AUS Faculty Senate Student Merit Award winner speaks to Fatima Tapya

Ahmad Hussain Al Jbori, a graduate of the School of Business and Management (SBM) at the American University of Sharjah (AUS), is the first recipient of the AUS Faculty Senate Student Merit Award.

The award recognises students who have contributed significantly to the AUS community while maintaining high academic standing, carries a cash prize and is presented at the last senate meeting of the academic year.

Al Jbori said he was honoured and felt as if he was receiving the vote of confidence from all the professors at AUS.

Al Jbori graduated last year in economics with a GPA of 3.82. He maintained a merit scholarship during the course of his study at the university.

"Ever since I was a child, I used to wish that I could teach other students and that wish came true in the spring of 2003 when I participated in the establishment of the Economics Help Centre," said Al Jbori.

As a second-year student, he helped set up the Economics Club and the Economics Help Centre and was its head tutor until graduation. He received an award for academic excellence in economics from the Omicron Delta Epsilon, an international economics honour society.

He was one of the 10 students selected by the university to represent the student body during the visit of the Middle States Commission on Higher Education (US) accreditation team.

Last year, he received a scholarship to attend the fifth International Islamic finance forum. He served as a research assistant in the Economics Department in the spring and summer of 2003 and co-authored a research paper with Dr Peter Mitias, Associate Professor of Economics and Director of the Graduate Programme at AUS.

The paper analysed the evolution of fiscal federalism in the UAE from 1975-2002.

His parents he said, "were an ultimate source of inspiration and support".

He expressed his deepest gratitude to his professors too, for they were always there to answer his tiresome and sometimes confused questions and went out of their way to make sure he understood his work.

He said: "I cannot thank them enough and I hope that they all continue to inspire others like me."