Following the announcement by the Chancellor of the Aga Khan University, His Highness the Aga Khan, to rename the University’s teachers’ academy the Haile T. Debas Teachers’ Academy​, a ceremony was held to celebrate the achievements of Dr Debas, the internationally acclaimed surgeon, researcher, medical educator, chair of the Academy’s Advisory Board, and erstwhile chairman of AKU’s Board of Trustees. 

The Academy is considered to be the first interdisciplinary teaching institution of its kind in the developing world. “It was Dr Debas, who, more than anyone else, is responsible for the existence of the Academy,” said AKU President Sulaiman Shahabuddin. 

He thanked Dr Debas for embracing the challenge of transforming teaching and learning at AKU, for bringing his unmatched experience and expertise to the task. “Haile was not alone in recognising that although we had outstanding teachers, teaching needed to change,” he said. “But it was, Haile, who had the knowledge and the experience to guide our ambitions.”  

The impact of the Academy, the President pointed out, was recognised internationally in Dubai when the University was presented with the inaugural Award of Excellence for Disruptive Education, a category of the Zairi International Awards for Excellence in Higher Education. “The work of the Teachers’ Academy was among the aspects of QTL [Quality, Teaching and Learning] that the judges singled out for commendation,” said Mr Shahabuddin. 

Vice Provost Tashmin Khamis explained that the Haile T. Debas Teachers’ Academy "is a place within the Quality, Teaching and Learning Network where excellent teachers mentor other faculty to enhance teaching practices to ensure continued academic excellence at the University." 

Dr Debas’ illustrious career has spanned many decades and he has held several distinguished positions, including at the University of California, San Francisco (U​CSF), where he took medical education to new heights. He is also a member of the prestigious National Academy of Medicine. Placed uniquely to liaise between institutions, and build partnerships, Dr Debas helped set up the AKU’s Centre for Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research by facilitating collaboration between the University and experts at UCSF. 

Speakers at the ceremony praised Dr Debas’s contributions of over 12 years as a trustee of the AKU Board — seven of them as chairman — and said that his efforts were pivotal to the growth and development of the University. They credited him for AKU’s “very strong reputation globally of high-quality faculty and excellent and ambitious students, its first-rate medical care, all of which is held to strong ethics and values”.  

Carl Amrhein, Provost and Vice President, Academic referred to Dr Debas as “the father of the quality teaching set of networks”. He stated that AKU’s Institute for Global Health and Development was mapped on the model of “embedding the highly specialised research institute focused on global health in the most elite universities of the world”, a concept pioneered by Dr Debas at UCSF. Dr Debas, said Dr Amrhein, was responsible for “triggering bodies of research that have taken root well and firmly in other parts of the world”. 

Cutting a virtual ribbon, and making a light remark or two in response to the many tributes he received, Dr Debas thanked the AKU community and Princess Zahra Aga Khan who was present at the event, while crediting the Chancellor His Highness the Aga Khan with the values that permeated the institution. Dr Debas summarised his relationship with the University in these words: “I have been at AKU for 12 years. They have been some of the happiest years of my life”.