East West University

East West University

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East West University

This article is about the university in Dhaka, Bangladesh. For the university in Chicago, see East-West University.

East West University () or EWU is a private university located in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. It was established in 1996 by the Private University Act, 1992^[1]. Built around a centralized campus in Mohakhali, the university features a range of academic and extracurricular facilities - from a growing library visited by 2,200 users a day to 16 students clubs. Founded by eminent academic personality Dr. Mohammed Farashuddin^[2], EWU offers a number of scholarship schemes, regular seminars that include discussions on subjects significant to national development, and a limited but diverse range of curriculum.

In 2007, Webometrics^[3] ranked this university 3rd in all universities (1st among private universities) of Bangladesh and 64th in the Indian subcontinent in their World Universities Ranking^[4]^[5] based on electronic publication, scientific results and international activities^[6].

History
Campus
Academics

Structure
Academic terms
Degrees and awards

Facilities and services

Library
Laboratories

Financial support

Merit scholarships
Financial aid

Research
Student life

Student activities

Notes and references
External links

History

Dr. Mohammed Farashuddin, Founder Vice Chancellor, East West University.

The East West University campus, located at Mohakhali, Dhaka.

Private university culture in Bangladesh started in the early 90s. During that period, the government and the intellectual and civil society in Bangladesh started to feel that the existing public universities were not sufficient to meet the high, constantly increasing demand for tertiary education in the country. Moreover, to maintain their quality of education, most of the reputed public universities in Bangladesh kept themselves extremely selective and as a result each year a large number of students failed to get admitted into higher educational institutions. These issues led the government to permit the establishment of private universities, and on 9 August, 1992, the Private University Act (Act 34) 1992 was passed. Within the next five years, a good number of private universities were established and started to perform successfully, and East West University has been one of them.

East West University was established in 1996 as a non-profit organization. This university is the first major project of the Progoti Foundation for Education and Development (PFED), a non-profit, non-political, charitable organization maintained by a group of academics, business leaders, professionals and education enthusiasts led by Dr. Mohammed Farashuddin, prominent economist and former governor of Bangladesh Bank. The university was launched in September 1996 with 6 faculty members and 20 students in three programs, BBA, BSc in Computer Science and BA in English at the present campus of 45, Mohakhali Commercial Area, Dhaka. Currently, the university maintains a good number of slightly over six thousands students with a centralized campus in Mohakhali though it has a plan to shift to its permanent campus by 2009 which is now under-construction and located in Aftab Nagar near Banosri^[7].

Campus

EWU Campus Map

East West University maintains a centralized campus consisting of six multi-storied buildings located at the heart of Mohakhali, one of the busiest commercial spot of Dhaka.

Administrative Building (ADMN): Offices of different administrative personnels including registrar are located in this building. ADMN building is mainly used for class room purpose but some of the departments are also situated here including Department of Economics and Department of Social Science. University Auditorium is also located in this building on the 10th floor.
Foundation Building (FNDN): Offices of the top level management including Board President, Vice Chancellor and Pro Vice Chancellor are located in this building. This building is used for Library and Laboratory purpose mainly. EWU library is located on 2nd, 3rd and 4th floor. Different engineering and IT laboratories including Electronics Lab, Digital Lab, Telecommunication Lab, Physics Lab and four Computer Labs are situated in this building. University's one of the oldest department, Department of Computer Science and Engineering is also located in this building on the 5th floor.
Academic Building (ACAD): Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering and Department of Applied Physics and Communication Engineering are located in this building. University cafe, MBA office, Account Section, VLSI Laboratory and MBA Computer Lab are situated on different floors of this building.
DDC Building (DDC): A new and small building mainly used for seminars. Department of Pharmacy and special conference rooms are located in this building.
Research Building (Res?rh): One of the oldest buildings of EWU mainly used for department office, Pharmacy Lab, Computer Lab and Career Counseling Centre. Department of English is located in this building.
Graduate Building (GRAD): Oldest building of EUW. University's largest department, Department of Business Administration was located in this building though it has been shifted and this building is declared abandon and waiting for reconstruction.

