill University’s Faculty of Dentistry.

Tuition, however, was beyond what Kouri and his family could afford. Albert, his father, a native of Rashaya, Lebanon, eked out a modest wage as a dry goods salesman and his mother, Fadwa, who had married at 14, had a household of nine children to manage.

“Money was a problem,” Kouri recalls. “I delivered newspapers, I tutored kids after school. I took any job that I could.”

With his dentistry plans derailed, Kouri became an educator with the Protestant School Board of Greater Montreal — a decision that had a profound impact on the rest of his life.

Beloved teacher and principal

His career began at Nesbitt Elementary School, not far from where he had grown up as a member of a close-knit Lebanese community based in the neighbourhood of La Petite-Patrie.

Over the next three and a half decades, Kouri served as a teacher at Rosemount High School and Monklands High School, and, as principal, at Sarah Maxwell Elementary School, Nesbitt, Maisonneuve Elementary School, St. Laurent High School and Malcolm Campbell High School. He also taught English as a second language at McGill and Université de Montréal.

Of his many career accomplishments, however, which included a novel exchange program for francophone and anglophone secondary-school students, Kouri’s tenure as the last principal of Baron Byng High School is his proudest.

For decades, Baron Byng, located in Mile End, Montreal, was one of the most academically successful public high schools in the city.

Largely populated throughout its history by Jewish students — whose notable ranks included Irving Layton, LLD 76, Aaron Fish, LLD 16, and Frederick H. Lowy, LLD 08, President Emeritus of Concordia — and then the children of Greek and Portuguese immigrants, the school was forced to close in 1980, a victim of deficient enrolment and Bill 101.

Baron Byng’s most famous graduate, Mordecai Richler, sponsored a literature scholarship for students.

“I would go to his apartment on Sherbrooke Street to pick up the cheque,” says Kouri. “Richler was marvellous with our students. At our reunions, which he always attended, they would crowd around him and he would answer all of their questions.”

To this day, Kouri’s role as the fabled high school’s last principal from 1972 to 1980, is what he’s most recognized and known for.

When Baron Byng alumni recorded an interview with Kouri to commemorate a recent milestone reunion, he recalled some of the challenges he faced as an administrator.

One incident stood out.

“We had a student who was very upset and told our social worker that he wanted to run away from home. I called the parents and told them that they had to come in that instant. We talked it out and solved the problem in my office. It was very emotional. Those are the students you remember.”

‘My confidante, my soulmate’

Robert Kouri and Joan Bosada on their wedding day, July 30, 1955.

Just as his career was about to take off, another major event changed Kouri’s life.

While at a party in 1954, he met Joan Bosada, a graduate student at McGill. They wed a year later.

The couple juggled busy careers — Joan, who took her husband’s name, worked as a remedial therapist at the Montreal Children’s Hospital and later served as commissioner of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada — with an array of charitable and community commitments.

The Kouris were active with the Liberal Party of Canada and served on the boards of diverse non-profit and community groups. In 2002, they were awarded Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medals for service to public life (a decade later, Joan was awarded a Diamond Jubilee Medal as well).

Joan Kouri passed away suddenly on February 6, 2018, at the age of 86.

Now 96, Robert Kouri lives alone and credits an active daily routine — and happy marriage — for his longevity. He thinks a lot these days about his partner of 63 years and what she meant to him.

“Joan inspired me,” he says. “I owe my success to her. She was my confidante and my soulmate.”

Kouri says that his decision to make a bequest in support of Concordia’s greatest needs is a testament to Joan’s legacy.

The couple, who did not have children, had long discussed how they could best contribute to society. With education and health care paramount concerns, they quickly favoured Concordia as well as McGill and Montreal hospitals like the Children’s and Jewish General.

“Concordia has been very good to me,” says Kouri. “Sir George welcomed me with open arms when I started my undergraduate education in 1944. For that reason and more, I felt that I should give back.

“I do this with encouragement and support from Joan, my rock.”



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