Newsletter, March 2014 - University of Baghdad

The new building of the college of science at the university of Baghdad is inaugurated

His excellency the minister of higher education and scientific research prof. Ali al-Adeeb, a new building of the college of Science at the university of Baghdad. The minister, during the inauguration ceremony, said ; “the ministry is working to construct new buildings of Iraqi universities, including the university of Baghdad, to get them together in one place in order to accommodate the growing number of students every year as well as to prepare a suitable academic surroundings where all supplementary factors are contributing to innovation, including advanced laboratories and research centers in one location. He stresses that the ministry is implementing a strategy based on providing all the needs of the colleges of medicine, engineering and science so that it can prepare graduates who are able to enter the labor market directly and serve the public and private organizations in support of the development movement in Iraq. On the other hand, Mr. President of Baghdad University professor Dr. Alaa’ Abdul Hussein Abdul Rasul said that the new building of the college of Science, represents an academic monument and includes a number of modern and developed laboratories and classrooms where all the supplies for the advancement of research areas are available as well as developed laboratory equipments. Furthermore, his excellency explained that the gathering of colleges in one place is to settle knowledge and thought near the research and training centers in order to develop the academic output and catch up with the fully accredited international universities , stressing that the Iraqi researches have become evaluated in the referred international journals and get the first category during international conferences. The minister became aware of the progress of the projects of the new buildings for a number of colleges at Jadiriya compound Jadiriya, he also confirmed that the new buildings of seven colleges and the Institute of genetic Engineering and reached the stages of completion of more than 80%. The Minister of Higher Education during his visit to our university walked around the projects currently being implemented, including the project of new buildings of the colleges of law, engineering Khwarizmi, Islamic Science, Education Ibn Rushd, the Science for girls, the education for girls, and the Institute of Genetic Engineering where the completion rates are ranging currently between 80 to 90 percent, some of them will be transferred from Bab Al-Mu’tham compound to Jadiriya . He also became aware of the of dormitories for girl students, directing to provide all the needs and physical and human requirements.

A workshop at university of Baghdad about the sustainability of quality assurance system

Department of quality assurance and university performance at the university of Baghdad held a workshop for the university deans,centers directors and heads of departments entitled “how to sustain the quality assurance system at the university of Baghdad”. The expatriate expert,Dr. Mohammed al-Rubaie, delivered a lecture defining the quality assurance and accreditation of university as the process of finding the mechanisms and procedures applied at the right time to confirm that the required quality is achieved. The researcher also pointed to a number of world-class characteristics of the university namely, the need to possess a number of outstanding worldwide researchers and its recognition of superiority from universities in the world, its possessing of a number of scientific world class departments, innovates pioneered ideas, produces original researches, attracts the best students and graduates, gets the best scientific awards that enable it to attract the best professors and world-class researchers to work in, focuses on leading researches, attracts more numbers of graduates and foreigners, offers distinctive contributions to the society and modern life, always be in comparison with its counterparts from outstanding world-class universities, possesses a sufficient confidence to put its projects and plans without relying on outside parties and the students who graduated from it are getting very good jobs in the country and society. Concerning the most important methods used in the application of quality, Dr. Mohammed al-Rubaie referred to a method of self and external evaluation, reference comparisons, evaluating peers and external examiner, evaluating scientific research, and the inclusion of external members of the committees for the interview. After the lecture, a discussion and interpositions took place to express opinions according to the requirements of the university and its strategy to ensure its quality and performance, including the interposition of assistant president of university of administrative affairs Prof. Dr. Hussein Yusuf who referred to the need to put prospects that develop and improve the university to advanced higher ranks towards global standards categories followed by the advanced universities. The workshop witnessed a lot of visions and proposals that contribute to upgrade the mother of the Iraqi universities (Baghdad University).

