Posted by Gilly Oppenheim
Our guest speaker on 18 July was Dr Tiffany Cone, Assistant Professor of Humanities at The Asian University for Women. Located in Chittagong, a coastal city in South East Bangladesh, the University seeks to graduate women who will be skilled and innovative professionals, service-oriented leaders in the businesses and communities in which they will work and live, and promoters of intercultural understanding and sustainable human and economic development in Asia and throughout the world.
 
Throughout much of the developing world girls and women are often subject to unequal treatment and have limited access to education compared to boys and men; the disparity increases significantly at higher levels of education (i.e. worse at secondary, but worst at tertiary). Women from rural and poor populations are particularly disadvantaged in their educational opportunities. AUW aims precisely to address these disparities: to respond to the lack of sufficient opportunities for higher education for women across the region.
The idea for the University grew out of the World Bank/UN Task Force on Higher Education and Society.  In 2000, the Task Force published its findings in a report entitled “Higher Education in Developing Countries: Peril and Promise” which concluded that developing countries must improve the quality of their institutions of higher learning, in both governance and pedagogy, in order to compete in today’s increasingly globalized, knowledge-based economy.
 
Dr Cone teaches on courses that form part of the Core curriculum. She also advises students on independent studies, teachs violin and act as an advisor to the AUW Film Club.  She was originally a volunteer with the NGO Film Makers without Borders before taking up her present position.
 
Scholarships enable the students from 15 Asian countries to study and many of them undertake internships and project work throughout their time of study. The Pathways for Promise offer many diverse voices and experiences in the upskilling of these young women where they are encouraged to “dream big and to figure out what needs to be done”. They all have to speak English and future plans include more film resources, a language laboratory and possibly some students completing their Masters’ study in New Zealand.