A new university sprouts for the region's brightest girls    In Bangladesh, Leadership Lessons Chana R. Schoenberger The Asian University for Women is just like any other college in many ways. "You go in there at 2 a.m. and the computer room is packed, the library is full, and people are rehearsing for some dance or music show," says Kamal Ahmad, chief executive of the foundation that funds the Chittagong, Bangladesh, university. But aside from the typical roster of overscheduled undergrads, the school has a different take on education for women in South Asia and, eventually, the Middle East--regions where few girls go to college. The liberal arts program is unusual in a region where rote learning is common, says Jack Meyer, chief executive at hedge fund Convexity Capital, who's donated $6 million to the school and chairs the school's board. "The focus of AUW's [curriculum] is critical reasoning, problem solving and leadership," says Meyer, who also used to manage Harvard's endowment. Founded five years ago, the school currently has 128 students from underprivileged backgrounds in six countries: Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Cambodia. They're all getting a full ride, thanks to $40 million the foundation has raised so far, including $8 million from the Gates Foundation. "We're emphasizing first-generation university students, as it increases the likelihood that they will give back," says board member Kathy Matsui, the chief Japan strategist at Goldman Sachs ( GS - news - people ) in Tokyo, who has raised $2 million from donors in Japan.
The school aims to help its students understand the world outside of their homelands, while also encouraging them to return to become leaders there. "We need to get these women at a level of education and in the decision-making bodies of their countries so they can change the situation," Matsui says. Each student must intern for a nonprofit, a start-up and a big company; HSBC ( HBC - news - people ), Unilever, Chevron ( CVX - news - people ) and Hong Kong textile manufacturer Esquel all hosted AUW interns this summer. While parents in the region understand that education is the ticket out of poverty, one challenge has been convincing parents to send unmarried daughters away to university. It helps that the school is women-only. Ahmad increases his chances through a network of country coordinators who recruit a handful of girls from each promising high school, encouraging them to go together. AUW has a yield higher than Harvard's: Out of 140 students offered places in the current freshman class, only 10 declined, Meyer says. "They're very talented, very smart, very energetic, but they had zero future," Meyer says. "They come to AUW and they're put in a dorm with seven other women from seven other countries, often of different religious backgrounds, and it's eye-opening to them." For now, the students are living in rented dorms in Chittagong, but the school is breaking ground in the fall of 2010 on a new landmark campus on land the Bangladeshi government donated. (Both Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed and her predecessor and political rival, Khaleda Zia, are supporters, Ahmad says.) Moshe Safdie, the celebrity architect who designed Montreal's famed Habitat 67 housing complex for the 1967 World Expo, designed the plans for the $6 million campus, which will one day enroll 3000 undergrad and grad students. |
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