The Building Resilient Universities Project

1. Promotion of MOOC:

The online course on diversity, tolerance, and pluralism will be promoted in other universities. As we have already witnessed a change in the mindset of the students after they completed the MOOC, we believe that we will change more minds through this externalization. As a matter of fact, signups from students of various top-notch universities have started. To sign up for this MOOC please visit this link. 

2. Community Building:

We will engage the participants in creating a strong network so that the dialogues on diversity and pluralism continue. By facilitating insightful exchanges, followed by the nurturing of the network, the practice of collaboration and peer support will be cultivated. As students are our future leaders, they can collaborate across sectors and communities to build a sustainable and inclusive society in the long run. 

3. Diversity Fellowship Rollout:

As a part of this project, we will design, launch, and implement a fellowship program for students and alumni of various universities. This will enable the participants to reflect on the problems in society, and present sustainable solutions to them in the form of projects. They can be in various domains including research papers, short documentaries, and podcast series. It will help in internalizing this concept and develop the attitude needed to accommodate people from all backgrounds in every aspect of society. 

4. Intercultural Leadership Program:

To ensure international and regional engagement in this project, ULAB will organize a bilateral faculty-student interaction between Bangladesh and India. The goal is to facilitate practical classroom discussions on diversity, tolerance, and pluralism for faculty members and students in India and in Bangladesh. This will incubate regional collaboration for youth leadership development in the medium run and policy dialogue in the long run. 

BRUP is of paramount importance not only to the ULAB community but beyond. This is because it meets both multiple Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations and prepares students for the current needs of the business world.

Through creating awareness and developing an inclusive mindset of our students from different backgrounds in terms of culture, religion, sexual orientation, etc. the BRUP meets SDGs 4, 5, 10, and 16. For the business world, it prepares young leaders to learn how to grow businesses by meeting the needs of people from diverse backgrounds. According to a report of McKinsey & Company published in May 2020, the business cases for both gender diversity and cultural and ethnic diversities are high. Hence it is necessary for young people of today to learn to coexist and practice mutual respect in their professional and personal lives.
 

ULAB has onboarded educators from top-notch universities in Bangladesh to work as Faculty
Ambassadors. They are the “inclusive role models” who are inculcating diversity and pluralism into students’ minds and catalyzing sustainable social change. 

At the beginning of 2022, these Faculty Ambassadors came together to create actionable steps for promoting the MOOC and eventually the Diversity Fellowship. Associate Professor Sajid Amit, Director, CES, ULAB inaugurated the event and Mr. Imran Khurshid, Project Manager conducted it. 

This project has involved IVY League academics including experts from Harvard, Princeton and Columbia University who provided guidance and technical guidance leading up to the development of the MOOC. CES also hosted a webinar with the said experts.

This year’s project has also resulted in a cross-border collaboration with IMPRI, a leading think tank based out of New Delhi, India. One of the outputs of this collaboration is a publication that explores MOOC markets in India and Bangladesh. The publication is available here.