Profile: Hire education

The events and aftermath of September 11, 2001, forged in Mariam El-Shamaa a dedication to the rule of law.

El-Shamaa joined Kenyon this year as director of equal opportunity after completing law school at the Ohio State University. She pursued the law to better prepare herself to advise others. At Ohio State, she was an advisor to international students and scholars, who had to cope with laws passed by Congress to secure the borders after the terrorist attacks.

"It just became really frustrating to try to help this group and not know, myself, the law well enough to advocate for them," El-Shamaa said. "I could say the right things and be empowering and comforting, but I was still limited as to how much I could help."

The tightening of rules for student visas and work permits and escalating paperwork created some confusion. The laws were "well-intentioned, made with the intent of securing the nation" but were in some cases passed in a rush, leaving some details untended and creating unintended consequences.

El-Shamaa completed a master's degree in higher education and student affairs at Ohio State in 2002, after earning her undergraduate degree from Kalamazoo College.

Her time as an advisor at Ohio State had deepened her sense of empathy, balancing the rational, principle-driven approach cultivated at law school. The combination has made El-Shamaa a steely advocate for fair play.

She found an easy rapport with international students and scholars, said a former colleague, Gifty Ako-Adounvo, who is now the office director at Ohio State. "She has this wonderfully calm demeanor that just makes people feel comfortable with her, but at the same time she can be so drily funny," Ako-Adounvo said. "She was a liaison to international groups and worked with student leaders. She was fantastic. Students loved her."

That El-Shamaa would have an affinity for international students is not a surprise, given her global roots. She was born in Cairo to physician parents who, like their daughter, are members of the Coptic Orthodox Church, founded in Egypt in the first century. She spent summers in Egypt but was reared in Ethiopia until the age of twelve, when the family moved to suburban Flint, Michigan.

In Africa, El-Shamaa's father was accepted into a program that sent Egyptian physicians to Ethiopia for two-year terms of village-to-village medical care. After running a "clinic on wheels" in the countryside, he took a job at a hospital in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital. El-Shamaa's mother worked for a United Nations clinic in the same city.

"What was supposed to be two years ended up being seventeen," El-Shamaa said. Her parents found their work fulfilling, and they socialized in a cosmopolitan community that included employees of global companies and non-profits. El-Shamaa and her two sisters attended a private school with international flavor.

The family was well-settled, but a deteriorating political situation and Ethiopian laws that denied citizenship and its benefits to foreign-born residents prompted the move to the United States. "Ethiopia was, at the time, a Communist country. Things had started to get really unstable.

"I remember a day in our last year there, driving home from school ... and there were all these tanks on the street," El-Shamaa said. "There had been an attempted coup that day. I don't remember hearing any gunshots or anything."

A return to Egypt was ruled out, given the growing discrimination there against the Christian minority.

In 1990, that led to Grand Blanc, Michigan, and a tough transition for a child about to turn thirteen. Culture presented more of a barrier than did language. El-Shamaa grew up speaking Arabic, became fluent in English starting in pre-school, and had learned Amheric, the language of Ethiopia. She later became fluent in French.

"That first year, it was really hard, really awful to leave all your friends and your home and everything that was familiar to you," she said. "We were supposed to feel lucky because we were at a place that had these nice malls with more stuff than you can ever imagine wanting, but it was a hard year." She found herself well ahead of her peers academically and sometimes bored at school, even as she excelled.

Time and opportunity in the United States have turned that young, wary immigrant into a proud citizen. "As I've gotten older, I've appreciated more what the guiding principles of this country are and what it means to be an American citizen—all the advantages we take for granted, the privileges. For a lot of people, just keeping your family safe and together is a struggle. Here, we don't even think about that. It's basic."

Family took on a fresh meaning for El-Shamaa a little more than a year ago, when she and her husband, Emile El-Shamaa, became the parents of Samantha, whose photos adorn El-Shamaa's office. The couple met at a Coptic church in Columbus. Emile is a physician who works in the emergency rooms at Nationwide Children's Hospital and the OSU Medical Center.

For Mariam, the opportunity at Kenyon provides a potent mix of the law and higher education. "It's almost as if it was custom-made for me ... what my training has been in and what my passions are," she said. "I like the small, liberal arts setting. I love the education of the whole mind."

El-Shamaa's role at Kenyon includes overseeing hiring to guarantee fairness and a diverse pool of candidates. "I'm guaranteeing equal opportunity, but I don't determine the outcome," she said.

"I think what I do dovetails with what the College as a whole is trying to do, which is diversifying. We are working with the College to try and instill the value of diversity in our faculty and our students."

El-Shamaa also coordinates the work of volunteer discrimination advisors, a student-heavy group that includes faculty and staff. The advisors are in a transition year with El-Shamaa. Together they want a more active, program-driven role for advisors, including visiting residence halls, hosting events, and having discussions. The higher profile is expected to build comfort and credibility with other students.

And advisors will sharpen their skills with new training "so that if and when something does come up, they have the listening skills, the mediation skills, to really be able to cope with the situation," El-Shamaa said. The students will work with faculty and staff in resolving conflicts.

The College has "worked very hard to welcome people who normally may not have had access to a place like Kenyon," El-Shamaa said. That work continues on her watch.

—Mark Ellis