Staff / Faculty

Professor Haroun Er Rashid

Teaching & Learning with HECUA Students

I first came to know about HECUA and its experiential learning process from Professor Van Dusenbery of Hamline University. He was visiting Bangladesh on another assignment and I invited him to see our Live-in-Field Experience (LFE) Course through which all Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB) students learn about the rural society and its economy.

When I joined IUB in 1995 I was thrilled to find out that there is a course which takes the urban based students out for several weeks to learn and experience the very different life of the villagers. Almost from the beginning I became the Principle Instructor of this course. HECUA’s J-term has many similarities with LFE and therefore it was relatively easy to graft it onto our annual program.

I did my Masters in Geography and then Development Economics, going on to becoming a teacher in Dhaka University and then a Civil Servant in the highest grade. I worked in my country for ten years and then in Washington DC and Bangkok for the World Bank, thereafter moving to Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nation in Rome for seven years and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania for two years. Looking back at that part of my career it would seem that I did not have the right background to be a social worker. However, my mother was a very well-known social worker and I had observed for several decades how she had looked after refugees, orphans and handicapped children. Her selfless work must have influenced me without my realizing it. In 1983 when I came back to Bangladesh I started an NGO and begun to actively work in the field of environmental protection. This brought me in close touch with villagers and many different parts of Bangladesh. However, I had not yet worked out a framework within which poor communities could derive benefit from economic growth. I feel that I have learned from HECUA’s methodology and am closer to an understanding of the needs of the poor people in Bangladesh.

My Research and Current Projects

My learning interests are too varied and I never seem to have enough time for any one of them. Geography draws from many disciplines and Environmental Science seems to draw on all existing disciplines ranging from anthropology to zoology. My current interest is Environmental Health since I am teaching this course at the graduate level. Some of the books that I have consulted are – Health for All in Bangladesh (Henry B. Perry, 2000), Core Concepts in Health (9th Edition) (P.M. Insel and W.T. Roth, 2002) and Environmental Toxicology (M. Satake, 2001).

I have also been writing an article for the Asiatic Society of Bangladesh on “Land and People of Bangladesh: Changing Environmental Conditions.” This has led me to read through a couple of dozen books and articles, of which I found Origins of Civilization (Raymond Allchin & Bridget, 1997), The Seven Daughters of Eve (Brian Sykes, 2001) and Earth Time (Douglas Palmer, 2005) to be the most interesting.

I have been carrying out some research on “Population, Poverty and Environmental Degradation.” The first round of surveys was carried out in 28 villages in all different eco-regions of Bangladesh and the firs part of my research has been circulated. I have still to find time to complete this work. Not to mention my long standing desire to resume bird watching and relating their diversity and numbers in different ecosystems.

I also work in three locations on education, health and very small-scale infrastructure development. My work with HECUA and IUB has convinced me that the poor communities can be empowered if they have access to basic medical and educational services. Recently some HECUA J-term students have set up a small group and try and provide these two services to Garui, a village in Bogra District.

Presentations and Publications

Just recently the revised version of my book Economic Geography of Bangladesh has been published. I have been drawn into looking at the enormous problems posed by misunderstanding between Islam and the West. I wrote “Huntington’s Prediction Refuted” in Journal of Historical Society and “The Muslims and the West: A Paradigm for Polarization” in Michael Thomson’s Islam and the West: Critical Perspectives on Modernity (2003). Since this misunderstanding seems to have completely bypassed the moderate views on both sides I will continue to discuss the possibilities of a forum of the moderates.

Resume / CV