Security at the University of Jordan

The concept of just leisurely strolling onto a university campus is a very American concept - or at least a very American and European concept (which is ironic since we're the ones known for school shootings). In the Middle East and some parts of Africa (Morocco and Kenya yes, South Africa no) there is always a lot of security around campuses, and they don't even like you snapping pictures of the place. There are several gates leading into UJ and I normally enter using the big gate across the street from the fast food restaurants down the road from ACOR - there's a tunnel there under the street. I've been coming onto the campus of UJ for years now, often several days in a row on each trip - and the response is almost always different. Sometimes the professor or administrator I'm visiting will meet me at the gate and we just breeze through. Other times I'm by myself and the guards just wave at me and I stroll through. Sometimes they ask to see my passport or who I am scheduled to see (in a very clumsy conversation limited by very few words in common). Yesterday I was actually sent over to the security building, which was a first, where I had to sit down and say who I was visiting - she was an assistant professor who they had never heard of and they couldn't quite figure out who to call - until I thought of the magic word, Majdoubeh. He is a dean and very well known - as soon as I said the magic words they threw their hands in the air and said Majdoubeh, as if it were a ceremonial greeting or Hamdil'allah ("thanks be to god"). I felt like Ali Baba - the cave opened and in I went (although with a written pass, which was the first time I'd ever received one). Now, the day before I had been on campus for meetings all day and ended up leaving something in a room by mistake, which I didn't remember until I had made it all the way back to ACOR, and it was night. So, I turned around and walked all the way back figuring that I'd have issues at the gate, but the guards just smiled at me and waved me in.