From Harvard to Sulaimani: New AUIS president envisions generations of innovation
By Glenn Field
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region—With four degrees from Harvard University in law, business and government, Bruce Walker Ferguson hopes to bring his experience in both academia and the private sector to the American University of Iraq—Sulaimani (AUIS) as the institution’s new president. He sees a real opportunity for educational innovation.
“I see here a real opportunity to really create some world changing innovations in education--perhaps in diplomacy--perhaps even in government. If this region could fix some of these problems, the rest of the world can learn from that. So I hope to be a part of that process,” he told Rudaw on his first day in office.
AUIS was founded in 2007 by a board of educators looking to create an atmosphere dedicated to liberal arts and innovation and it is what attracted Ferguson to the Kurdish region and his new post. “I’ve built companies from nothing, just as they did here. I admire that,” he explained.
He believes that the head of a university has two jobs: one, cultivating and “protecting the life of mind” in pursuit of truth in a world and region easily subjected to polarization. The second duty is the managerial component: making sure “the train runs on time” which comes with a logistics-oriented mindset. He believes this combined approach is necessary for a university to reach its full potential.
Ferguson’s fascination for international academia dates back to his own early education abroad when his parents were in the Peace Corps and the Foreign Service. “Those are formidable years for all this,” he says, “and I must have acquired a taste for meeting new people in different parts of the world, and for most of my career I had to satisfy that desire--that interest through travel and it’s only fairly recently that I was able to go abroad again, and my wife and I both welcome that opportunity.”
In the crisis that has gripped the Kurdistan Region and Iraq for almost two years, Ferguson saw an opportunity for change and to make a difference and being connected to society through its students and faculty the AUIS could achieve that goal. “This is a region in crisis with so much turmoil, so much human misery, so much suffering and we at the university is not isolated in that.”
“We feel it just as much as anybody else. It’s reflected in tight budgets. It’s reflected family stress--on our students.” he said. “That’s not conducive to getting things done at a university and our thoughts and reasoning and research require a little bit of peace and prosperity. So we are very interested in helping the environment to become a better place for universities. That is going to require innovation and it is much easier to innovate when people see the need to do something different than it is when everyone’s very comfortable with the way things are.”
With a faculty staff of over 60 and more than 1,600 students, the new president looks to raising the university’s level of academic recognition globally while being careful to remain “relevant to the region,” His plans also include developing a curriculum that provides experience such as internships to better prepare the students for the workplace and atmospheres necessary for innovation.
The multilingual atmosphere of the University makes it a unique institution that reflects Iraq and Kurdistan Region’s multiethnic and multicultural nature. The graduates of the AUIS, the new president believes, will go on to become “bridge builders for generations to come.”
AUIS's website: http://auis.edu.krd/