The siblings’ grandfather returned to Palestine in 1930 to found the Arab Bank, the oldest and now one of the largest financial institutions in the Middle East; their father attended the University of Cambridge before joining the bank himself. The Shomans’ grandfather, father and the Shoman family have always placed great value on the importance and transformative power of education. “It was always about how education can change people’s lives, and it can,” Omar Shoman said. “This became our motto for the first scholarship we established at Brown, to give those with the ability the opportunity to succeed.”

Since graduating from Brown in 2001 and 2004, respectively, Omar and Aysha Shoman have made financial aid a key focus of their financial support. This includes creation of the Shoman Scholarship Fund in 2007, which has awarded more than $3.7 million to 78 high-achieving international students from 38 countries who have come to Brown. Much of the Shomans’ inspiration is rooted in their own experiences on College Hill.

“Meeting incredible people from all over the world played a major role in my time at Brown,” said Aysha Shoman, who graduated with concentrations in international relations and old-world archeology and art. “As there were limited options for financial aid for international students when my brother and I were studying, we decided to set up a scholarship to give talented students from around the globe an opportunity to receive a Brown education.”

Supporting Brown’s effort to achieve need-blind admission for international students is critical not just for the financial support for individual students, but also for the global view it enables as the University welcomes an increasingly diverse group of students into its classrooms and laboratories. That diversity of perspective and experience is central to Brown’s academic mission.

“When you’re in class and living together every day with people from different backgrounds, different cultures, it widens your perspective and can make you more open and willing to try new things,” said Omar Shoman, an ancient studies concentrator. ”Brown is a microcosm of the world. It is our hope that this gift will inspire others to support international scholarships and help Brown have the representation it needs from everywhere in the world.”

A transformative impact

Panetha Ott, Brown’s director of admission for international recruitment, said the gift will prove transformative both for the individual students it supports and for the Brown community as a whole.

“I have been working with international applicants and students for more than three decades,” Ott said. “During that time, Brown has been a leader in international education, promoting peace across the globe and introducing new worlds and different perspectives to our campus. I am so excited that with support from the Shomans, Brown is moving in the direction of accepting international students without regard to socioeconomic background. This will be in keeping with our values of diversity and inclusion, and this incredibly generous gift will advance our goal of making a Brown education accessible to all.”

Aysha Shoman is a trustee of the Khalid Shoman Foundation, which is named for her late father. The foundation is the major patron of Darat al Funun, an Arab arts organization, and supports endeavors in medicine and science, such as the Khalid Shoman Nuclear Medicine Department at the King Hussein Cancer Centre in Jordan. She is also a trustee of King’s Academy in Amman, Jordan. In addition to her bachelor’s degree from Brown, she earned a master’s degree in social enterprise and community development from the University of Cambridge.

Omar Shoman is the chairman of OAKS Family Office, a Singapore-based asset management firm. Previously, he was a board member of Arab Bank. He is a trustee of the King Hussein Cancer Foundation and a trustee of the Khalid Shoman Foundation. He recently became a member of the ACLU’s Investment Committee.

At Brown, the Shomans’ first gift was to the BRIO (former Brown International Organization) Scholarship and since then they have supported the Brown Annual Fund and the Mahmoud Darwish Chair in Palestinian Studies. Both Omar and Aysha Shoman have served on Brown’s Middle East Studies Advisory Council since 2019 and were appointed to the President's Leadership Council in 2020.

Aysha Shoman said the impact of her Brown education is tied not only to the ability she had to take intellectual risks and try courses based on interests and curiosity, but to the people she met from such a wide variety of backgrounds.

“The friendships that I made remain to this day,” she said. Giving back through international financial aid will ensure the University is a place where all are welcome and all can learn from one another, she added.

“Financial aid for international students will continue to grow Brown’s reputation as a world-class institution,” Aysha Shoman said. “It aligns well with its mission to be accessible and inclusive. For the scholarship recipients, I hope that their Brown education will be as transformative for them as it was for me and that it will encourage them to give back and support their own communities.”