Staff Profile: Longtime Loyalty to AUB

Ibrahim Jamal

Ibrahim Jamal, a housing assistant in the Housing Department, has worked for AUB continuously for thirty years—in fact, since he was seventeen years old. He was first a messenger for one year in the office of President Harold Hoelscher, and then spent five years in the Central Duplicating Office in College Hall operating printing machines. His next move was to the General Service Department in the hospital, where he manned the information desk for three years. In 1988 he moved to House Keeping, where for five years he worked as supervisor on the night shift. In 1993 he made his final move to the Housing Department, where he still works today.

Looking back on these varied jobs, Jamal says they all have one thing in common, dealing closely with people. In the Housing Department he works with most AUBites lodged in campus faculty buildings, plus those in AUB-subsidized apartments off-campus. With his fluent English, Jamal helps new faculty find their way around Beirut—showing them where to buy furniture, appliances, and even rugs. “I like helping faculty members,” he says—“that’s how I met my wife.” In July 2008 Ibrahim Jamal married Marjorie Henningsen, former AUB education professor and director of Science and Math Education Center, currently head of the recently established school, the Wellspring Learning Community.

Despite long working days, Jamal has always pursued hobbies actively in his leisure time. He is by avocation a skilled carpenter. Always creative, he regularly turns abandoned tiles into tables; under his hands an abandoned dormitory cupboard became a china cabinet. And whenever he has free time on weekends, he works on his house in Bsaba.

After 20 years of service at AUB, Jamal took his indemnity and invested in some land outside the village of Bsaba in the Chouf. Gradually, as the result of painstaking weekend work, a three-story building has arisen. He plans to have three apartments—something to leave to his daughters by his first marriage, Sarah and Farah.

Jamal is devoted to the University. He emphasizes loyalty, and cannot think about leaving. “AUB is my house, my family.”  As a member of the Emergency Response Team, Jamal responds to emergencies—in dorms, in laboratories, wherever needed. “Whatever time of day or night,” he says, “I have to go to help my family.”