Academics

Structure

East West University is organized into three faculties. Each faculty is again divided into different departments. A Dean is the head of each faculty while departments are headed by the respective department Chairpersons. Department of Business Administration is the largest and one of the oldest departments of the university. Department of Computer Science and Engineering (established as Department of Computer Science) and Department of English are other two founding departments performing since 1996. Social Science department is the only department that does not offer any degree program rather it works as a supportive department for other existing degree programs.

Academic Structure

Faculty of Sciences and Engineering
- Department of Computer Science & Engineering
- Department of Electrical & Electronic Engineering
- Department of Electronic and Communications Engineering
- Department of Pharmacy

Faculty of Business and Economics
- Department of Business Administration
- Department of Economics

Faculty of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences
- Department of English
- Department of Social Sciences

Academic Bunting and Tassel Color^[8]

|- | style="color: white; background-color: #002FA7" |Deep Blue | style="color: white; background-color: #002FA7" |University |- | style="color: white; background-color: #C8A2C8" |Lilac | style="color: white; background-color: #C8A2C8" |Department of English |- | style="color: white; background-color: #008000" |Sea Green | style="color: white; background-color: #008000" |Department of Business Administration |- | style="color: white; background-color: #0000FF" |Blue | style="color: white; background-color: #0000FF" |Department of Social Science |- | style="color: white; background-color: #808000" |Olive Green | style="color: white; background-color: #808000" |Department of Economics |- | style="color: white; background-color: #FF7F00" |Orange | style="color: white; background-color: #FF7F00" |Department of Pharmacy |- | style="color: black; background-color: #FFFF00" |Golden Yellow | style="color: black; background-color: #FFFF00" |Department of Computer Science & Engineering |- | style="color: black; background-color: #FFFFD0" |Perl White | style="color: black; background-color: #FFFFD0" |Department of Electrical & Electronic Engineering |- | style="color: white; background-color: #6600FF" |Indigo | style="color: white; background-color: #6600FF" |Department of Electronic and Comm. Engineering |}

Academic terms

EWU is modeled on North American Open Credit systems. It maintains tri-semester year with an exception of Department of Pharmacy which maintains a bi-semester year. EWU semesters are as follow^[9]:

Spring: January - April (staring on the second Sunday of January)
Summer: May - August (staring on the second Sunday of May)
Fall: September - December (staring on the second Sunday of September)

Degrees and awards

Currently EWU offers Bachelor of Arts (BA) for English graduate, Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) for Business graduate and Bachelor of Social Science (BSS) for Economics graduate. There is also an opportunity to achieve degrees in both Business and Economics together in the form of double major. University is offering Bachelor of Science (B.Sc) for Engineering and Systems Science (e.g. Computer Science) graduate and Bachelor of Pharmacy (B.Phrm) for Pharmacy graduate. University's engineering or pharmacy program does not have any recognition from the respective specialist authority in Bangladesh though university demands they have started application procedures. In post-graduate level EWU is offering Master of Business Administration (MBA) for business, Master of Arts (MA) for humanities and Master of Science (MS) for Science and Engineering. EWU's most of the degrees, specially business and engineering degrees are transferable to some North American, European and Australasian universities where it maintains formal collaboration with them^[10]^[11].

EWU graduates are evaluated on Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) on a scale of 0.00 to 4.00 point. In addition, university also classifies students into three classes based on their earned CGPA^[12]. These are as follow:

First Class - CGPA 3.00 and above
Second Class - CGPA 2.50 to 2.99
Third Class - CGPA 2.00 to 2.49

East West University also provides following special awards^[13] to its outstanding students.

Gold Medal: Chancellor of the University, His Excellency Honorable President of the People's Republic of Bangladesh officially awards Gold Medal to each of the students having a CGPA of 3.97 or above at the day of convocation.
Summa Cum Laude: Each undergraduate student with a CGPA of 3.90 or above is awarded Summa Cum Laude by the university and declared by the convocation Marshall on the convocation day.
Magna Cum Laude: Each undergraduate student with a CGPA of 3.75 or above is awarded Magna Cum Laude by the university and declared by the convocation Marshall on the convocation day.

Facilities and services

EWU Library, Newspaper Section

Academic Building of the university. EEE and APCE department and also some of the important laboratories are located at this building.

