Wednesday, June 18, 2014
YOUNGSTOWN
They say good things come in threes: Charlie’s Angels, the Three Stooges, the original Star Wars trilogy.
One long-serving Youngstown State University official hopes it holds true for his retirement too.
Interim President Ikram Khawaja’s last day is today. He’s retiring June 30, after 46 years at YSU, and his vacation begins Friday.
But he’s retired twice before, once in 2002 and again in 2007, returning to fill in as interim dean of the College of Arts and Sciences in 2005 and as interim provost and vice president for academic affairs in 2007.
Each time he returned when asked because of his affection for the institution and the people who work there.
But when he applied for the job as an associate professor in the geology department in 1968, he never expected to stay throughout his career.
“I had never even heard of Youngstown,” Khawaja said.
He grew up in Pakistan, earning his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Karachi before moving to the United States and earning a master’s degree at Southern Illinois University and a Ph.D. from Indiana University.
Khawaja, 71, was completing his Ph.D., working in the geology department at IU, when his adviser urged him to start looking for positions as the grant money was running out.
He ran an ad in Geo Times and the first response came from YSU, he said. He went for an interview with a panel of high-level administrators and was offered the job making $10,000 per year. He took it. It was a substantial increase from the roughly $3,000 annual salary he was making at IU.
Khawaja was engaged to his now-wife Sue and he made a plan: He would finish his dissertation on Aug. 10, the wedding was Aug. 17 in Jackson, Miss., and the couple would be in Youngstown in time for the start of fall classes.
He met those goals, but the couple’s honeymoon had to wait until the following summer.
Khawaja planned to stay for a couple of years and move on. That didn’t go as planned.
Read more about his long sojourn in his adopted hometown in Thursday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.