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Dean’s Communiqué

 

 

THE AGA KHAN UNIVERSITY  

SCHOOL OF NURSING AND MIDWIFERY  

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

February 2018 | Edition 01

 

 

 

 

Dear Colleagues,

 

It’s great to be back after a nice family break and I’m excited about this year 2018, which is the

35 Birthday of AKU!

 

 

 

 

 

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The SONAM Story

 

As part of the celebrations for this event Dr Amarsi has kindly agreed to work with us to write the history of SONAM through her eyes, which we will turn into a publication. To do this will we need contributions from everyone. If you have some photos, press clippings, anything that helps us tell the story please forward them to Shairose.


  

 

 

His Highness at CIME

 

Before our break we were honoured with the visit of our Chancellor His Highness the Aga Khan to CIME, and I was touched by his presence and his genuine affection for AKU and SoNaM. He took a few minutes to speak to me about our way forward and I can share his ideas with you at the next FC.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Economic Impact of AKU

 

  • Essentially, and SoNaM is a major part of this, we contribute $1 billion dollars annually in 2015 to Pakistan economy. 42,000 jobs, and the multiplier effect of our spending was Rs 7.3, that is for every RS1 we spend
    it generates Rs7.3 in economic impact.

 

  • Drs Yasmin Amarsi and Rozina Karmaliani were ambassadors for this event in Islamabad and Karachi, and
    we will be happy to answer any question you may have about these quite remarkable findings    .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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International

 

Lubna, ably assisted by Noureen, has taken on the role of Interim Director International Activities and increasingly outreach activities. Some of the activities include:

 

  • The upcoming visit of the Dean of Nursing from University of Alberta, Professor Greta Cummings. Check your email for details.

 

  • Recent visits from ambassadors from Germany, Portugal, and Canada…research, PhD and collaboration opportunities

 

  • We signed an MoU with the number one Nursing School in China this week: Peking Union Medical College. Prof Li Zheng their Dean helped with our MSc examination last semester and we look forward to visiting them soon and collaborating in research and exchange of faculty and students.

 

  • You have heard about CPEC and the economic corridor ‘one belt one road’ with China.
    Well this is also happening in education and knowledge as Chinese and neighbouring universities start to work closely together. Myself, Tazeen and Lubna visited Air University in Islamabad on Monday and Tuesday this week to participate in a joint interdisciplinary conference with colleagues from Northwestern Polytechnical University in Zian in China. There are opportunities in research and for our Faculty to enroll in PhDs. We noted that this would be good for some of our Science Faculty to explore.

 

  • Later this month there is a meeting with Provost Carl and colleagues in E Africa to talk about more collaborations with Chinese universities, and I am excited about possible benefits to us in the future.

 
 

 

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Scholarship

 

Shahirose Premji and Nicole Latourneau from UCalgary visited us in December to work on the CIHR funded

maternal mental health project with Kiran and Sharifa. This is a project to be proud of and should contribute to helping us develop ourselves as a centre for research into perinatal mental health. Those of you who met Nicole would be amazed at her ability and success as a researcher in maternal and neonatal mental health and I think she

is a role model for a young nurse academic. I look forward to working with her in the future.

 

And of course we look forward to working more with Shahirose in her NEW role as Director of the Nursing School

at York University. Huge congratulations to her.

 

Another of our wonderful friends from Canada, Rozmeen Shivji from Chicago University recently graduated as a Doctor of Nursing Practice and our very best to her as well. She made a great impact recently during her presentation on Advanced Practice in nursing and we look forward to her coming back soon.

 
 

 

New Developments

 

 

  • The SONAM Gilgit Campus team has been working hard led by Yasmin, Arusa, and now Lubna and the team to finalise our proposal to commence a BScN intake in 2020. This is looking exciting and has support from all stakeholders. We will present to Provost and EC shortly.

 

  • Samina and Zohra have been working on a proposal for an Allied Health here at AKU. We look forward to their findings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is only a snap shot of some important recent activities. There is much more happening and I
look forward to our first FC meeting of the year to share things such as the launch of the Strategic
Plan 2018-2022!

 

All the best,

 

David

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We would be happy to receive your comments and feedback. Please write to us at sonam.pk@aku.edu