In the Name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful
Esteemed Teaching Staff
Most-loved Students
Dear University Admin staff
On the occasion of the new academic year 2015-2016, and in the name of the university council members, I would like to warmly congratulate the teachers, university admin members, and dear students. With the arrival of the new academic year, we realize that Kurdistan Region goes through a historic and a critical stage facing tens of economic and political crises including the threats of the terrorists of ISIS. However, with courageous sacrifices of the Peshmergas, and the relentless efforts exerted by the security forces, Kurdistan has become a peaceful place and a shelter to the vulnerable refugees of different colours. This pluralistic nature is reflected also in Salahaddin University where different people regardless of their beliefs and ethnic backgrounds get the chances of study and all share the same scientific and academic environment. In Kurdistan’s capital city, university life moves forward and further prospers; an example attesting to this fact is one of our colleges in the district of Makhmoor, very close to the war front with ISIS where the academic process has not been halted. Despite the multitude of crises we face such as lack of funds, and the delay of staff salaries, our teachers have continued and will continue serving the Kurdistan Region defying all sorts of terrorism. We believe that in the new academic year, teachers and students will work even harder than ever before participating in and organizing academic, scientific, and cultural activities. Therefore, we are all invited to work as one team to participate in the National Ranking competition of the universities so that we may keep Salahaddin University’s leading position. Success and progress rely on innovations and scientific outcomes, and in the light of this, we believe that more hard work will be spent by all of us so that we could reap what we have sown.
Another step we have taken recently is to create a virtual environment in which computer networks replace the traditional system. To fight routine and save more time and financial expenses, and to strengthen the links between administration units on the one hand and between the faculty and students on the other; we are working on uploading all activities and essential data to the university website. It is therefore required of all of us to shoulder this responsibility so that Salahaddin University may remain as the region’s leading academic institution.
Since the 1980s and the 1990s, Salahaddin University has played a vital role to bring about cultural and scientific progress in Kurdistan and particularly in Erbil in which the university has served the community to the present day. It has never discriminated between beliefs and sects, and faculty members have faced obstacles and have been always patient and continued working hard. Lackk of wages in the 1990s, and the financial crisis in the last two years all attest to the facts mentioned above about the teaching faculty’s role.
Another aspect of this year’s program is that it should adopt a different philosophy, in the sense that more patriotic-related issues should be introduced to the program in which students would be more invited to participate in class discussions that centre on democracy, nationalism, love of the land, and honouring of human rights, accepting the other opinions, and more critical and creative thinking skills to be stimulated. It is this way of thinking and such practices, which have shown a very positive image of the sacrifices of the Peshmerga to the world, which in return has brought the support of the international community for our region. Moreover, students should be encouraged to learn a second language so that they may benefit from foreign sources and from modern technology. Accordingly, our language centre at the university plays a significant role where many join English proficiency courses to enhance their communication and writing skills; thus more than 700 students participated in 20 language courses in the language centre in the first six months of 2015. We believe that higher studies’ theses should practically reflect current issues and should bear recommendations for problem solutions in hope that decision-makers could take into account such efforts for the general interest of the public.
Dear students...
The university is there for you, its present and its future are for you. Our endeavour, skills, experience are all there used to make you the centre of the academic process, to encourage you to think freely and critically. We are looking forward accordingly to see innovative scientific results, which would be the fruits of a healthy academic environment we are working to provide you with. We are constantly working on program development to get along with modern changes. Reflecting our appreciation of the significance of students, we provide seats for undergraduate students and allocate pocket money for 24000 students. We also provide dormitories freely for 7000 students coming from other cities. We intend to follow the same policy and we have plans to increase the number of undergraduate seats for this year.
Teachers and students...
One factor that attests to the progress of universities and their rankings is the relations universities have amongst themselves and the collaboration they have in terms of faculty exchange, international conferences, and joint higher studies and research programs. As the oldest academic institution in the region, we do realize the significance of such relations and accordingly we have signed memorandums of understanding with 200 universities worldwide, which has resulted in a rich experience as regards faulty exchange, training, and joint conferences and research collaborations. Our university is an active member in the Union of Arab Universities, and it chaired its meetings and was a member of the executive committee of the Union for one year. The university is also collaborating with many international agencies such as the UNESCO, DAAD, and other international centres. It also regularly participates in the Erasmus Mundus Program, from which 3 faculty members and 13 MA and PhD students have benefited recently. Currently also, our university participates in the Erasmus Plus program jointly with the Swedish Lund University.
Despite the financial crisis created by Baghdad, we have not given up the idea of constructing a new campus for Salahaddin University. The high committee of Salahaddin University New Campus Project has finished the master-plan and the design of the project. We will try to allocate an annual budget so that buildings could be constructed in a high quality. The university also undertakes to work on a residence units’ project for the university admin employees as the land has been allocated for the project after it was approved by the government. Moreover, two other projects: a dormitory for 1500 students and an enclosed sports hall for students are in the final stages of completion.
Salahaddin University follows a strategic scientific and an academic plan every year to offer chances of higher studies to post graduate students. For this year, and following the traditional admission system to PhD, applications for PhD have been opened. Additionally, we have 34 projects by students doing split-site PhD, which has been running for two years now. For 2015-2016, competition has been announced for 253 seats for PhD following the ‘New PhD Pathway’ system. We also intend to announce 530 seats for the Masters Degree, most of which are to supply new universities and to fill places of rare majors in our university. In addition, the university also has students doing their higher studies abroad according to the HCDP program.
As regards undergraduate studies, we have a plan to admit more than 6000 students in 84 different disciplines. We have opened a new department called ‘The Chemical engineering Department’ which is most demanded by the market; hoping that graduates from this department could fill a gap to serve the country. If the financial crisis is over, we have future plans to open departments of agriculture and physical education in Makhmoor and Shaqlawa colleges; and if the local government in Prde facilitates our work, we also have plans to open a few departments in that district so that they may develop to future colleges such as the case with the universities of Soran, Koya, and Hawler Medical University in the past. I would like here to focus on another issue: the financial crisis has affected our work as regards scientific conferences we used to have in the past. However, we are working on holding two scientific conferences for this year. These are: the Fifth International Scientific Conference in Basic Sciences on October 16-17, 2015 jointly with UTM and the Malaysian Ibn Sina Institute as well as a conference with the Indonesian Airlangga University in which 45 teaching staff members from our university have been invited to participate; and 25 of these will take part with research papers.
Furthermore, the university has adopted the quality assurance process for several years now, a fact that has affected the staff’s academic profile very positively as it has created a competitive environment in the university resulting in the progress of the teaching as well as the admin staff. It has also been reflected positively in the curriculum and the educational process as a whole. In the field of continuing education, 17 training courses were offered to 434 Masters and PhD holders, who upon completion received scientific titles. Moreover, 1029 teachers have participated in methodology courses so far.
As regards program development, we have prepared a plan to modify and develop the curricula of the evening studies at the college of Basic Education so that it may go with the needs of the Ministry of Education. These changes will be discussed in a scientific conference and will be put into practice this year.
Once more, congratulations to all, I wish you a successful and a fruitful year and a bright future; towards a secure, free, pluralistic, and democratic Kurdistan.
Asst. Prof. Dr. Ahmed Anwer Dezaye
Prersident of Salahaddin University-Erbil
September 1, 2015
Date :03-09-2015
