Dear team-mates in Art and Design
Assalamu aleikum, I have finally managed to get to my emails and I must first apologize for not being able to respond to some of you who have emailed me earlier.
It’s indeed great that we had met as a departmental group at our very first meeting at the Convocation day on 21 Aug. I would like to thank all of you for the time you spent and the enthusiasm you have shown at the meeting. The sense of dedication and commitment was definitely evident throughout the meeting. I am confident that we will move forward together as a team as we enter the new academic year with energy and optimism. I very much hope that we could maintain the same collegial determination among all of us, to face the new challenges ahead. As I have said at the last meeting, let’s first empty our cups!
For a start, I wish to have, in September, two group meetings followed by a series of one-to-one dialogues with me, as follow:
Lunch-time meeting (12noon-1pm) to be chaired by me:
2 Sep at AUH campus for AUH faculty
3 Sep at DXB campus for DXB faculty
One-to-one dialogues with me:
4 Sep at DXB for DXB faculty
9.30am:
10.30am:
1.30pm:
7 Sep at AUH for AUH faculty
9.30am:
10.30am:
11.30am:
1.30pm:
8 Sep at AUH for AUH faculty
9.30am:
10.30am:
9 Sep at DXB for DXB faculty
10.30am:
11.30am:
1.30pm:
10 Sep at DXB for DXB faculty
9.30am:
10.30am:
11.30am:
1.30pm:
11 Sep at DXB for DXB faculty
9.30am:
10.30am:
1.30pm:
14 Sep at AUH for AUH faculty
9.30am:
10.30am:
11.30am:
1.30pm:
17 Sep at DXB for DXB faculty
9.30am:
10.30am:
11.30am:
1.30pm:
Please put your name in one of the above slots and cc your response to all so that we know which slots have been taken up.
Thereafter, I plan to visit you (casually) at you classes, mainly for me to learn from you and to understand you further, and to get to know your students. We would then have monthly joint meetings (followed by faculty presentation/sharing of professional practice in some of the meetings) for all faculty as a whole (both AUH faculty and DXB faculty), starting at 9.30am, as follow:
19 Oct at AUH
17 Nov at AUH
18 Dec at DXB
18 Feb 2009 at DXB
15 Mar 2009 at AUH
22 Apr 2009 at DXB
For Term 1 (31 Aug to 30 Oct), I will divide my time equally between AUH and DXB and you could catch me as follow:
31 Aug-2 Sep AUH
3-4 Sep DXB
7-8 Sep AUH
9-11 Sep DXB
14-16 Sep AUH
17-18 Sep DXB
21-22 Sep AUH
23-25 Sep DXB
28-29 Sep AUH
5-6 Oct AUH
7-9 Oct DXB
12-14 Oct AUH
15-16 Oct DXB
19-20 Oct AUH
21-23 Oct DXB
26-28 Oct AUH
29-30 Oct DXB
Please email me if you have any immediate comment and I look forward to meeting you again as a group, and individually. Don’t forget to put your name in your preferred dialogue slot and have a wonderful start to the new academic year. Let’s move forward together as: “Two Campuses; One Team”.
Cheers
Leon
__________________
Leon Chew K. L., PhD
Chair (Art and Design), Zayed University (UAE)
Visiting Professor (Art and Design), Loughborough University and the University of Huddersfield (UK)
