Convergence is one of the themes of this issue of Concordia Engineering News, and I feel it’s an appropriate word with which to begin this, my first message of our Faculty newsletter. Convergence is integral to so much of what we do at Concordia. We help bring together many different individuals with diverse talents and interests, and unite them with a common purpose: to advance education and research for the benefit of a 21st century globalized society.
Ours is also an institution where disciplines converge. In this issue you’ll read about the convergence of engineering, computer science and the life sciences, but many more examples abound in our Faculty: business leaders working with engineering students, administrators forging partnerships with civic leaders, budding entrepreneurs joining forces with experienced researchers, university faculty forming alliances with private sector collaborators. These complex and ever-changing social arrangements in a relatively young university such as ours, at the heart of a cosmopolitan city like Montreal, combine to unleash a dynamic energy. It was the allure of this energy that was a big part of my decision to accept the job as Dean and move here from Toronto during the summer.
As I embark on my tenure, it is a key opportunity to evaluate where convergence is contributing to the kinds of advances we want for our Faculty, and where more relationship-building is required to take us even further. I am particularly keen to ensure we strengthen our relationships with alumni, industry, and other engineering institutions.
Earlier this year, I had the chance to host the Dean’s Cocktail Reception at my first ever Concordia Homecoming. It was a wonderful opportunity to see alumni from the 1960s, 70s, 80s, 90s and over the last decade come together with young students. This bond between alumni and current students can be a particularly fruitful one. Alumni have furnished our students with many great working opportunities, not to mention countless acts of mentoring; in turn, students give back their capacity to innovate and think differently about the future. Many of the young men and women I have met have their fingers on the pulse of big technological changes. They understand social media intuitively; they are eager to exploit the potential of wireless technology; and they know that in a competitive work world, they’ll increasingly need to invent their own jobs.
I believe our students are very capable of that task, and that the education and work opportunities they are receiving here are contributing to their future goals. But we can always do better. Along with expanding on our engagement activities with alumni, I want to identify more opportunities to collaborate with industry. We have enjoyed unprecedented growth in recent years in terms of the funding we obtain from industrial partners. I think we can capitalize on the networks we’ve established and the expertise we’ve developed and take these efforts to the next level.
Convergence opens up numerous possibilities for an ambitious and academically-rigorous institution such as ours. I hope to meet as many of you as possible along the way as together we ignite many new sparks of creativity, insight and technological progress. Please join me as we collectively embark on a path of achieving excellence at all levels in our Faculty.
Amir Asif, PhD
Dean, Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science
Concordia University