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Staff Profiles: Mariam Ghandour
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| Dr. Mariam Ghandour |
Finding several emails from Mariam Ghandour, AUB's career and placement
services director, is habitual to many AUB students. Whether about information
on available job vacancies, invitations to recruitment presentations,
or announcements of upcoming job fairs, Ghandour's emails guide students
along their paths of personal growth by illuminating all available opportunities.
Ghandour's involvement with AUB extends as far back as 1967, when she
first joined the University as a biology student. Getting married and
becoming a devoted mother, however, changed the course of her life to
psychology, primarily because of her desire to get to the roots of child
development. She got her MA in educational psychology from AUB in 1980
and in 1990 was one of the fifty fortunate instructors selected by AUB
for the pursuit of their PhD's in the United States. There, she graduated
with a doctorate in higher education from Columbia University, before
receiving three months of post-doctorate training from Harvard University.
While working towards her PhD, Ghandour worked in career counseling at
two universities in New York, so the groundwork was set for her later
work at AUB, where she initially returned to become an assistant professor
in the Department of Education (1991-98). Starting in 1995, she founded
the career, personal, and academic counseling services, then launched
the annual job fair and the orientation program with the support of the
AUB administration. In 2003, Ghandour started placement services by building
network systems between AUB and local, regional, and multinational firms
for the purpose of matching students with suitable jobs and internships.
Ghandour spends her mornings in handling emails and holding appointments
with firm representatives before overseeing recruitment presentations,
or following up on other firm-related issues. Her afternoons are mainly
reserved for students, who come individually or in groups to get advice
on their resumes or career choices. Ghandour finds AUB students to be
motivated and of a caliber that firms are pleased to hire.