Autumn 2003

Dr. Karl Ribstein Psychology Building Dedicated 
During Board of Governors Meeting
 

A big man in stature, literally and figuratively, Karl Ribstein has developed a love affair with the University of Haifa since it conferred an honorary degree on him in 1994.  Each year at the Board of Governors, it seemed, there would be a little ceremony dedicating a classroom or lecture hall that he donated. 

This year, the facility that he dedicated was a little larger—his generosity earned him the right to attach his name to the Psychology Building , one of three edifices in the Rabin Complex for the Faculty of Social Sciences.  The modest ceremony, though, was in keeping with the demeanor of this unassuming Holocaust survivor who remained in Germany and went on to become a highly successful businessman and entrepreneur.  

A cousin from France who had come to Haifa for the ceremony told the audience that had gathered in the entry to the building for the plaque unveiling, “Karl Ribstein’s greatness lies in his wanting to perpetuate the family name.”   Ribstein’s wife, Leila, smiled as the University became a beneficiary of her husband’s mission.

The Dean of the Social Sciences Faculty, Prof. Arye Rattner, welcomed the couple in the name of the Faculty and expressed its pride in taking part in the ceremony, which was to commemorate the Ribstein family, as well as to dedicate a building.   Instruction and research in the Psychology Building range the varied aspects of the discipline: clinical psychology, developmental psychology, social psychology, clinical neuropsychology, occupational and industrial psychology, psychobiology, clinical-educational psychology, and cognitive psychology-human factors.

The Karl Ribstein Psychology Building now joins the Herta and Paul Amir Social Sciences Building and the Jacob Recanati Economics and Statistics Building as “titled” edifices in the Rabin Complex. 

The newly named structure houses, in addition to classrooms and offices, an array of state-of-the-art learning and research laboratories covering varied fields in the discipline:  

Psychopharmacology Laboratory, Fear and Avoidance Laboratory, Laboratory of Animal Learning and Behavior, Developmental Psychology and Mineral Appetites, Brain and Behavior Laboratory, Face Recognition Laboratory, Social Laboratory, Attention and Perception Laboratory, Cognitive Laboratory, Child Development Laboratory, MMPI (Personality Assessment) Laboratory, Laboratory for the Study and Assessment of Intelligence, Clinical-Educational Laboratory, Laboratory for Psychological Counseling and Therapy, Clinical Neuropsychology Laboratory.