Source: Photo: Courtesy

Dr Omar Rahman, currently the Vice Chancellor of the Independent University, Bangladesh, is a man of varied interests, and has let his instincts guide him throughout his academic career. He began his school life at Viqarunnisa, which was in his day a co-ed institute, where he studied till class three. “I then went on to St Joseph's, and graduated from there with my O'Level's degree in 1973,” he tells us. “I went to Notre Dame College for a year and half from there, but then I got a scholarship to Harvard University, and I went away to the States in August of 1975.”

Dr Rahman is a great believer in liberal arts, “Young people should not be making decisions about their lives too early on, I think a really great feature of the American education system is that you get exposure to so many things you've never even heard of—you get to know about literature, history, science and you are able to think laterally across disciplines,” he opines. “This is what we are promoting at places like IUB and ULAB.”

At Harvard, he majored in Biochemistry but at the same time became very interested in social sciences, namely Economics. He then went on to medical school at North Western University in Chicago.  After this,” I returned to the East Coast and did a residency in Newark City Hospital, which is a fascinating slice of the third world in the US," he says. "Initially I did three years of internal medicine but I spent a lot of that time focusing on HIV, because that was the height of the HIV epidemic. I also spent six months of my third year working at ICDDRB and I realised I wanted to do research along with my practice.”

When he returned and finished his residency, he decided to take a break. Still interested in social sciences, he got fellowship at Harvard for a Master's degree in Health Policy and Management. “I then ended up doing a PhD in Epidemiology. I got a fellowship from the National Institute of Environment and Health, and I was interested in the intersection between social issues and health,”

he says.

After graduate school, he worked at the RAND Corporation in California, which is the largest think tank in the US. After four years there, he got a teaching position at Harvard School of Public Health, a graduate programme at Harvard. In the seven years he spent there, he was promoted to Associate Professor. Soon after, Dr Rahman turned his attention from research to clinical work and trained in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He was 42 at that time.

 In 2002, he came to Bangladesh on vacation and met with Professor Badrul Mubin Chowdhury, his predecessor at IUB, and had a conversation about returning here and giving back to his country, which changed his life.  Soon after, this conversation, he returned to Bangladesh. “For 3-4 years I taught and did research, and then the Pro- VC position opened up, and I applied for it.” He was Pro-VC for 5 years, after which in 2012, he became VC. As VC, he is trying his best to promote the true meaning of liberal arts among his students and continues his efforts to graduate well rounded, professional individuals who have interest in a variety of areas outside their field of expertise. 

Although a VC by day, during his evenings and weekends, he devotes himself to counselling patients.  He also remains an adjunct faculty member in Demography at the Department of Global Health and Population at the Harvard School of Public Health.