Second Alumni-Faculty Meeting
Just like the start of the first Alumni-Faculty meeting (held 4 years ago), the second meeting (held on Saturday, June 27, 2009) started with 3 unexpected & unnecessary bouncers from the faculty side, which forced the Alumni to play defensive, on the back foot. But then again, it was nothing new.
Alumni on the other hand kept their cool, spoke softly with the element of respect in their tone, and most impressively, they spoke when they were asked to speak.
The presence of Mr. Salman Mohsin of the first Batch of Lahore Campus and Mr. Nauman Sheikh of the third, added with greats like Wahaj Khan, Aqeel Ahmad, Javed Zahoor, etc. heightened the significance of the meeting further.
The analysis of Omeir Zahid was right on the dot and the observations of Aqeel (… “they-versus-us approach” and the “emerging bad mouthing trend amongst FAST graduates about FAST”) were so brutally true that it changed the atmosphere of the meeting. The role of Alumni in mentoring students made more sense.
Then the idea of an Alumni Day from the Director was highly appreciated, wherein Alumni would interact with Faculty Members and Students all day, playing sports, discussing issues, etc. and ending the day with a formal dinner.
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Now, if I go back to the basic objective of this meeting, which was to identify and mutually agree on the role of Alumni in building an academic institute like FAST, I think we were not only able to achieve that but also we were able to somewhat bridge the communication gap between Alumni and Faculty-Administration of Lahore Campus. Plus, if I add the outcome of the post-tea meeting (wherein Mr. Nauman Sheikh took the responsibility of arranging one year salary of a full-time Contractual employee who would help the Alumni Association better organize) to the list of achievements of the day, I think it would be fair enough to declare this meeting a success.
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P.S. Thanks to Nosheen Akram I learned that the word “Alumnus” is a singular for Alumni. During this Alumni-Faculty meeting I felt so privileged at times.