Inaugurating the central unprecedented serviceable laboratory in Iraq and Middle East

His excellency, minister of higher education and scientific research, Mr.Ali Al-Adeeb has inaugurated the central serviceable laboratory in the college of education of pure science/Ibn Al-Haithem on Monday 27/2/2014. President of university, Prof. Dr. Alaa’ Abdul Hussein Abdul Rasoul, dean of the college of education of pure science/Ibn Al-Haithem, assistant Prof. Dr. Khalid Fahad Ali and a number of officials, faculty members and postgraduate students all attended the inauguration. In a great and special ceremony in Iraq and the Middle East, his excellency, the minister of higher education and scientific research has officially inaugurated the new laboratory. This laboratory includes modern and developed laboratory appliances from distinguished and well-known origins that researchers and postgraduate students may take advantage of Mr.Dean of the college of education of pure science/Ibn Al-Haithem let the minister and the head of the university know about different departments of the serviceable laboratory and its various apparatus, the trainees of these apparatus presented ample explanation to the attendees about the importance and how these apparatus work, bearing in mind that all trainees have been sent to the manufacturing countries like USA, Germany and Turkey to be aware of how these apparatus work to get benefit of them accurately in order to cope with the technical and scientific progress and development. The ceremony has began by playing the national anthem and reciting verses of the glorious Qur’an, then the opening chapter of the glorious Qu’ran has been recited to ask God to have mercy upon the pious martyrs and the dean of college delivered a welcome speech where he explained that the dream has come true by the patronage of the his excellency, the minister and the direct implementation of the engineering department of the university of Baghdad where the idea began by a proposal conducted from the deanery of the college of education for pure science. After that his excellency delivered a speech invoked blessing upon the college and the university for this great accomplishment and praised all the exerted efforts by all to have a laboratory with various scientific apparatus in physics, chemistry and biology. In addition, president of university blessed the staff of the deanery and all members of the college this great accomplishment. He also discussed the main problems that hindered the educational process and ways of surmount them. At the end, the dean of the college distributed the souvenirs to the minister of Higher Education and scientific research and the president of the university of Baghdad.

University uniform is the identity of the student

Since the beginning of the academic year much attention has been given to the uniform due to its being a civilized phenomenon that marked a university student from the other. Under the direct supervision of the President of the University Dr. Alaa’ Abdulhussein Abdul Rasul and his personal follow-up of the subject and in order to show the status and commitment of the university in all fields , because the uniform reflects a civilized feature by most of the high-accredited universities in the world and its impact in removing class and social differences among the students as it represents the educated class of society on the one hand and that the commitment is the highest stage of culture on the other hand , the university is concerned very much with applying the uniform. A central committee in the presidency of the university has been formed to follow up the commitment of the uniform officially scheduled in the formations of the university , the committee was headed by Instructor Abdul Karim Mounir Abdul Razzaq, director of the office of the university’ president ,the membership of the assistant instructor Bassim Hameed Jremid and assistant instructor Abd Nour Al-Hamdani. This committee has made several visits to the colleges of the university in the university compounds that are deployed in Jadiriya ,Bab Al-Mu’adham, Al-Nahdha, Al-Wazzirria and Al-A’dhamiya. On the other hand, Mr. Chairman of the committee in a statement exclusive of the website indicates that the colleges that will be observed committed to the uniform, the committee will make a recommendation to the President of the university for the purpose of granting a letter of appreciation to the most commitment formation in the university and he stressed that the committee continues to visit various colleges.

President of university of Baghdad receives the French ambassador Denis Gauer in Iraq

President of Baghdad university, Prof. Dr. Alaa’ Abdul Hussein Abdul Rasul has received the French ambassador in Iraq Denis Gauer and his accompanying delegation. The president has welcomed the guests and has given a brief overview of the history of the University of Baghdad’ colleges, the number of the undergraduate and postgraduate students, the size of the faculty members and administrative staff. The French ambassador has pointed out the good relations between the university of Baghdad and French institutions and has given his profound thanks for the warm reception. The two parties have discussed ways of strengthening academic relations and scientific cooperation. Dr. Sabah Mohammed Abbas, the director of cultural relations of the university, Prof. Abdul Kareem Mounir, director of the office of the president of the university and assistant Prof. Dr. Sawsan Faisal al-Samer, dean of the college of languages have attended the meeting.

