One of the major functions of a university is community engagement in addition to instruction and research. AIUB has embarked on various community activities involving the students, faculty and officials to fulfill this function. For this summer semester 2017-2018, the Faculty of Business Administration has developed a strategic plan to initiate a Faculty-based outreach program to colleges and schools mostly located in Dhaka and nearby. The Outreach Program is focused on two types of interventions, Career Orientation with Students and Faculty Capacity Building on Pedagogy Seminar and MIS Training. The program aims to share expertise and establish partnership being AIUB’s future feeder institutions. Teachers under the Faculty of Business Administration were selected on the basis of their possible contacts with the colleges and schools. They are tasked to reach out these colleges and schools and make the necessary arrangement on how the outreach program can be carried out. A number of these educational institutions were identified and arrangement are ongoing while the others have been finally arranged for intervention. Teams were organized to visit the colleges and schools for the interventions. A team composed of: Mr. Shofiqul Islam, Mr. Ak Nazmul, Dr. Md. Taufiqul Islam, Mr. Stanley Rodrick and Mr. Mehedi Kayser Pabitra went to 4 Colleges located in Brahmanbaria and discussed with the officials of the institutions about this program and were accepted favorably. Another round of visit is expected to conduct career orientation with the students and a possible capacity building of the faculty. Last week, another team spearheaded by Prof. Dr. Charles C. Villanueva, Ms. Farheen Hassan, Mr. Hamidul Haque, Mr. Stanley Rodrick and Ms. Samia Shabnaz went to Bangladesh Navy College in Mirpur and conducted a career orientation with the senior college students. It was an animated information dissemination and exchange as students have shown their interest to study BBA considering that their background is commerce. All the teachers were gathered in the auditorium were a two and a half hours seminar was conducted by Prof. Dr. Charles C. Villanueva on Pedagogy, teaching as an art. The teachers were enthusiastic as they learned Pedagogy for the first time. It made their lives as teachers more meaningful and challenging as expressed by the teachers who attended the seminar. The participants will be given a Certificate of Training. The next target are Milestone College in Uttara and BAF Shaheen College in Mohakali. These institutions are well known and reputed colleges. It will be a good opportunity for AIUB to extend our outreach program for mutual partnership.