Library

East West University has a library covering four floors of the Foundation Building and approximately ten thousand five hundred square feet in area^[14]. All the floors have specialty in terms of study space, special corner, maps and journal area, photocopy corner, database search corner, user friendly newspaper display section and convenient communication systems. The Library has a pigeonhole area with a capacity of supporting 450 users at a time and every day around 2,200 users visit this library. Library contains 15,704 copy books, subscription of 135 international and national journals (hardcopy), 3,293 online journals on its database, subscription of 16 national daily newspapers and around 1,300 CD-ROMs and audio cassettes.^[15]

Laboratories

EWU is providing well equipped laboratory facilities for its different engineering and science disciplines. In addition to those, university is also providing seven computer laboratories with a local network of 533 PCs and personal VSAT services^[16]. Universities laboratories are shared as follow^[17]:

Computer Laboratories, shared by all the departments of the university.
Digital Laboratory, shared by all the engineering department.
Electronics Laboratory, shared by all the engineering department.
Electrical Machine Laboratory, used by only EEE department.
Network Laboratory, shared by department of CSE and APCE.
Pharmacy Laboratory, used by only department of Pharmacy.
Physics Laboratory, shared by all the science and engineering departments.
Telecommunication Laboratory, used by only APCE department.
VLSI Laboratory, shared by CSE and EEE departments.

Financial support

Merit scholarships

East West University provides a wide range of scholarship starting from full funding to partial tuition weavers. Each semester top 10% students of each batch having a CGPA of 3.97 or above are awarded EWU Merit Scholarships which worth 90,000 BDT in undergraduate level and 75,000 BDT in postgraduate level. All other students from the Dean's List are also eligible to receive Medha Lalon Fund Scholarship ranging from 35,000 BDT to 25,000 BDT. Besides, there are 28 directorial scholarships (25,20,000 BDT) are available each year for the meritorious students with exceptional case.

Financial aid

Each semester university provides a large number of Financial Aids. Student facing financial difficulties (with a CGPA of 2.7 and above,those student whole complete at least 30 credits last three semester) can apply with proper evidence only once a year for this support. It varies from 18,000 BDT to 35,000 BDT. Apart from this support, EWU provides 50% tuition weaver for any one of a sibling pair studying simultaneously in the university which worth around 45,000 BDT per year. Besides, it maintains a low tuition fees rate (BDT 3,000 per credit) compare to other leading private universities in Bangladesh.

Research

East West University has a growing research culture at all of its departments. Faculty members and senior students of the university produce a good number of academic papers each year and publish them on different journals and conference proceedings. In 2002, EWU organized International Conference on Computer and Information Technology which is a series of Computer Science and Information Technology based conference is being hosted in Bangladesh since 1997 by a different university each year.^[18] EWU is a member of Trade Knowledge Network^[19], a collaboration of research institutions in developed and developing countries located in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas ^[20] and also active in the South Asian Network for Development and Environmental Economists (SANDEE)^[21]. Dr A.K. Enamul Haque, Professor of Economics is the currently member of the Management and Advisory Committee of SANDEE^[22]. In 2006, EWU faculty members had 39 appearances in international journals and conferences^[23]. Besides these, University regularly provide financial support through a faculty research program to promote research culture in the campus^[24].

Student life

Student activities

Concert arranged by EWU Debating Club

East West University has a growing but strong culture of student extracurricular activities. Under the supervision of sixteen wide range clubs, students of this university use to take part in different competitions and exhibitions starting from cultural and debating activities to intellectual programming and software developing task. EWU Debating Club with a very rare exception, regularly participates in World Universities Debating Championship and Asian Universities Debating Championship and currently maintains 146th world rank according to World Debate website^[25]. Last year EWU Debating Club won the championship title in 18th Prime Bank - NDDC National Debate Championship 2006 (Inter University - Bangla) and became runner's up in the same event's English debate^[26]^[27]. This year they became runner's up in 1st UU Inter University Debating Championship (Bengali IV)^[28].

EWU Programming club became 4th in ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest held at Coimbatore, India and 12th at Kanpur, India in 2006. Other clubs are also taking part in different national level events.