For the past few days, it has been "nose to the grindstone" in Pakistan meeting with officials at the university and continuing to work with USEFP and their remarkable students.
Yesterday, I met a delightful young Pakistani woman who just finished her first year at Mount Holyoke College in western Massachusetts. Given the cultural norms here in Pakistan, parents of bright young ladies prefer to send them to single-gender colleges in the United States. She loved her first year (despite the cold and snow in the Berkshire mountains) and is excited to return. Despite working two jobs on campus, she has a 3.75 GPA and is active in co-curricular activities. She has a slight funding "gap" this year (given that tuition rose, but her scholarship did not) and we strategized about how she can fill that gap so that her family will not be overly burdened.
My other focus is on developing alternative sources of revenue for the institution, through partnerships with NGOs, corporations, other universities and non-profit organizations. Thus, far it has been a bit of a challenge given the barriers to working in Pakistan on a general level and the global perception of the risks to partnering with organizations in this country. But, I appreciate a challenge and will meet with the Rector on Monday to discuss several ideas.
On Monday afternoon, I will depart for Islamabad to meet with the Higher Education Council (similar to our national Department of Education) and the USEFP main office staff as well as the in-country representatives of USAID (one of the major funding organizations to FC College).
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