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April 13, 2010
As a child, Fariya Mohiuddin hated visiting relatives in Bangladesh: “It was dirty, there was no Internet and a giant slum sat at the bottom of the hill where we lived up top in a mansion. I talked to a little girl who lived there and it hit me how lucky I was to go home to the mansion.”
Today, that poverty gap – and Bangladesh — have become a focus in Fariya’s life, something she will study as part of the historic first class in a new $35 million global affairs program at the University of Toronto.
“I knew instantly this program was for me; my bias of course is towards Bangladesh and I spent last summer doing research there for an NGO in human rights services and the problems of migrant workers,” said the student of international relations at the University of Toronto.
The two-year Master of Global Affairs will be the first degree offered by the new Munk School of Global Affairs, a professional school born Tuesday out of the prestigious Munk Centre for International Studies, which for 10 years has been a think tank and research hub that could not grant its own degrees.
But a $35 million gift from philanthropist Peter Munk and his wife Melanie, announced Tuesday, plus a $25 million capital boost from Queen’s Park, has meant the centre can “transform into a school that can award degrees and hire faculty and bring in senior fellows and create a genuine multidisciplinary degree,” said Professor Janice Stein, who has been the director of the Munk Centre for International Studies.
“This is the first degree program I know of that requires students to work abroad for a summer – not study, but work — and bring that experience back with them,” said Stein.
Continue reading this article at thestar.com.
Also on the same subject at globeandmail.com: University of Toronto to reveal new school of Global Affairs.