Robert Sarracino: A Professor Loved by his Students

Dr. Sarracino

Last week, a group of  Dr. Robert Sarracino's students started a kind of campaign on Facebook to show their love and admiration for professor Sarracino. 

Robert Sinclair Sarracino, 64 years old, wears a grey hat for most of the time gazing calmly at the students. He is known among his students to be "respectful" and "intelligent". He is also praised for his great appreciation for the local culture here in Sulaimani. 

Professor Sarracino, with a master and PhD from University of Victoria(Canada),  is now teaching Life Science and Mathematics at the American University of Iraq-Sulaimani. 

Dr. Sarracino seems to be not tired of research after all these years of investigation into the energy levels of neutrons. 

Muhammad Abdullah, one of his students, is mostly amazed by his felxibility. 

"He is among the top respectful people I have ever met. He is not stubborn. He accepts late works, but he doesn't give the same grades as if it was on time," he said. "He is friendly. He is a friend of everyone. He has long office hours and accepts students all the time."

His students love to tell jokes to him. 

Once one of his students tell him, ""If you don't have a wife here, I can give you my grandmother's phone number or Skype, and you can talk to her every night. but she has more than 10 physical injuries, so you have to be careful of here!"

Dr. Sarracino couldn't stop laughing.

Dr. Sarracino is amazed by two things, Kurdish people's honesty, and Dr. James Harrigan's academic sophistication.

A taxi driver gets Dr. Sarracino back to AUI-S and Dr. Sarracino gives him 4000 ID, but the taxi driver gives back 1000 ID to him. Dr. Sarracino had never seen such a thing anywhere else.

Here are some photos of Dr Sarracino with his students:

Dr. Sarracino with his class

Muhammad Abullah wears his hat

with Sci-Tech club

Ako, one of his students,  with Dr. Sarracino

Saman, one of his students,  with Dr.Sarracino