Face to Face

Bridging AUB’s Needs with Compassion

2024 Issue No. 2

When a colleague of Tony Achkar’s was suffering from a hernia, he called the Patient Access Office at the AUB Medical Center and got her scheduled for an operation the next day. When another colleague needed help getting her daughter into International College’s nursery program, he made the call, and it happened. And when yet a different colleague suddenly went blind in one eye, Tony got her an appointment with a specialist she’d had trouble reaching.

He is AUB’s “mokhtar,” a reference to the historical facilitator, problem solver, and bridge builder of the Arab village. He doesn’t work at AUB so much as he is of AUB. His connection to the university is generational and total. He was born and raised on campus. His parents spent their entire careers at the university—his father in the Housing Department, helping faculty and staff secure housing in and around campus, and his mother at the Campus Materials Management Department, managing university supplies. He knows everyone and, thus, can sometimes, with a phone call, find his way through the bureaucratic morass and make things happen.

He is the confidant and the agent, his kindness apparent in crow’s feet around his smiling eyes. “Tony represents the true essence of kindness,” says one colleague. “He’s always ready to lend a helping hand, never misses an opportunity to volunteer and assist, and always goes above and beyond to support,” says another.

Born in 1985, at the height of the Lebanese Civil War, he and his family took refuge at the AUB Faculty Apartments when the city was divided between East and West. “I was always in or around campus, from my youngest years,” Achkar says. He enrolled at AUB, graduating in 2009 with a degree in landscape design. He then worked for several prominent Lebanese firms whose portfolios included the design of the Sanayeh Park in Beirut and the marina. “I was there for three years, doing computer-aided design drawings, working toward becoming an engineer.”

Ultimately, a love for AUB, and perhaps a sense of nostalgia, drew him back. “I have such a longstanding connection to the university,” he says. As Senior Benefits Assistant – Education Services, Achkar facilitates education subsidies for members of the AUB community. “A faculty member will come and tell us that one of their children wants to study engineering at AUB. So, we will transfer funds to the Engineering Department to pay for that student’s tuition,” Achkar explains. “I love that AUB’s education benefits are available to everyone, from the janitors to the doctors. And I’m always happy when I see the son or daughter of a housekeeper graduating as an engineer.”