All posts by: UMBC News Staff

Here in the Office of Alumni Relations, we spend a lot of time telling stories about and talking with our wonderfully supportive alums. However, we’ve decided to turn the tables and take time to get to know the people behind the scenes – the  advancement and alumni relations staff members who are hard at work on behalf of our alumni. Today we’ll be hearing from Jessica El-Zeftawy ’08, Political Science, Sociology; ‘12, M.P.P., the Alumni Programming Coordinator.

Name: Jessica El-Zeftawy (formerly Bard)
Job Title: Alumni Programming Coordinator
Focus Area: I work with the UMBC Chapter of Young Alumni (CYA) to plan fun and engaging events and volunteer opportunities throughout the year. I also work with the UMBC Student Alumni Association (SAA), a student organization dedicated to finding opportunities for alumni and students to network and creating a vibrant on-campus community.
Years at UMBC: Student 2004-2012; Alumni Relations staff since 2013
Grad year: 2008 – Political Science, Sociology; 2012 – M.P.P.

Q: Where are you from originally?

A: I’m an Air Force brat so I’m not really from anywhere, but my heart will always belong to Texas.

Q: What do you love most about UMBC?

A: UMBC is a community where it’s totally cool to be a dork. The students here are allowed to love learning, to engage in challenging dialogue, and there are so many opportunities to try new things out whether it be a new major, club, or activity. I’m really proud to have spent what I consider my formative years at UMBC.

Q: What’s your favorite thing about your job?

A: While I love working with my fellow alumni, the student group I work with, the Student Alumni Association (SAA), really brings so much joy to my work at UMBC. They’re incredibly intelligent, funny and passionate about the work they do in the community.

Q: Has your position as an Alumni Relations staff member changed who you are as a person?

A: Having been in my position for less than a year as I write this response, I can’t say for certain that my time in Alumni Relations has changed me as a person, but what I can say is that it has definitely changed my outlook on giving. Being a young alumni myself, with school loans, a house payment, etc. I’m not sure I saw the importance or the impact of giving back to UMBC until I started working in Alumni Relations. During my time as a staff member, I’ve had the opportunity to meet a scholarship recipient, I’ve heard amazing stories from student groups and projects that were funded by charitable donations, and I think if I ever leave UMBC I’ll probably always continue to give back, whether it’s by giving a donation or volunteering my time.

Q: Who do you admire and why?

A: I recently read a book called Endurance: Shackelton’s Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing. It’s an amazing true story of polar explorer Ernest Shackleton’s heroic attempt to cross the Antarctic in 1914, which resulted in their ship being trapped and crushed in an ice flow and their survival for over a year on drifting ice in the Antarctic seas. After reading this book, I admire Shackleton as a heroic leader in the face of extreme adversity and I also admire his love for exploring uncharted territory. I believe one can either daydream about epic adventures or try and live them.

Q: If you could be another staff member for a day, who would it be and why?

A: Without a doubt I would want to be Logan Wern, UMBC Phonathon Coordinator.

It’s almost two weeks till Christmas, and Chief Ike’s Mambo Room in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of D.C. has hung up its stockings.

There are loads of them—maybe two dozen, dangling out of arm’s reach above the cluttered bar and along an opposite wall. Each bears a name – Doug, Angela, D-Rok, Baby G – painted in glitter glue.

I ask the bar’s white-bearded owner, Allan Jirikowic ’77, interdisciplinary studies, (who has probably withstood his share of Santa Claus comparisons) about the stockings, but he would rather talk about a mural – one of many – he’s commissioned for the D.C. dive bar he’s owned for 23 years.

“You have Marion Barry riding on the Lion of Judah, next to Fidel Castro with Nixon and Elvis,” Jirikowic says, gesturing toward the painting’s characters. “And over there, Nikita Khrushchev.”

Jirikowic grew up in Silver Spring and enrolled at UMBC in 1972. He studied under Herbert Blau, the forward-thinking theater director who led the university’s arts and humanities division from 1974 to 1978.  “I was about to drop out,” he says, until Blau came aboard and shook things up for him.