Architectural creativity award to university of Baghdad

Due to its global and scientific achievements through its opening to the outside world and keep up with the latest developments and its active participation in all conferences,besides its obtain of advanced positions in international rankings where it entered among the best universities in the world and the Arab land. This time the achievement is the excellence award of architect creativity. An open invitation was provided to the students of architecture colleges in Iraqi universities to participate, where both Ahmed Younis and Yasir Adnan – the college of engineering / department of architecture at the university of Baghdad – got the excellence award and occupied an advanced rank for their project ( the new Iraqi parliament building ) under the supervision of prof. Mohammad Redha Chalabi. The juries have commented that the project is interesting and has a clear idea. The selection of the winners was subjected to an assessment of the jury committee consisting from Iraqi architects academics and foreigners outside Iraq. This kind of excellence award celebrates the outstanding graduation projects of Iraqi students of architecture and aims to honor the Iraqi academic architecture excellence and creativity, in addition to highlight Iraqi young architects inside and outside Iraq. Excellence award works continuously to support the academic effort of the Iraqi faculty members and help to deliver Iraqi students creations to the global architectural community and to create a suitable environment for architectural constructive dialogue among Iraqi architects. Excellence is an Iraqi award for an excellent architect, which is founded by Iraqi architects and academics outside Iraq to support the efforts made to develop the academic skills and the capabilities of the Iraqi university graduates and to identify the global architectural circles with Iraqi talents as well as to enlighten the Iraqi citizen with the importance of the Iraqi architectural heritage. In the first year a great success has been achieved with the participation of 135 students from 9 Iraqi universities, after the process of reviewing the projects, 17 projects have been promoted to the second phase. The jury committee of excellence award consists of globally known architectural and academic figures, among them is the world architect of Iraqi origin, Zuha Hadeed ;professor Powell Ivy, dean of the college of engineering at the university of Coventry, UK; Dr. Khaled Sultani, a researcher at the Royal College of Danish of fine arts; the Iraqi architect, Iyad Althafea, resident in London; Catherine McNeil, executive director of architecture for humanity in London; Moira Asilis, director of special projects in the British architecture enterprise and the Iraqi academic architect manhal Abdul Latif, in addition to the Jordanian architect Rashed Al-Nas’a and others.

University president visits the dormitories

In coordination with the ministry of higher education and scientific research in the development of the dormitories appropriately and properly, the university has a lot of developmental projects for the dormitories, among the most important projects is the construction of dormitories for students in Al- Jadriya, which is one of larger strategic projects that will be an architectural masterpiece and creative simultaneously for its distinct specification. The president of the university follows-up the project personally, and is keen on the workflow according to accuracy and within a definite time. This project will provide 670 apartments, of which four students per department to accommodate 2780 students. Prof. Dr. Alaa’ AbdulHussein, president of the university, during his inspected visits to the projects has explained to our website that the university is keen to have an environment which is in balance with the size and the achievements of our university, the fact that the dormitories are no longer just places for living, but also constitute a scientific developed centre because it should give a sound environment for studying and learning. The university president has instructed to provide the best services of air conditioning, heating water, monitors and housing equipment and comfortable bedrooms, and rooms for reading with an emphasis on recreation for students. President of the university has met the manager of the project, Mr. Tony Al-Turaihi and a team of engineers residing inside the project in Jadriya. Assistant professor Dr. Sidqi Ismail Rezouki, director of the department of engineering affairs and prof. Dr. Abdul Bassit Salman, editor of the website, who followed–up the visit and documented it with a series of photos were accompanying the university president. Instructor engineer, AbdulKarim Mounir, director of office of the president, paid an early visit to the project in order to coordinate and overcome more obstacles or difficulties, and has explained to our website that how keen the university president to achieve success and excellence in education in our university and that success is achieved by creating intellectual environment where housing is an important part of it. We have to realize that many of the students who prefer to follow more independent approach choose to stay in the dormitories to achieve the highest levels of excellence and superiority. The manager of the project, engineer Tony Al-Turaihi explained to our website some important data about the project, where the project will be ready within a year and a half, God willing, and the work is going on in full swing, especially since the work is accelerated in order to complete the project in accordance with the precision. The manager of the project has provided us with general statements as in below:

Student summary:
Total : 670
4 students for each apartment
Total student No.: 670 *4= 2680
Total built up area: 64146 m2