A New Dean: A New and Flexible Curriculum

Engineering students spend years on lower campus, rarely climbing the stairs to the upper campus, studying and working on various course materials which only the Engineering Department provides. Each term they are issued a schedule filled with only engineering courses.

Changes in the curriculum are in progress, however, allowing the students more flexibility in their studies. The old, rigid block system has been in place ever since the Faculty of Engineering was founded in 1951. Each term the students had to register for certain required courses. If they failed two courses they were put on probation and could not return until a year had passed.

Forty years ago, the new Dean, Ibrahim Hajj, as a student at AUB experienced the same block system. He received his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from AUB in 1964. In 1970 he obtained a doctorate from the University of California at Berkley. Dean Hajj then traveled further north to Canada where he taught for a few years at the University of Waterloo in Ontario. In 1973 he returned to his homeland, Lebanon.

From 1973 till the year the war erupted in 1975, Dean Hajj taught at the Lebanese University. North America became his home for 25 years until the year 2000. He returned once again to Lebanon to become the new Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and to "contribute to the rebuilding of the country."

Dean Hajj has also had a hand in accelerating the formation and implementation of the new curriculum, which Mohammad Harajli, professor of engineering, began.

According to the new curriculum, as Dean Hajj explained, if a student fails one or two courses, the courses may be repeated without losing a whole year. The engineering students now have more flexibility to choose courses from the humanities and social sciences. These courses will allow the students to have a broader view of the world and the community they will live and work in.

"They should feel responsible towards the society," Dean Hajj said. "They must be aware of the impact their work has on society and on the environment. They must be able to understand the society and look at it as a whole."

In addition, the number of courses and credits taken in AUB, compared with universities in the United States, are more numerous. To receive a bachelor's degree in engineering a student must complete four years including summers, but many universities in America are not as demanding as AUB.

Perhaps now with the new curriculum in place, engineering students may be seen on upper campus, sitting on a bench near the Green Oval, or drinking coffee on the cafeteria stairs, socializing with the rest of the AUB community.

By Marie Maroun