Held in partnership with the Harvard Club of the United Arab Emirates and the Ismaili Centre, Dubai; the Harvard SAI Liberal Arts Education Workshop was also co-sponsored by Harvard University Asia Center, Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) in Pakistan, and Altamont Group.
Distinguished Harvard Faculty facilitated the workshop: Professor Ali Asani, Professor of Indo-Muslim and Islamic Religion and Cultures and faculty co-lead for the South Asia Institute Liberal Arts Workshop; Professor Jorge I. Domínguez, Chair of the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies and faculty co-lead for the South Asia Institute Liberal Arts Workshop; Professor Jay Harris, Dean of Undergraduate Education; and Professor Fernando Reimers, Professor of the Practice in International Education and Director of the International Education Policy Program.
40 participants addressed some of the foundations of liberal arts education in the undergraduate curriculum and participated in hands-on activities where they developed an institutional strategy to enhance the curriculum and undergraduate experience.
“Our team is going back to NYU Abu Dhabi with renewed inspiration and practical tools to improve the experience of our students so they develop the capabilities consistent with a liberal arts education” stated Kyle Farley, Associate Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs, NYU Abu Dhabi.
“We made it a point to invite faculty, administrators and leadership from diverse institutions as we expect these teams will play a collective leadership role in qualitative enhancements in the curriculum or other programmatic activities in undergraduate education. We are particularly pleased to have representation from UAE universities including AUS and NYU Abu Dhabhi,” Sajida Hasan Shroff explained.
Harvard South Asia Institute’s Executive Director, Meena Sonea Hewett elaborated, “In fact, we expect that participants will return to their institutions as a sort of task force, armed with actionable plans to advance liberal education initiatives. From our end, the Harvard South Asia Institute will endeavor to create a community of practitioners among the leaders of these change efforts across institutions.”
Over multiple years, the Harvard South Asia Institute hopes to convene these academic professionals and change agents for collaboration, knowledge sharing and to further strategic implementation of robust and vibrant liberal arts education in the region.
"The workshop in Dubai has been enormously useful as we have focused on the crucial issue of the value addition of Liberal Arts Education in Universities in South Asia and the Middle East. For me, the most important priority is that in an uncertain and fast changing world where graduates will change careers frequently and not remain limited to their original narrow disciplines, Liberal Arts Education teaches you the critical skills of lateral thinking, informed contextualization and being comfortable with diversity, ambiguity and nuance. So, one can do well -i.e. have a successful career- by doing good -being a socially and ethically conscious globally engaged tolerant human being," stated Professor M. Omar Rahman, Vice Chancellor, Independent University, Bangladesh.
It is anticipated that this momentum will be carried forward by Harvard Club of the UAE and UAE education partners to enable higher education capacity optimization in support of the UAE Leadership’s ambition to become a competitive knowledge economy by 2021.
