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About SSE |
The LUMS SSE will
be a new school within LUMS housing undergraduate
and graduate programs in Physics, Chemistry, Biology,
Electrical Engineering, Computer Science and Mathematics
in the beginning, and a wide variety of other Engineering
disciplines within a very short term. To learn more
about our motivation and vision for the school,
as well as the activities that have taken place
so far, please see our
newsletters.
The initiative is currently being led out of LUMS
by a small Project Team,
supported by the LUMS Faculty and Management Committee,
the Virtual Program Development
Team (VPDT), a remote group of academics and
professionals, and guided by the
Advisory Board.
To contact the Project Team and learn more about
the LUMS SSE, please send an email to
sseinfo@lums.edu.pk.
Our decision to build a school for Science and Engineering
follows a careful planning period of more than a
year during which we identified the country’s technological
needs, reviewed international trends, took stock
of our resources, understood our challenges, and
built a strong support network of educators, researchers
and corporate leaders world-wide. Most of all, we
understood why we should do it. |
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The
Need
Pakistan continues to lose talent, while
our industry remains technologically dependent
and our universities remain intellectually
barren. Almost exclusively, our industry
manufactures products licensed from foreign
companies. To be globally competitive, or
even to survive, we need to start producing
high-value-added products and services.
This requires scientists and engineers who
are technically competent, innovative, entrepreneurial,
have leadership qualities and broad problem
solving skills. Our universities are not
equipped for this responsibility. Their
graduates are narrowly specialized and are
unable to create knowledge at the boundary
between multiple disciplines, increasingly
the domain of true technological breakthroughs.
Further, they have ineffective linkages
with industry, an acute shortage of qualified
faculty and no internal faculty pipeline
to sustain academic or corporate entities.
If we are to compete internationally or
even survive, we need to produce a cadre
of scientists and engineers who can not
only develop technologies suitable for local
conditions but also create entirely new
economic and social opportunities for the
country.
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The
Vision
We envision LUMS School of Science and Engineering
as the vanguard of a new class of institutions.
A successful research university model for
Pakistan and indeed the region; perhaps
an MIT, Stanford or a Caltech for Pakistan.
We hope to transform science and engineering
education and research in the country. We
bring to this enterprise our existing strengths:
our leadership position as an educational
institution; our track record of success;
our ability to reinvent ourselves; our academic
infrastructure for integrated multi-disciplinary
programs; and most importantly, the credibility
to attract the best students and faculty
in Pakistan. We also see new opportunities:
(i) a much larger pool of Pakistani researchers
than 20 years ago when LUMS began, (ii)
tremendous support from this larger pool
for our initiative, and (iii) the increasing
realization and support of industry leaders
inside and outside the country who recognize
the need for such an institution.
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The
Execution
The School of Science and Engineering will
start in Fall 2008 with new undergraduate
programs in Physics, Chemistry, Biology
and Electrical Engineering following within
four years by graduate programs in each
discipline. In September 2008 SSE will also
inherit the existing mathematics and computer
science/engineering undergraduate and graduate
programs at LUMS. This will provide the
solid foundation upon which additional programs,
including biological engineering, chemical
engineering, material science and mechanical
engineering, will be built at a later stage.
We will be hiring more than 70 additional
faculty members, and constructing new teaching
and research laboratories. Attracting the
most talented undergraduates will require
a significant financial aid package for
which we have allocated an annual budget
of $0.5 million, allowing 40% of the undergraduates
a 50% tuition waiver on average. Graduate
students doing funded research will receive
a stipend in addition to a tuition waiver.
To attract the best faculty and allow them
to do quality research, a research support
grant will be provided for their first 3
years. Realizing the School of Science and
Engineering will require significant financial
resources. Our initial target was to raise
$25 million which we have met (see
Giving to LUMS
SSE). Our new total target is $125 million
of which $75 million will go into the SSE's
endowment fund.
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The
Impact
We strongly believe that this initiative
will change the face of education in Pakistan
as well as the region. Through its world-class
science and engineering graduates and high
quality, industrially relevant research,
it will catalyze genuine industrial development
in the region.
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