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Visiting Professor shares Insights on Development, Economics, and Pedagogy
Thursday, November 8, 2007
By: Chantal Sheehan
Dr. Samdani Fakir joins SIT graduate faculty as a visiting professor from BRAC (Building Resources Across Communities, formerly known as Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee)
As I sit in my Development Management class and listen to Dr. Samdani Fakir discuss appreciative inquiry and positive deviance, I am struck by his passion for the subject and his connection to the students. He will not call us his students. He insists on calling us his friends. He learns from us, he says, as much as we learn from him.
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Mohammed Golam Samdani Fakir, Ph.D., (just call him Samdani, he asks) is a visiting professor at SIT’s Graduate School for the 2007-08 academic year. He comes to Vermont from Bangladesh. With 24 years of professional experience in the field of international development programming and training, he is an irrefutable expert. His expertise is noted by many internationally in governments and educational institutions alike. In 2003, for example, the Afghan Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development asked Samdani to lead a team in developing a strategic five-year plan for the country, which he successfully did. However, his many achievements notwithstanding, his professional history reveals a commitment to his home country through continued service to BRAC, which claims the title of largest NGO in the world.
BRAC (Building Resources Across Communities, formerly known as Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee) was established in 1972 by a now close associate of Fakir’s, Fazle Hasan Abed. The NGO focuses on microcredit as a mode to fight poverty and also provides rigorous training to development professionals and members of the Bangladesh government and corporations. BRAC’s Training Division specializes in training for development project planning and design, and program monitoring and evaluation. For more information, please visit BRAC’s website at http://www.brac.net/.
Samdani’s history with BRAC is complex and reveals a true loyalty to its cause. He joined BRAC in 1984 at the urging of Abed. Samdani admits that as a young man, he had originally had “leftist leanings” and was not so focused on his home country. When he went to earn his Ph. D., he chose to study in Romania where he remained for the duration. Fakir completed his doctorate in industrial economics from the Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest.
He then took his knowledge on the road and went to work first in Virginia as an Economic Consultant for a multinational corporation called Best Industries, Inc. Interestingly, when he met with F. H. Abed in 1984 after returning to Bangladesh, Abed asked Samdani what he hoped to do with all his experience, education, and training in economics. Samdani answered that he wanted to help his country in its path to development. Abed pointedly asked how he could serve his country when he had not studied its issues. This gave Fakir great pause. Abed took the opportunity to invite Samdani to work for BRAC and discover his own country anew from the perspective of development projects. This invitation led to a passion for change through development and training programs that would last a lifetime for Samdani Fakir. Samdani says of education and training, “If you can enlighten just one person, that person can enlighten others.”
This passion for education created a connection with SIT in the 1990s when Samdani collaborated with Professor Jeff Unsicker on post-graduate programs and diplomas in NGO leadership and management in Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, leading to a Masters in International Development Management at SIT. Samdani ventured to SIT in Brattleboro periodically for several years for meetings and so on. As he did so, he perceived that SIT was an educational place very different from others. He says, “There are two types of people in this world: there are those who are always serving the richer people and there are those who serve the marginalized and excluded people. SIT is grooming students to take care of and serve the poorer and marginalized people. That is why I chose to come here.”
He further notes that SIT’s methods of pedagogy and curriculum enforce a collectivist attitude and works to eliminate the “marathon [rat] race” attitude of many universities. We work together, students and faculty, and work to serve the greater good. As a visiting professor at SIT, Samdani hopes to gain new knowledge in teaching methodologies from his colleagues, expand his connection with the global community, and find some additional intellectual stimulation. He also will continue his research on global poverty issues and development leadership in Muslim nations.
But no matter what Samdani hopes to gain from his time here in Vermont, I can guarantee you (speaking as one of his students) that our gain will be infinitely more profound. We sit in the presence of his wisdom and humility each week and we strain to take it all in. There is an urgency with which he discusses matters of current concern and a fervent desire for us to know what he knows so that we may go on to serve others with our knowledge. Sometimes when he speaks of how far the developing world has come and how far it might go, you can almost see his heart leaping out of his chest. His ardent excitement in the classroom and his equal excitement in imparting this knowledge to his “friends” never fails to encourage us. There is much to do in the realm of global poverty and development… but with educators like this behind us, we will certainly have the tools to face this challenge.
Chantal Sheehan is currently enrolled in the Master of Science in Management concentration of the Program in Intercultural Service, Leadership, and Management. Chantal is working with the Communications and Marketing Department of World Learning as a work-study student and roving reporter during the 07/08 academic year. To contact Chantal, email chantal.sheehan@mail.sit.edu
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