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When George Giacumakis began teaching at Orange State College in 1963, the entire college of about 3,000 students operated out of one building now known as McCarthy Hall. After earning his doctorate at Brandeis University, he was hired by the small California college - now Cal State Fullerton - as the Middle East history professor. With his wife and child, he left his home state of Pennsylvania. He said he had no desire to move to Southern California and did it as a favor to his mentor at the time. Forty-three years later, he's still a CSUF history professor and has headed the university's branch campus since 1989. During this time, Giacumakis has written books, toured and taught internationally, translated the Bible's New Testament into English - he's still working on the Old Testament - and raised four children in his 46 years of marriage. "He's one busy person," said Marilyn Conklin, assistant director to Giacumakis and co-worker at the Irvine branch campus for 15 years. Conklin said that has been the case since she's known him. Giacumakis, born in 1937, described his role as director the same way he said he explained it to his son many years back: "When no one else will empty the waste basket, I have to. The buck stops there." According to Arleene Parsons, the facility coordinator at Irvine, Giacumakis fills this description. "Once he gets out of his car, it takes him a while to get up to his office because he will go and check things to see if everything's in order," she said. "I see him picking up trash all the time." Besides double checking for well-maintained campus grounds, Giacumakis's noticeable curiosity for the world around him has led him to double-check history as well as language throughout his academic career. For instance, Giacumakis, who is a Christian, was a board member of the Lockman Foundation, which in the 1960s created the New American Standard Bible. Today, he is working with scholars on developing a new translation of the Bible, called the International Standard Version. "Even something done 10 years ago - language changes in that time - so you have to continually work at it to make it contemporary," Giacumakis said. He said his goal for the new version is to capture the cultural aspects documented in biblical literature, but make it understandable in contemporary English. "He's a stickler for historical accuracy," said William P. Welty, who works on the board of directors for the new version with Giacumakis. Welty, who said he first met Giacumakis when he studied at CSUF in the early '70s, described him as an "old-school academic" and said he holds an "encyclopedic knowledge of all things old." Welty recalled reading the approximately 3,000-year-old biblical book of Joshua, which briefly references an older book, called Jasher, as a source document. Without any knowledge of Jasher, Welty phoned Giacumakis and asked him about it. Welty said Giacumakis answered with a "complete executive summary" on Jasher and brought him a copy of the book from his personal bookshelf. "I can't recall a time when I asked George a question and he couldn't answer off the top of his head," Welty said. When Giacumakis studied Near Eastern and Mediterranean studies at Brandeis, he said he learned to read five languages: Arabic, Hebrew, Greek, Babylonian Assyrian and Egyptian hieroglyphics. "Believe me, my hair got gray quick," he said. It was this knowledge of language that allowed Giacumakis to competently confront his passion for biblical translation and Middle East history. Giacumakis grew up in a Greek family and got an early start learning Greek around the house. He said his mother made him attend Greek language classes three afternoons a week during grade school. "I thanked her later for that," he said. He also attended "cake decorating" classes as a youth. He said his father, who immigrated to America from Greece and worked as a professional baker, prepared him to pursue a career in either baking or business. But Giacumakis told his father that Middle East history interested him more. Though Giacumakis still admits to loving pies, he walked away from baking and instead chose a path of academia and teaching. "Maybe it's because I love to talk," he said. After more than 40 years of teaching history, Giacumakis still talks about ancient civilizations with the fervor of a graduate student. "I'm dealing with an area where at least three world religions developed," Giacumakis said in his office. The room is decorated with Egyptian papyrus prints and 19th-century sketches of Jerusalem and Mt. Sinai. "The earliest civilizations came from that area of the world and it's always exciting to see its development, especially in the contemporary situation." Part of Giacumakis's knowledge of the Middle East, especially within the Arab-Israeli conflict, resulted from a six-year term as president and executive director at Jerusalem University College, in Israel, from 1978 to 1984. Those were the only years since 1963 that he worked apart from CSUF. Shortly after his return in 1989, the university opened its branch campus in Mission Viejo with Giacumakis as director. Thirteen years later, CSUF moved the branch operation to Irvine, where he again taught in a one-building campus with close to 3,000 students, as he did in '63. As director, he hopes to expand the Irvine campus to facilitate around 15,000 students, which requires more land, buildings and more parking spaces. Yet, Giacumakis knows his time at CSUF is nearing a close. "My hope is to get [the Irvine campus] fixed and going and then hand the reins over to somebody younger," he said. But at 69, age doesn't keep Giacumakis from pushing the limits. "If there's a new rollercoaster, I got to try it," he said. "Maybe it's because there's still a bit of a daredevil in me." Curriculum Vitae, Dr. George Giacumakis
Chairman of the Board
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George Giacumakis, Ph.D.