LAHORE
HASSAAN AHMED
Professor Doctor Sabiha Mansoor is presently the Vice Chancellor of Lahore College for Women University (LCWU), Lahore. She is an eminent and renowned social scientist and has made valuable contributions at national and international level for women development and higher education. She holds a PhD degree in Education and a Master’s degree in teaching of English as a Foreign Language from University Reading UK, and a Master’s degree in English literature from Punjab University.
Pakistan Today got a chance to have an informal chat with her about her experience and achievements during her tenure as LCWU VC.
She took charge as the LCWU VC four years ago on July 11, 2011 and is due to retire in July this year.
“I launched Vision 2020 after taking charge with the collaboration of all stakeholders including faculty, students and alumni in order to transform LCWU into a more peaceful, tolerant and reputed varsity. The core objective of the vision is to empower women through employability and entrepreneurship so that they may contribute towards socio-economic development of Pakistan,” Dr Sabiha said.
Many achievements have been made during my first tenure through good governance, strong yet democratic leadership, and decentralised administration to produce a conducive environment for academics and research, she said, adding that her achievements include removal of an illegal union and negative politics.
In order to motivate the faculty to pursue academic and research excellence, 5 new institutes were established by clustering homogenous departments, numerous new academic and research departments were formed and programs were kicked off for student development to enable LCWU graduates to empower themselves through employment and entrepreneurship.
“We have significantly increased research grants for faculty and postgraduate students and enhanced their research capacity increasing their chances to secure mega funded research grants from HEC, national and international organisations in last four years. The LCWU collaborated with international universities to improve the learning capacities of faculty. These foreign institutions include University College London, Queen Mary College, Essex, Glasgow, Warwick, in UK; George Washington University, New York University in USA; Victoria University, Sydney University in Australia, AIT, University of Philippines, in Far East and numerous others through the projects of USAID, USEF and British council,” she highlighted.
“Keeping in view that the LCWU is the largest and oldest women university, I established the Women Institute of Leadership and Learning with approval of the Syndicate to empower women through employment to contribute to socio-economic development of Pakistan as well as to groom women leaders,” she said.
“A career counselling and job placement centre has been set up to facilitate the students and may prove helpful in selecting their jobs,” she adding elaborating upon her step to empower women.
She further said that the faculty and students were being developed through the LCWU 4-year collaboration with George Washington University so as to enable the Department of Gender Studies and Women Development to offer high quality PhD program.
“The most important function of the LCWU is to produce world class graduates who are independent learners and critical thinkers. In this regard, a system has been placed at the LCWU with the help of Punjab Education Foundation (PEF), HEC, foreign consulates and university’s own funding, where all the talented students are rewarded with scholarships,” she concluded.
