Columbia U janitor, 52, graduates with honors

Colum­bia Uni­ver­sity jan­i­tor Gac Fil­i­paj, cen­ter, is con­grat­u­lated by his boss, Don­ald Schlosser, the assis­tant vice pres­i­dent of facil­ity oper­a­tions, dur­ing the Colum­bia Uni­ver­sity School of Gen­eral Stud­ies grad­u­a­tion Sun­day in New York. Fil­i­paj, an eth­nic Alban­ian who left his native Mon­tene­gro 20 years ago to escape war, is grad­u­at­ing with hon­ors after 12 years of bal­anc­ing stud­ies and his full-time job. (Asso­ci­ated Press | Jason DeCrow)

VERENA DOBNIK

Asso­ci­ated Press

NEW YORK — For years, Gac Fil­i­paj mopped floors, cleaned toi­lets and took out trash at Colum­bia University.

A refugee from war-torn Yugoslavia, he eked out a liv­ing work­ing for the elite Ivy League school. But Sun­day was pay­back time: The 52-year-old jan­i­tor donned a cap and gown to grad­u­ate with a bachelor’s degree in classics.

As a Colum­bia employee, he didn’t have to pay for the classes he took. His favorite sub­ject was the Roman philoso­pher and states­man Seneca, the jan­i­tor said dur­ing a break from his work at Lerner Hall, the stu­dent union build­ing he cleans.

“I love Seneca’s let­ters because they’re writ­ten in the spirit in which I was edu­cated in my fam­ily — not to look for fame and for­tune, but to have a sim­ple, hon­est, hon­or­able life,” he said.

His grad­u­a­tion with hon­ors capped a dozen years of stud­ies, includ­ing read­ings in ancient Latin and Greek.

“This is a man with great pride, whether he’s doing cus­to­dial work or aca­d­e­mics,” said Peter Awn, dean of Columbia’s School of Gen­eral Stud­ies and pro­fes­sor of Islamic stud­ies. “He is immensely hum­ble and grate­ful, but he’s one indi­vid­ual who makes his own future.”

Fil­i­paj was accepted at Colum­bia after first learn­ing Eng­lish; his mother tongue is Albanian.

For Fil­i­paj, the degree comes after years of study­ing late into the night in his Bronx apart­ment, where he’d open his books after a 2:30–11 p.m. shift as a “heavy cleaner” — his job title. Before exam time or to fin­ish a paper, he’d pull all-nighters, then go to class in the morn­ing and then to work.

On Sun­day morn­ing in the sun-drenched grassy quad of Columbia’s Man­hat­tan cam­pus, Fil­i­paj flashed a huge smile and a thumbs-up as he walked off the podium after a hand­shake from Colum­bia Pres­i­dent Lee Bollinger.

Later, Fil­i­paj got a big hug from his boss, Don­ald Schlosser, Columbia’s assis­tant vice pres­i­dent for cam­pus operations.

Bollinger presided over a cer­e­mony in which Gen­eral Stud­ies stu­dents received their grad­u­a­tion cer­tifi­cates. They also can attend Wednesday’s com­mence­ment of all Colum­bia grad­u­ates, most of whom are in their 20s.

Fil­i­paj wasn’t much older in 1992 when he left Mon­tene­gro, then a Yugoslav repub­lic fac­ing a bru­tal civil war.

An eth­nic Alban­ian and Roman Catholic, he left his fam­ily farm in the tiny vil­lage of Donja Klezna out­side the city of Ulcinj because he was about to be drafted into the Yugoslav army led by Serbs, who con­sid­ered many Alba­ni­ans their enemy.

He fled after almost fin­ish­ing law school in Bel­grade, Yugoslavia’s cap­i­tal, where he com­muted for years by train from Montenegro.

At first in New York, his uncle in the Bronx offered him shel­ter while he worked as a restau­rant busboy.

“I asked peo­ple, which are the best schools in New York?” he says. Since Colum­bia topped his list, “I went there to see if I could get a job.”

Part of his $22-an-hour janitor’s pay still goes back to his brother, sister-in-law and two kids in Mon­tene­gro. Fil­i­paj has no com­puter, but he bought one for the fam­ily, whose income comes mostly from sell­ing milk.

Fil­i­paj also saves by not pay­ing for a cell­phone; he can only be reached via landline.

He wishes his father were alive to enjoy his achieve­ment. The elder Fil­i­paj died in April, and the son flew over for the funeral, return­ing three days later for work and classes.

To relax at home, he enjoys an occa­sional cig­a­rette and some “grappa” brandy.

“And if I have too much, I just go to sleep,” he says, laughing.

Dur­ing an inter­view with The Asso­ci­ated Press in a Lerner Hall con­fer­ence room, Fil­i­paj didn’t show the slight­est regret or bit­ter­ness about his tough life. Instead, he cheer­fully described encoun­ters with sur­prised younger stu­dents who won­der why their class­mate is clean­ing up after them.

“They say, ‘Aren’t you…?’” he said with a grin.

His ambi­tion is to get a master’s degree, maybe even a Ph.D., in Roman and Greek clas­sics. Some­day, he hopes to become a teacher, while trans­lat­ing his favorite clas­sics into Albanian.

For now, he’s try­ing to get “a bet­ter job,” maybe as super­vi­sor of cus­to­di­ans or some­thing sim­i­lar, at Colum­bia if possible.

He’s not inter­ested in fur­ther­ing his stud­ies to make more money.

“The rich­ness is in me, in my heart and in my head, not in my pock­ets,” said Fil­i­paj, who is now an Amer­i­can citizen.

Soon after, the feisty, 5-foot-4 (1.63-meter) jan­i­tor picked up a broom and dust­pan and went back to work.

Posted by AP News on May 13 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.