VII CHARACTERISTICS AND COMPONENTS FOR A FUTURE AKU
     
  A Introduction
     
    Having now given our views on the missions of the future AKU, we are ready to bring together our ideas on ways AKU may faithfully pursue its missions. We are guided by our vision of what AKU must become to be a distinguished university for the Muslim and developing worlds. We relate what we propose to needs we perceive, and we seek to be realistic about the scale of activity AKU can attain. But we have not dropped or cut back on ideas simply because we foresee they will be difficult to finance and carry through. AKU in 2020 or 2025 may not have solidly established all the components we here recommend; some may have pressed ahead of others that have lagged in delays or postponements. But we would be disappointed if our proposals were regarded only as a list of possible developments from which selection can be made from time to time, as opportunity or enthusiasm dictates. We have tried to conceive a vision of a future AKU that will be active in several fields in different geographic locations, but that will do so in a coherent design suited to the missions and responsibilities it has assumed. This and following parts of the Report will be concerned with the balance between AKU's future components, their complementarities [in Section IX], and the sequence in which we think they should be developed.
     
    Some of the characteristics we believe AKU must have to be a distinguished university must pervade and link all its various faculties and institutes. Ones we particularly stress are :
     
  (1) a full utilisation of the potentials of modern communications and information handling, to assure coherence and effectiveness in a university spread over different parts of the world, some of which tend to be poorly connected to modern "information highways";
     
  (2) efforts to use modern technology and understanding of learning processes to develop superior educational methods throughout the University;
     
  (3) a vigorous continuation in all its components of the University's commitment to improving the professional opportunities and status of women and understanding of their outlook, situation and problems in contemporary societies.
     
    The possible components we are proposing for the future AKU and discuss in this section of our Report are several. For convenience of reference we list here the headings under which they appear later in this Section of our report :
     
  1 The Faculty of Health Sciences. Continuing Emphases and New Future Elements.
     
  2 The Future of IED and Education in AKU.
     
  3 An Institute of Islamic Civilisations.
     
  4 An Institute of Human Development.
     
  5 An Institute of Economic Growth and Society.
     
  6 An Institute of Planning and Management of Human Settlements.
     
  7 A Faculty or College of Arts and Sciences.
     
  8 Other fields or components considered.
     
    The terminology we have used to describe these various components deserves some explanation. The term "Institute" occurs several times, "Faculty" more sparingly, and "College" once, as an alternative. (It may also be noted that the term "School" does not occur, though AKU already has a "School of Nursing".) Our reason for favouring the use of the term "Institute" resides principally in its flexible meaning. We have been faithful to the vision of the future AKU as not being a conventional university with the familiar structure of faculties and schools. We have wanted to see it engaged in a number of important subjects in ways that would be distinctive, innovative and not massive. The word "Institute" has seemed best to indicate our conceptions : it has a long and respected usage for research and graduate education units within and outside universities; it is widely used for institutions engaged in teaching (like AKU's IED), consulting or service activities. The various "Institutes" we recommend would have these functions in various combinations. The word "Faculty", with its European roots, suggests a focus on degreegranting programmes based on a related group of established disciplines, as AKU has in its Faculty of Health Sciences, and as universities around the world have in their professional faculties and their Faculties of Arts and Sciences. Some of the "Institutes" we are recommending would not have the granting of degrees as their principal function; and they would involve combinations of disciplines which cross over the normal groupings in academic faculties - a characteristic we think may be necessary to their distinctiveness and creativity. Our label, "A Faculty or College of Arts and Sciences" is intended, in contrast, to emphasise that this would be primarily a teaching, degreegranting component of AKU, with the word "College" added as a way of emphasising its focus on first-degree higher education in the fashion of the American liberal arts college.
     
    We do not insist on the terms we have used but we hope we will in the following parts of Section VII make clear why we have chosen them. We do not relish logomachies and complaisantly anticipate that our successors in the planning of AKU may come to favour different labels for the components we are recommending, though we naturally hope that our substantive conceptions of what they may achieve will survive.

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