Qatar University’s first Grad-Faculty Forum celebrated the successes of its graduate students and emphasised the importance of mentoring in achieving academic excellence.
Organised by the university’s Office of Graduate Studies, the event showcased research undertaken by 16 QU graduate students from the College of Engineering, College of Business and Economics, College of Arts and Science and College of Pharmacy who were competing to win the Graduate Studies Awards for Outstanding Scholarship and Research.
Associate Vice President for Graduate Studies Dr Mohsen Guizani presented the awards. The Graduate Studies Award for Outstanding Scholarship and Research in Science went to Iman Abdelaziz, MSc in pharmaceutical science at the College of Pharmacy; the Graduate Studies Award for Outstanding Scholarship and Research in Humanities and Social Science went to Ozgur Pala, MA in Gulf studies at the College of Arts and Sciences; while the Graduate Studies Award for Outstanding Scholarship and Research in Engineering was given to Amith Kandakar, MSc in computing at the College of Engineering.
The forum, titled “Maximising the Mentoring Potential”, also focused on the importance of the graduate student-faculty relationship as a way of enabling students to achieve their full potential.
Vice President and Chief Academic Officer Dr Mazen Hasna opened the forum and Qatar Foundation’s Executive Director of Education, Training and Development Professor Wyatt Roderick Hume, gave the keynote address. Prof Hume spoke about the importance of flexibility in the mentor/mentee relationship and highlighted that the best student/faculty relationships are those where the student feels comfortable enough to disagree with the mentor in a polite, intellectual way. He also talked about the importance of investing in the research efforts of graduate students and how top universities are those which have high expectations of graduate faculty.
Dr Hasna said: “Qatar University graduate students are the driving force in conducting advanced research and contribute to the development of the country, in line with Qatar National Vision 2030. We are proud that our body of graduate students keeps increasing year on year, and we are celebrating their achievements today.”
The Peninsula
