We haven't been able to get an official confirmation yet, but the news from Twitter is that Dr. Adil Najam has been appointed as the next Vice Chancellor of LUMS. For those of you who are not aware of Adil Najam, he holds two Masters Degrees and a PhD from MIT and is a Professor at Boston University. In Pakistan, he is probably best known for his blog All Things Pakistan. You can find out more about him here. LUMS recently celebrated it's 25th anniversary. Adil Najam's move to Pakistan and LUMS comes at a critical time and it's important to not only look back and celebrate how far we've come, but also think hard about where we are heading. Dr. Ahmad Durrani's single most important contribution during his time as VC, in our view, was providing better governance structure to LUMS and moving it towards becoming an institution that has a life of it's own and is not dependent on specific individuals for survival. It will be very interesting to see what Adil Najam's vision is for LUMS and what will he initially focus on when taking over as VC in July 2011. A big thank you to Ahmad Durrani for staying away from his family for this long and for all the hard work he put in -- his contribution to the evolution of LUMS will be remembered.

People often criticize LUMS for being an elitist institute that is not really for the masses of Pakistan. The video below might answer this criticism. If you like what you see, try donating to the LUMS National Outreach Program here.

Illiteracy is an enormous problem for Pakistan. The CARE foundation is trying to empower Pakistani children with a solid education. Check out the recent documentary by Khuban Omer Khan (Bsc'04):

Information about how to donate is here.

by Pervez Hoodbhoy

Rumor has it that the World Bank is on its way back to Pakistan with a bagful of loans, together with plans for how we must spend the money. A major focus of the Bank's efforts will be higher education reform. No one doubts the desperate need for reform of Pakistan's education sector, or the need for assistance, especially since we have shown little capacity to fund or plan our education ourselves. But recent experience suggests the Bank's help may be a poisoned chalice. If it is to be otherwise, the Bank will have to avoid local snake charmers and be more skeptical of what bureaucrats and ministers claim.

DreamFly is giving poor kids in Pakistan, living on less than 50 cents a day, a chance of going to school. These children have no access to education and yet they dare to dream of becoming doctors, engineers, and entrepreneurs. Recently, DreamFly organized a successful fund raiser at the Harvard Business School. And also met their goal of raising $100,000 for the first DreamFly school. Help this venture in any way you can. More information about DreamFly is here. This initiative has LUMS roots.

by Pervez Hoodbhoy

Image via Wikipedia

Pakistan's university system is breaking down, perhaps irreparably so. Thanks to the Higher Education Commission's grand plans for a massive change, a tidal wave of money hit our public universities during the Musharraf years. Although difficult financial times finally stemmed the flood, this enormous cash infusion served to amplify problems rather than improve teaching and research quality. Naked greed is now destroying the moral fibre of academia. Professors across the country are clamoring to lift even minimal requirements that could assure quality education. This is happening in two critical ways. First, to benefit from 3-fold increases in salaries for tenure-track positions, professors are speedily removing all barriers for their promotions. Second, they want to be able to take on more PhD students, whether these students have the requisite academic capacity or not. Having more students translates into proportionately more money in each professor's pocket.

Last January, LUMS Career Development Office hosted a session on graduate studies. They invited a few alumni to share their experience with current students. The session covered topics like admissions, funding, and PhD vs. Masters debate. Below are the slides used at the LUMS graduate session: Graduate Studies Talk There is also a similar talk given at UC Berkeley by Jacob Scott. A copy of Jacob's slides are here. Students may find these two talks useful.