When Jirikowic graduated in 1976, he still didn’t know what to do. “I was in a complete quandary,” he says, chuckling. But eventually he drifted back down to the District, where as a bar owner, actor, gadfly and Falstaffian bon viveur, Jirikowic has helped build numerous institutions that have jostled the culture of the often-stodgy federal city. He has also gotten a lot of people drunk.

With his friend Bill Warrell, Jirikowic helped launch and manage the influential downtown art hub d.c. space in a part of the city still shell-shocked after the 1968 riots. The venue brought hundreds of shows to D.C., including an early performance by Laurie Anderson. But after several years at dc space, he began to wonder what was next.

So Jirikowic bartended elsewhere. Couriered. At one point, he even appraised houses. He loathed that, mostly, but it helped him understand certain cold facts of life. “It gave me an immense education about how this country really works,” he says.

In 1988, Jirikowic threw his weight behind a new enterprise: a rooftop bar in Adams Morgan that he called Krakatoa Lounge. A Washington Post feature observed that Krakatoa resembled “a high school gym that’s been decorated for a very ‘80s dance.” The bar was a success – Jirikowic guesses he sold more than 6,000 daiquiris in one season – but a short-lived one.

Subsequently Jirikowic launched more watering holes: the landmark Adams Morgan bar, Hell, and a fiesta-themed joint called Rancho Deluxe. He also made himself a fixture on local stages as an actor, involving himself in scrappy theater organizations such as Studio Theatre and the Capital Fringe Festival, which have become major forces in the D.C. arts scene.

On the cusp of the 1990s, Jirikowic leased a building on the 1700 block of Columbia Road NW, and transformed it and an abutting property into three conceptual bars: Chaos, Pandemonium, and later, Chief Ike’s, which is named after former President Eisenhower. He decorated them lavishly, some of his decor salvaged from junk yards or simply found around town. The tacky Chief Ike’s and its two upstairs bars draw a loyal (and perpetually under-35) customer base.

Often to the chagrin of his neighbors, Jirikowic has become a fierce protector of Adams Morgan bacchanalia. He favors life, liberty, art, and dance, and the business that comes with them. He’s a member of the board of the neighborhood’s business improvement district and also heads up his local citizens’ association.

“I have to be politically active to protect the interests of the right to party, for art, for the joie de vivre of the neighborhood,” he says.

After a motley career spent as the life of D.C’s art scene and its party, Jirikowic sometimes wonders if he should have done something more conventional.

“You know it’s kind of funny,” Jirikowic says. “You just do what you do, and then all of a sudden it’s what you’ve done.”

– Ally Schweitzer

Read the full issue of the Winter 2014 UMBC Magazine.

Join us this May and June for great alumni events like these: 

CBLA Scholarship Jazz Brunch
Sunday, May 18, 12 – 3 p.m.

Join UMBC alumni for a fabulous buffet, energizing jazz and fantastic fellowship as we raise money in support of the Second Generation and Esperanza Scholarships at the annual CBLA Scholarship Jazz Brunch.

This year’s event will be held in the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture and the ticket price includes an unlimited brunch buffet, special brunch beverages, and full access to the museum (brunch ends at 3 p.m., access to the museum is available until 5 p.m.).

Register by May 1 for an early-bird rate of $40 per person. The ticket price for children ages 4 to 12 is $12.

IT & Engineering Alumni Happy Hour
Wednesday, June 25, 6 – 8 p.m.

An IT and an Engineering alum walk into a bar. The bartender says, “Hey, is this some kind of joke?” to which they reply, “No, we just like networking.” Join fellow graduates of the College of Engineering and Information Technology and those who now work in those fields for a happy hour. Enjoy fabulous food and drinks on us while connecting with other IT&E Retrievers. This event is sponsored by the UMBC Training Centers. RSVP to this FREE event now!

Save the date for these great summer events:

• UMBC Day at Camden Yards, July 9
• UMBC Night at Nationals Stadium, August 2

Check out our full events calendar.